AUKUS is about Australia's Vital Interests

16 January 2026 | Jennifer Parker

*Originally published in the Australian Financial Review on 16 June 2026

Image: HMA Ships Arunta and Warramunga sail towards a merchant ship in the East Australian Exercise Area during the Fleet Concentration Period. Defence images.

Nuclear-powered submarines are not being acquired because Australia is seeking conflict but because it is a maritime trading country.

The AUKUS “independent” inquiry opened last week with a familiar list of concerns from long-time critics of the program. Witnesses pointed to risks ranging from the industrial base to the prospect that reactor fuel disposed of in 2060 could be recovered for use in nuclear weapons 10,000 years in the future.

While every major defence acquisition carries risk, and AUKUS is more complicated than most, one issue raised during the hearings warrants far more attention than the rest: the role of Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines and what their acquisition means for the nation’s strategy towards China.

While an inquiry led by commissioners who have long opposed Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines can hardly be described as independent, it nevertheless highlights an important lesson for government. Despite substantial progress under AUKUS, the government has sometimes struggled to communicate its benefits effectively.

Former foreign minister Gareth Evans told the inquiry that it was an “inescapable conclusion” that Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines would have only one role: “finding, tracking, attacking and destroying [nuclear-armed] Chinese submarines” as they operate in the western Pacific.

As a maritime strategist who spent two decades specialising in anti-submarine warfare, I found that a remarkable claim.

Is it possible? Certainly. Is it the most likely employment of Australia’s future submarines? Almost certainly not.

China’s nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, a key component of its second-strike nuclear capability, operate from Hainan Island and are widely assessed to patrol primarily within the South China Sea. They do not generally leave that area because it increases their risk of detection. Locating and tracking them is, of course, a key task for the United States, but it is unlikely to be the primary mission of Australia’s future submarines.

Australia is a maritime trading nation whose prosperity and security depend on access to the sea, lengthy maritime trade routes and a vast maritime domain.

Their ability to operate undetected is what makes submarines so versatile. For Australia, that versatility is most valuable in protecting national interests across vast maritime distances. This is no small task. Australia possesses the world’s third-largest maritime domain, and operating across it is challenging. The speed and endurance provided by nuclear-powered submarines are therefore critical. A conventional submarine takes about nine days to travel from Sydney to Perth – a nuclear-powered submarine can do so in roughly half that time and is much less likely to be detected.

The Chinese naval task group’s circumnavigation of Australia last year illustrated the challenge. A conventional submarine lacks the speed to intercept such a deployment unless it is positioned well in advance. When operating across the world’s third-largest maritime domain with only a small number of submarines, transit speed matters.

Australia’s limited submarine force is more likely to be employed locating, tracking and, in conflict, destroying adversary naval task groups and submarines that threaten the nation’s maritime trade, while conducting intelligence collection and supporting special forces operations across the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Discussion of the role of Australia’s future nuclear-powered submarines inevitably leads to a broader question: is AUKUS really all about China?

Former deputy ambassador to China in the 1970s, John Leslie Lander, argued that AUKUS was “clearly aimed at China” and based on a “fictional threat from China”. But is that really true? This goes to the heart of much of the emotion surrounding Australia’s defence debate and is therefore worth addressing.

Good strategy starts with a plan to defend a nation’s vital interests. Australia’s pivot towards maritime capability, from an expanded surface fleet in the 2030s to the acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines and the development of amphibious capability, reflects a simple reality: one of Australia’s most important national interests is the protection of its maritime trade.

Ninety-nine per cent of Australia’s imports and exports move by sea, including essentials that underpin both prosperity and national security. Protecting these interests requires the ability to project power through the maritime domain, not merely defend the country’s northern approaches. While missile and drone attacks are plausible, the greater risk is maritime coercion: interference with the sea lines of communication on which our economy and security depend.

Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines is first and foremost about protecting a vital national interest: maritime trade. While China’s military build-up is a major factor shaping Australia’s strategic environment, the capability is ultimately about protecting Australian interests rather than targeting any one country. Few events illustrated this more clearly than the Chinese naval task group’s circumnavigation of Australia in February and March 2025, and the return of a second task group in November 2025.

But that is precisely why the debate must be anchored in Australia’s interests, not caricatures of them. Nuclear-powered submarines are not being acquired because Australia seeks conflict with China, nor because Canberra has surrendered its strategic agency to Washington. They are being acquired because this country is a maritime trading nation whose prosperity and security depend on access to the sea, lengthy oceanic trade routes and a vast maritime domain.

In an increasingly contested Indo-Pacific, where for the first time since 1942 a regional military power possesses the ability to threaten Australia’s maritime supply lines and trade at scale, the ability to protect those interests is not optional. It is the foundation of a credible defence and an insurance policy that underpins Australia’s security.