FA symbolic location was chosen for the three summits. At the San Diego naval base overlooking the Pacific, US President Joe Biden announced the first project for the new security partnership with Australia and Great Britain in the Indo-Pacific. Biden had previously agreed a concrete timetable with Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak, the Australian and British prime ministers, to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
Biden emphasized that 18 months ago, when the new security alliance AUKUS was launched, few would have expected rapid progress. Biden said the first step would be a kind of jump-start for Australia’s naval capabilities. He emphasized that these are nuclear-powered, but not nuclear-armed, submarines. Australia remains a non-nuclear power.
Training Australian seafarers in the United States
Albanese spoke of a new chapter in the relationship between the three countries. The AUKUS alliance is the largest investment in Australia’s defense in the country’s history. He thanked Biden for letting the United States share their technology. Sunak took the opportunity to indicate that Britain is entering a new phase in its defense spending, increasing investment from 2% to 2.5% of economic output.
Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, had previously said with regard to the submarines that concrete preparations are already beginning with the training of Australian seamen, engineers, technicians and other personnel. In a few years, the plan is to regularly station U.S. and U.K. submarines in Australia on a rotating basis.
After the training phase, Australia will initially receive three nuclear-powered submarines from the United States in the 1930s, Sullivan said – “with the possibility of increasing to five submarines if necessary”. In the long term, all three states finally wanted to jointly develop and manufacture a submarine model.
The trilateral military alliance AUKUS was announced in September 2021. The name is made up of the abbreviations of the three countries. According to senior US government officials, the alliance should help maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region and deter threats. It’s part of America’s new China strategy; Biden has repeatedly emphasized that he sees Beijing as the greatest geostrategic challenge of the 21st century.
In Washington, however, it is constantly affirmed that Biden is not aiming for a conflict but rather for competition with Beijing. High-ranking government officials also pointed out that the alliance is also directed against the aggressive behavior of North Korea and Russia.