In an era defined by accelerating great power competition, AUKUS—the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—stands as perhaps the boldest strategic declaration of the twenty-first century by the United States and its allies. As originally conceived, and as affirmed by multiple administrations and supported by the major parties in all three capitals, AUKUS was intended to strengthen deterrence, inject stability into the Indo-Pacific region, and bolster allied integration. Now, nearly four years after it was first announced, AUKUS has reached a critical juncture. Some concerns have surfaced around the initiative’s viability in the wake of reports that the Pentagon plans to review the program. But questions about the future of AUKUS go beyond a single department’s report: The scale of the project’s ambition, coupled with the stakes at play for Washington, London, and Canberra, demand a sober assessment both of the agreement’s potential and the very real challenges it has faced in implementation.
The AUKUS Inflection: Seizing the Opportunity to Deliver Deterrence
