U.S., Australian and British defense chiefs meet as AUKUS alliance sharpens focus on China deterrence

London — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is in London this week to discuss progress made by the U.S., Britain and Australia toward their shared goal of deterring China’s increasingly assertive actions in the Indo-Pacific. The London summit is the third Defense Ministerial for the allies’ trilateral AUKUS partnership, and according to defense officials, it will see them look at the two key elements or pillars of their work together to increase security in the Indo-Pacific. 

The first of those pillars is helping Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines, and the second is collaborating on emerging military capabilities.

“Through AUKUS we are working across the full spectrum of capability development — generating requirements, co-developing new systems, deepening industrial base collaboration, and, ultimately, delivering advanced capabilities to the joint force with focus on our most critical capability,” Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Pete Nguyen told reporters ahead of the trip.

Only the three countries in the AUKUS partnership will coordinate on nuclear-powered submarines, but the allies are open to working with other countries on electronic warfare and cyber and artificial intelligence capabilities, a senior defense official said.

Earlier this year, the partnership announced that Japan would work with AUKUS on maritime autonomy and, according to the official, there are also conversations with Canada, South Korea, and New Zealand about potential projects on emerging capabilities. 

China has accused AUKUS of provoking a nuclear arms race and disrupting peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region. 

“We certainly have seen China show interest in the AUKUS partnership, and we’ve certainly seen them in international fora seek to mischaracterize, and to describe what we’re seeking to do in ways that are inconsistent with what we’re actually trying to do,” the official said.

The suggestion of new working partners for AUKUS comes as China and Russia have demonstrated an increasingly close relationship.

For the first time, Russian and Chinese aircraft were detected flying together in international airspace off the coast of Alaska in July. They did not pose a threat, according to NORAD, but the detection did highlight the joint exercises. That comes on top of the support China has given Russia‘s defense industrial base for its war in Ukraine.

AUKUS was created before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and before the Israel-Hamas war about a year ago, but defense officials said lessons from those two conflicts were being incorporated into long-term plans for AUKUS. 

The conflict in Ukraine, in particular, has been instructive in the partnership’s thinking about the use of drones, the need for munitions and for munitions stockpiles, and it is informing “how we think about AUKUS and what types of priorities we need to accomplish in order to ensure that we can promote stability and security and strength and deterrence in the Indo-Pacific,” the senior defense official said.