Joe Courtney
The Department of Defense should continue to embrace AUKUS as a bulwark of Indo-Pacific security.
On June 11, 2025, the news broke that US Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby would lead a Pentagon review of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security agreement (AUKUS). The Department of Defense has since articulated that this effort will be “an empirical and clear-eyed assessment of the initiative.” If that standard is applied, the assessment must conclude, as a similar 2025 review in London did, that AUKUS is the strongest, most effective plan for the United States to deter China’s malign behavior in the Indo-Pacific.
China certainly knows that AUKUS’ promise to accelerate the deployment of advanced defense technology by the three participating nations, including the sale of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, will counter the growing strength of its PLA Navy and missile forces in the Indo-Pacific.
China has repeatedly complained about AUKUS in public and in private diplomatic channels, which should speak volumes about its value to Under Secretary Colby as he conducts his investigation. AUKUS, in a nutshell, will blunt China’s regional advantage that threatens the 80-year success of the free and open Pacific.
Much of the AUKUS skepticism in the United States is premised on the misguided notion that the technology being shared and sold among the three allies will create an unacceptable drain on the US military. Since AUKUS is not a binding treaty that commits Australia and the UK to every imaginable conflict in which the United States could be engaged, skeptics argue that the cost and risks of sharing too much are unacceptable.
Under Secretary Colby himself publicly questioned the planned sale of three Virginia-class submarines to Australia last year, before re-entering the Pentagon in 2024, citing concerns that the US Navy cannot afford it. This part of the plan, developed in 2022–23 by the leadership of all three countries as part of the AUKUS “Optimal Pathway,” is essential.
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