The recent events surrounding the resignation of UK defense minister John Healey and his colleague Al Carns have dealt a significant blow to the already fragile leadership of Keir Starmer. This move was not accidental; it was a calculated signal from Healey, indicating his ambition and potential cabinet role in any future prime ministerial administration. His actions have also inadvertently highlighted the precarious nature of the Aukus nuclear submarine proposal.
Aukus, born out of a secretive conception and launched with great political fanfare by former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, was a hurried attempt to align the diverse political objectives of three distant nations. For Australia, it represented a desperate attempt to seek security through the embrace of powerful allies, a pathological insecurity borne out of occupying a vast and distant continent. For Britain, it was an opportunity to regain some strategic credibility post-Brexit and to assert its imagined role as a global player with European influence. For the US, under Joe Biden, it was a cynical move to strategically entrench its allies while maintaining critical support for its global military interventions.
The recent incident where Australian ministers Richard Marles and Penny Wong were left waiting in London while Healey attended to domestic political matters, underscores the political fragility and policy inadequacy of Aukus. When faced with the prospect of losing national power to Nigel Farage's Reform UK party, international agreements are easily discarded. The rhetoric of shared values and an international rules-based order falls flat in the face of domestic political realities.
From its inception, Aukus has been devoid of robust policy support, a classic case of an 'emperor's clothes' scenario. Five years on, we are still awaiting answers to fundamental questions about Australia's acquisition of nuclear-propelled submarines. The US under secretary of war for policy, Elbridge Colby, and the Congressional Research Service have both expressed serious concerns about the policy viability of Aukus submarines, citing the inability of the US naval construction industry to meet existing demands, let alone accommodate additional builds for the Royal Australian Navy.
Healey's actions have once again exposed Aukus as a political stunt, a grand show devoid of substantive policy. As the old adage goes, once the political purpose has served its course, the show must come to an end. Perhaps, in this case, it already has.
