So, is what we’ve just heard about the strength of Australian-UK relations and commitment to AUKUS fabulous news that reduces the risks and problems built into the nuclear sub pact?  No.  

Does the new 50-year treaty, named after Geelong, a town in Richard Marles’ electorate, “cement the AUKUS submarine pact and bolster shipbuilding in both countries”? No.

The new treaty signed by Australian and UK ministers is a necessary piece of paperwork to facilitate the AUKUS journey. But it’s timing and the optimism ministers have projected could be seen as all about papering over the challenges and contradictions in the AUKUS plan rather than facing them.

Talking up joint Australian-UK commitment to AUKUS is no doubt also a useful signal to Washington right now, even if the main progress is production of new paperwork.

Richard Marles and Penny Wong met their UK counterparts – John Healey and David Lammy – for the now-annual “AUKMIN” talks where the new document was Exhibit A to show everything going very well.

Is the treaty a cunning “Plan B” for AUKUS in the event that the Trump Administration pulls the plug on the deal?

It’s not. It’s an integral part of Plan A.  Australia and the UK need to formalise some undertakings in a treaty-level document to make the “Optimal Pathway” happen. But the fact the question is being asked shows the uncertainties around the deal and America.

But let’s get into some of the context that makes the celebration around this latest statement of of Aussie-UK unity and progress somewhat misplaced.

First, this new treaty relies on the US doing the heavy lifting to make AUKUS happen for the next 20 years.  It’s no Plan B. The treaty is to enable the UK to proceed with designing SSN-AUKUS and start work building the first of these new subs for delivery to its own Navy by sometime in the late 2030s, before the first Australian-built SSN is delivered to the RAN in the early 2040s.  But between now and then, the US is  on the hook to put hundreds of Australians into the crews of its own submarines and sell Australia between three and five Virginia class subs out of its own Navy’s fleet (five would be because SSN-AUKUS experiences delays that increasingly look very credible).

Beyond the hype, there’s the reality of a weakened UK military struggling to meet the demands it faces now while looking at the hill it needs to climb to meet Britain’s increased commitment to European security. The weakness is revealed in the UK Government’s admission that the last couple of decades have seen a hollowing out of the UK’s armed forces and this has reached an alarming level that has to be addressed.  This was one of the key outcomes of the Starmer government’s Strategic Defence Review released in June this year.

Then there’s the fact that, while under AUKUS UK nuclear-powered attack submarines are meant to be frequent visitors to Australia through the rotational force based out of WA’s HMAS Stirling starting just 18 months from now, the Royal Navy is struggling to deploy any of its current fleet of five attack subs (after retiring its last Trafalgar class sub in December 2024 and with two of an eventual 7 Astutes still in construction).  As of now, none are at sea. Maintenance and delivery troubles continue to limit UK capability.  And that means, of course, that no UK attack sub is escorting the UK aircraft carrier that’s taking part in the big Talisman Sabre exercise. Things won’t magically turn around when all seven Astute-class SSNs are finally in service sometime towards the end of the decade.

This ugly reality about UK submarine production and maintenance makes the Starmer government’s assertion that it will increase the UK attack sub fleet to 12 boats and deliver new boats at the rate of one every 18 months look like vapourware.  But that didn’t stop the announcement being taken to the bank in the AUKMIN communique.

The UK takes 10-11 years to build each Astute sub now on a three-year delivery drumbeat, and the considerably bigger, more complex SSN-AUKUS design will probably take longer.  Plus the UK’s submarine industrial base has to simultaneously produce a new class of even bigger ballistic missile submarines to maintain the UK’s nuclear deterrent. The UK’s reactor program for its current subs has been rated as unachievable for the last three years by the UK government’s project watchdog, and UK submarine maintenance facilities are backlogged with work meaning even the subs it has can’t get back to sea in any timeframe they might have hoped for.

None of these problems look like being solved, so commitments to make even more – and bigger – subs much more quickly than UK is managing to do now have to be viewed with high levels of scepticism.  The US experience shows how hard it is to even move the production dial up at all despite pouring additional billions into its submarine industrial base for years now. The UK is well behind the US in starting this effort and coming from a lower base.

And it’s beyond awkward that in its new strategic policy, the UK government has ditched its ambitious ‘Indo Pacific shift’ so that its military can  bolster European security in response to two big drivers: the threat that Vladmir Putin’s Russia poses to Europe, and the increasing unreliability of NATO’s American partner when it comes to European security.

That UK aircraft carrier we’re seeing in Darwin now may be the last one we see for some time in the Indo Pacific (it’s been 28 years between UK carrier visits with this one).  And even if it does come back, it’s likely to struggle to have a full complement of F-35 fighters – because the UK has shifted its F-35 acquisition plans from more F-35Bs suitable for its carrier to 12 F-35As, because they are nuclear capable and so help the UK beef up NATO’s nuclear deterrence in Europe.  

The Indo Pacific now joins the Middle East as ‘the next priority regions after the Euro-Atlantic for defence engagement’.  The thinly stretched UK military is unlikely to have much left for either of these regions after meeting its eminently understandable NATO-first Euro-Atlantic priority. When the carrier goes home, all the Royal Navy will have in the Indo-Pacific are a couple of lightly armed patrol vessels.

But beyond rhetorical flourishes and airy commitments not anchored in industrial or military capacity, a note of pragmatism and realism shone through statements from our UK visitors.  This new treaty on the road to AUKUS was good for Britain because it was good for jobs, estimated to bring $40 billion worth of export earnings into the UK (paid for by the Australian leg of the AUKUS deal, but best to keep that quiet while accepting the hospitality Downunder).  Jobs featured ahead of security when UK ministers discussed the treaty they were about to sign.  And back home, UK defence minister Healey was reported as enthusing that even people “not yet born” would benefit from jobs secured through the deal. 

There are obvious  parallels with the French celebration of the now cancelled sub deal with us as the ‘contract of the century’ because of the cash and activity it would push into the French economy.

I don’t know if public confidence in AUKUS is advanced by the performances and announcements we’ve just seen, because it doesn’t take much to look behind the curtain and see the scale of the challenges our UK partner faces. Instead of clear eyed acknowledgement of the challenges and pressures and credible plans to address them, London and Canberra’s PR machines have put the spin cycle on High.  If only hoopla and rhetoric were the main ingredients for nuclear submarines.

A version of this article was first published by the Lowy Interpreter.