UK Secretary of State for Defence, Grant Shapps MP, has outlined the future directions and expansions of the AUKUS partnership, a strategic alliance between the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia.
This partnership, initiated two and a half years ago, is set to enter a new phase.
Shapps highlighted the evolving security environment which prompts such expansions: “As we have seen through recent events, the world has become more dangerous. Against an increasingly contested and volatile landscape, defence partnerships like AUKUS have become critically important in ensuring the UK and our allies maintain a strategic advantage.”
He continued, elaborating on the historical solidarity of the AUKUS nations and their long-standing commitment to global stability: “For over a century, AUKUS nations have stood shoulder to shoulder, along with other allies and partners, to help sustain peace, stability, and prosperity around the world.”
On the specific advancements and next steps for the alliance, Shapps provided details:
“On 8 April, along with my Australian and United States counterparts, I announced that AUKUS nations, having made sufficient progress trilaterally, are now ready to begin consultations with additional countries regarding areas where they can contribute to, and benefit from, this historic work under Pillar 2 (Advanced Capabilities).”
The Defence Secretary clarified the scope of the new engagements under Pillar 2, which includes a range of cutting-edge technological areas:
“Pillar Two includes quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomy, cyber, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic capabilities, and electronic warfare capabilities, supported by innovation and information sharing.”
He also noted the countries under consideration for inclusion in these expanded efforts: “Therefore, Australia, the UK and US are considering the potential for involving Japan in some elements of the Pillar Two programme.”
Shapps reassured that the foundational aspects of AUKUS will remain intact: “While our work on conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines under Pillar 1 will remain trilateral.”
He concluded by emphasising the commitment to openness as the partnership evolves: “The UK, Australia, and the United States are committed to continued openness and transparency on AUKUS. This is another significant leap for the partnership, and I look forward to keeping the House updated on progress.”
Makes perfect sense to me. Japan is rapidly coming out from the shadows and has so much to offer as a partner.
Seems no different to the UKUSA agreement which expanded to include US,UK,AUS,CAN,NZ. There are also “level2” partners in this, including several European NATO countries who are included in the club at a lower level of tech and intell sharing than the main Anglo nations.
So with regards to AUKUS, Japan most certainly, Canada, and ?
Have you seen the comments on defence news today from Dan Packer, the AUKUS director for the Commander of Naval Submarine Forces, Either Dan is a ****ing *****le shooting his mount of or SSN AUKUS is the end of the British submarine industry. Either way I think it’s time for us to pull out of AUKUS. Australia thinks it’s a job creation program while the US has us lined up to sell off what’s left of our defence industry while being treaty committed to World War III over Taiwan at the same time uncle Sam says it can’t be bothered… Read more »
No mate.
Somebody better tell Rolls Royce to stop their massive expansion in Derby, funded by not only HMG but also the Australians. It will be a British reactor.
That’s not what the US navy are saying in the press atleast. It will certainly be RR built but if it’s US designed that means we give up our ability to design reactors and along with torpedos and CMS the all we basically doing is building US boats, in return Australia throws a few quid in to construction facilities?
Not seeing any real benefit for the UK here.
PWR is already of American design, I don’t get what is new here. The submarines will be as British designed as the Astutes are, which is to say mostly
It’s not an American design, it’s an RR design RR look at US plans and share info, now we talking about a US reactor built in Britain
Jim, there has always been an element of US input into our reactor designs, since Dreadnought back in the 60’s (which was a wholly US designed reactor). The article is a little misleading imo, we will build the RC and the whole boat design will be ours, and yes there will also be elements of US input here too – VLS tubes. What machinery/equipment/CMS/weapons that go into the AUS version is entirely down to them, as is whats down to us for our variant. We will I’m sure be using ‘son of Spearfish’ as our main torpedo instead of the… Read more »
Ah, just the man. I couldn’t really reply to Jim with any authority on this so hoped you or ABC would comment.
Instead of telling me I’m wrong it would be better to go a read the article with all the comments from the US navy, I’m not the one saying any of this they are.
I seriously doubt ABC or anyone else knows more about the AUKUS Submarine than a Director of the AUKUS submarine program.
Didn’t tell you anything mate.
Sorry I didn’t mean for comment to sound that way. Typing to fast and did not read.
No worries mate.
Hi Deep32 do you have a source for anything your saying or is it just hope.
The US navy are very clearly contradicting everything you’re saying here, that’s direct comments from the AUKUS submarine program director that there is no UK version and it has a US reactor on it and its open to debate that it 2ill even be able to fire British torpedoes.
I would live all that to be wrong but I seen nothing countering it.
Evening Jim, I know more have any info that isn’t already out there for all to see. PWR 3 is based on the US S9G (Virgina class) reactor, modified to suit our requirements using RR reactor technology. To me that means it’s our design with US input. Yes you can see the US bigging it up as a US reactor, but it’s not. They are not using this design in their SMs, they are using their S9G reactor. Totally different kettle of fish fella. I have no idea what the differences are, nor would I expect to, but one of… Read more »
Deep, Jim has been quoting directly from a quite interesting 15 Apr 24 article in Defense News. Recommend this article to everyone. Would discount the content presented in the article, except for the direct quotations of the RN Second Sea Lord. Evidently, there has been a significant (sea 😁) change in design philosophy, post AUKUS, from original SSN(R) concept design exercise. Originally assumed that there would be separate RN and RAN versions of SSN(A), but evidently there will be a single design. In terms of the economic cost efficiency of production, it is actually reasonably sensible. Curious re the design… Read more »
Evening mate, good to hear from you again. Yes am aware he is quoting from said article. Was a interesting read in itself. Despite everything, have always thought that SSN(R)/(A) as it’s now called was always going to be a single version with slight differences in internal equipment fit. We are clearly going more down the ‘Virgina ‘ type design as opposed to the Astute variant. Still unclear whether we are going for VPM or VLS tubes or indeed both as per Virgina BLK 3 onwards. There are pros and cons for both philosophies design wise, but having say VPM… Read more »
Can’t recall the article(s) specifically, but believe some version of VPM will indeed the baseline for SSN(A). Indeed, w/ the projected development of UUVs w/in AUKUS Pillar 2 initiative, we may have to coin a new term: “Loyal (fill in the blank).”
🤔😁
Jim’s just worried Labour will vote on it at their next conference, we know how that’ll turn out. 😀.
Trouble is Labour would prefer to partner with the EU on some defence projects but the more AUKUS expands the less room there is for that. Tbh we should partner with the best, instead of partnering base on the party that’s power’s ideological alignment. Its very difficult to argue EU is ahead defence, its underspent for decades.
US helped us on the Astutes, that conviniently forgotten, nothing wrong with inward tech transfer for a change.
Don’t think we can afford to choose one or the other, it needs to be on a project by project basis only a united front will keep the greater West fully relevant in decades to come and it deeply concerns me that the US (encouraged by Russian and Chinese influence) sees Europe as a sideshow. Will keep saying it if Europe falls under Russian/Chinese hegemony whatever form that takes (the Ottomans controlled much of Eastern Europe and indeed North Africa it didn’t actually physically occupy) the US will be on a fateful road to eventual irrelevance sadly and putting the… Read more »
That was pretty much what I was saying, we need to select the best partner for each case and not blindly due to some outdated political ideology, and that’s aimed at both parties.
Tbh I wrote of the US in 2008 but they bounced back. Personally Trumps a bit of a **** but in the end he’ll be lobbied by defence companies who want to sell to Europe so he’ll bang on about NATO but he’ll stay in it, the American defence companies want access to Europe and that’ll trump MAGA
Agree, it would be daft to put all of our eggs in one ‘basket’ when neither has our everything we would want. Every nation works in their own best interest, yet somehow we sometimes seem to expect everyone else to act in the UK’s best interest due to some ‘fair play’ rule. There isn’t one, and we need to get used to that and act accordingly. The US has some of the most protectionist industrial policies going, but they make good stuff that’s worth getting- but we need to be careful not to give too much of our own away.… Read more »
The problem is that countries like France have become very dependent on China their Fashion and Luxury businesses will collapse if they’re cut off from China. US has been gradually moving its dependence away from China, we would do well to do the same. Trump will play his usual games load of bluster and BS, then say how he got a cracking deal because of it.
Indeed and china has been purposefully manipulating and creating dependency and attacking other nations via market and industrial manipulation ( the latest most obvious one being electric cars and the massive dumping going on by the MG brand..which are essentially selling at a loss making price, enabled by the CCP underwriting it).
The one bit of sense Trump actually made was around challenging the CCPs Neo mercantile strategy.
Have you watched how China got rich- ENDEVR? Its 1 hr documentary on YouTube.
Its clear we need to be properly libertarian in our approach to markets only companies that respect completely free market principles should be allowed to trade. That would disqualify every Chinese company. Problem is there’s a fair few western companies that enjoy state leg ups also. The whole market needs a reset.
Indeed, free markets only work on a level playing field as soon as one nation starts playing for advantage the free market principles tend to unravel to neo mercantilism….
Its very interesting…free market economics out performed mercantilism, became dominant then saw of communism…but the subtle blend of mercantilists strategies and communism that the Chinese have developed seems to be effective against free market economics.
Their strategy is only effective because we’ve let. The idea was that a more affluent Chinese population would demand political change. So we were willing entertain Chinese demands to access their markets whilst turning a blind eye to their mercantilist strategy. As soon as we realised we should have shut China out but its rapidly becoming very difficult to do that. Even if we did China has the developing world at its mercy. China is a massive Polical, Social and Economic experiment gone wrong for everyone but the Chinese and in particular the Communist party.
To be fair, I’d probably put us in that bracket too- I’d be surprised if China wasn’t a major destination for Rolls Royce, Bentley, etc. That said, I’ve no problem with some trade with China. But when we’re relying on them for all of our electronics subcomponents, telecomms equipment, etc. then I feel we’re making a strategic security blunder. Especially given how the CCP behaves. If they can do what they do to their own people to maintain control, then we need to bear in mind that they will be willing to hold us over the fire if they so… Read more »
The reason why our companies are so attractive is because we undervalue them so they’re easy targets. We’ve become very anticapitalist over the last 25 years. There’s far less trust in government and that future governments won’t undermine laws and rights that give businesses and investors confidence. Most UK investors no longer take stakes in UK companies. Our big pension funds for instance now look elsewhere. But instead of fixing the problem we going the other way, so instead of invigorating UK investors and giving them confidence, the proposal is to block foreign investors which will intern block Britsh companies… Read more »
BP is a classic example…very undervalued at present and potentially at risk of hostile takeover…infact its the only large oil company at risk of that due to low valuation.
Spot on. Just been informed my investment ISA will reduce its proportion held in UK equities from 30% to 2.6%. No wonder UK companies are undervalued and easy targets for foreign takeover. Any funds benefitting directly or indirectly from tax breaks should be required to hold a certain percentage in UK stocks.
You can hold individual stocks in your ISA so that decision can be something you make. I’m pro choice and if the government in this country doesn’t value business then an individual can choose to invest somewhere else. I certainly don’t want the government telling me what I xan and can’t do.
The point of ISAs is to encourage saving not prop up UK business or prop up governments over taxation and regulation of businesses that make then bad investments.
The US did not help us on Astute, electric boat a private company allowed us to use their computers and provide some design consultancy.
That’s like saying the UK helped the US build the Zumwalt, no we didn’t, BAE and RR just provide some consultation on direct electrical propulsion from the T45.
Jim GEEB contract was facilitated by the US Navy through the MoD covering more than design software. They were responsible for vertical outfitting and construction techniques also. Our build process was a mess and the US helped us sort it. That’s why there was rework on the first modules and delays.
Check.it out for yourself plenty of info online.
The US navy facilitated the contract? Do you have anything stating that?
I’m pretty sure the US Navy does not facilitate contracts with foreign governments.
The DOD might or the DOC.
You can start with Wikipedia which sites US DoD as its source. Then there’s a lessons learned report on Astute by RAND. Another site jstor has a similar lesson learnt report. And if your really board, there’s some parliamentary records to trawl through. Yes facilitate is probably the wrong expression ultimately it was a government to government facilitated deal with the UK needing to formally request US clear a foreign military sale. Ultimately that’s not the point. We needed technical assist beyond fixing a cad system. With short comings in areas like boat production techniques and assembly. We essentially had… Read more »
The USN owns the rights to the tech at electric boat. The private company can’t lend help with classified/secret tech that they don’t even own. The USN helped the UK fix the astute program, full stop.
Essentially companies like BAE and RR have complete separation in regards to nationally preparatory tec…so many of the Technologies that BAE systems inc hold and BAE systems PLC hold are not shared as they act as fire walls between the nations..so for BAE plc to share UK tec with BAE systems.inc and the other way around requires the express permission of the appropriate government.
the EU isn’t ahead of the US in terms of defence, but it is ahead of the UK who basically has a non existent defence industry and has to source everything from the US
The EU is a trade block not a country and it’s has zero military capability so how’s it ahead of the UK?
Everyone outside the USA has the same problem, the UK much much less than others.
So… JAUKUS?
Not by name it seems certainly heard it expressed as not formally being JAUKUS, probably for fear of Chinas wrath which is historically self absorbed by the headline insult. Anyway how far do you take it if other Countries will be invited too. Far better to build incrementally and progressively and work together lower key but just as effectively without making a big deal of it as some form of official military alliance. In the end it’s the progress of projects and cooperation that count over fancy names.
CANJAUKUS 🙂
Canadians wouldn’t spend a dollar on defense if it wasn’t required by treaty, wouldn’t hold my breath.
I’d place NZ in the same category as Canada with both spending around 1.2 per cent of GDP on defence Although New Zealand is even less relevant strategically than Canada because of the problem of scale. With a population of just over 5 million (less than Queensland, Australia’s third most populous state of 5.5 million) in combination with the low percentage defence spend means their forces are both tiny (a two frigate navy, no fighter jets) and lightly equipped (e.g. frigates lack anti-ship missiles). At least Canada with a population of 39 million, a third larger than Australia, means its… Read more »
In the last month Canada has committed to getting to %1.76 by 2029-2030.If Canada joins AUKUS that funding would go up to 2% because of some projects that Canada would be interested in.
The government budget released yesterday, committed an additional $8.1 billion to the defence budget for this coming year. The gov has locked in funding to a lot of new defence forces equipment for the CF. Have a look around and see the new F35, frigates etc ,etc that are on the horizon. UKDJ has this info as well.
Agree that Canada is stepping up now and aware of their finally opting (sensibly) for the F35 and the new frigates.
My point was primarily about NZ and their approach to defence spending.
Oh there is money being spent. Have a look on this site alone if curious to see what Canada is buying and projects that are active.
The Canadians spend money at a glacial pace – and again, only because it’s required by treaty. The T26 program will probably take 25 years and end up with 6 boats.
They are currently struggling with a mediocre icebreaker program that has somehow become controversial. I doubt their F-35 buy will exceed 24-30 airplanes when it’s done. During the Chinese balloon fiasco they couldn’t even intercept it over their own territory, F-22’s from Alaska had to do it.
Much as described above, huge free rider program currently at play in the anglosphere: AUS/NZ, US/CAN, UK/Ireland.
The Frigate program should have started 5 years ago. Irving shipbuilding ( is ,was) playing politics with the government over jobs in the Halifax area ,during an election time, pushed the schedule back. The F35s need to be 88 to cover the country and NATO adequately. this is down form the 140 CF-18s that were originally ordered almost 40 years ago. The Americans shot down the second balloon over the Yukon from a joint agreement between the PM /President and NORAD coordination. NORAD worked as it should in this case. CF-18s are regularly stationed in Alaska on rotation to allow… Read more »
Many of the new kit programs are far off, like at least two follow-on governments. Questionable outcomes!
OT, but have noted that recently a significant number of posts have disappeared, presumably for editorial review. New UKDJ editorial policy to discourage OT commentary, or discourage posting by non-citizens? A simple statement by editorial staff would be sufficient to provide guidance re decision whether to bother continuing to post. 🤔
o staff
Yes they delete a lot of posts these days. They will never tell anyone why. It’s certainly nothing to do with postings by non citizens.
They have recently carried an article about a man being jailed for running a website that carried extremist posts. Then switched to a more robust monitoring policy. Is there a link to the fact that the last seven months have seen seven calls for a military coup if Labour win the next election? Or the fact that the Hamas attacks saw a right wing poster here invent a link between LGBT groups and Hamas? Over Xmas I read a thread on Navy Lookout that carried a discussion about this site from 12 to 9 months ago. It had lots of… Read more »
Could be, there is a definite increase in nonsense posters here who know SFA about defence but always have some racist or xenophobic opinion on this or that, want to burn all socialists at the stake or think people in Scotland should not be allowed to build ships and anyone north of Waterford should be subject to prima nocta.
I increasingly can’t be bothered posting anything on here as the standard of debate has dropped so much in the last 6 months.
Feels like debating Margery Taylor Green some times 😀
How predictable, the left is always afflicted with victimhood. Those big bad righties are always out in force. How unfortunate!
Keep Canada out – leaky as a sieve.
This is just snake oil salesman “Schapps” spouting more waffle and vapourware.