‘Full steam ahead’: That was the verdict on the Aukus alliance from Defence Secretary John Healey after the United States concluded its review of the alliance this week. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered the good news to Healey and Richard Marles, Australia’s Minister for Defence, in Washington this week. But there’s a catch: with no mention of increased defence spending in last month’s Budget, does the UK really have the money to fund the grand plans Aukus commits it to?
This renewed commitment to Aukus by America is good news and could not have been taken for granted. When the Pentagon announced in June that it was undertaking the review to determine whether ‘this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the President’s ‘America First’ agenda’, there was real anxiety in London and Canberra. The under secretary of defense for policy reviewing Aukus, Elbridge Colby, is an outspoken China hawk who had previously expressed scepticism about the partnership.
The Ministry of Defence is facing a serious financial squeeze
Colby was particularly concerned about the provision for the United States to supply Australia with up to five Virginia-class submarines to replace the RAN’s ageing Collins class and bridge the gap to the new SSN-Aukus boats in the early 2040s. Construction of the Virginia class, of which the US Navy already operates 24 and is building at least ten more, is badly behind schedule; Colby had dismissed the idea of submarines going to Australia while America did not have its full complement. It was also Colby who had halted supplies of ammunition to Ukraine in July because of depleted US stockpiles.
The danger of Aukus being cancelled or scaled back seems, then, to have been overblown. The implicit message from the Trump administration now is that it wants to see the partnership moving more quickly and producing results. The reaction of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) here in London has stressed the positive aspect of this week’s summit. It seized on the President’s phrase ‘full steam ahead’ with enthusiasm. But the White House’s words are a warning, not an approbation. The MoD acknowledged this obliquely:
The three nations agreed that Aukus must now move at pace to translate plans into hard capability. The meeting marked a decisive shift towards delivery.
How will the UK do this? There is already a worrying disparity between words and deeds. Healey and Keir Starmer have made great play of increased defence spending in 2027, but the reality is that it will only raise the total by around 0.2 per cent of GDP.
That may be enough to make good current budget shortfalls – the MoD’s most recent equipment plan contained a gap of at least £17 billion – but it is no spending bonanza. Meeting the new Nato target of 3.5 per cent of GDP on core defence by 2035 remains an airy aspiration for the government, for which it has made neither commitment nor preparations.
Healey has trumpeted the government’s commitment of £6 billion to invest in infrastructure at Barrow and Rolls-Royce in Derby, which will help Britain build a new SSN-Aukus submarine every 18 months. But that is a promise of investment over the current spending review period between now and 2030. Even then, it is in infrastructure: it is answering the call of a hungry diner by showing off a new oven.
The Royal Navy currently has five active Astute-class attack submarines; the sixth, HMS Agamemnon, will not come into service for another 18 months. Four are awaiting or undergoing maintenance, while HMS Ambush is said to be at ‘very low readiness’, stripped for parts for other boats. If HMS Anson’s post-deployment maintenance is short, the Royal Navy should have one operational submarine by early 2026. This raises a question over its ability to contribute a vessel in 2027 to Submarine Rotational Force – West, based at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia, one of Britain’s commitments under the Aukus agreement. Yet Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness, said recently that deploying an Astute boat to Australia was ‘entirely realistic and is part of the planning assumption’. If he is wrong, it will not just be an embarrassing indication of overstretch but also a failure in the commitment to our American and Australian partners.
This is a pattern. Consistently the government has declared confidence that all will be well, often in the face of stark evidence to the contrary. The MoD is facing a serious financial squeeze and submarine availability is currently negligible. This is not ‘full steam ahead’. Unless there is change and greater investment quickly, our partners will ask where the delivery is coming from. We currently have no credible answer.
