Australia, UK, US determined to ‘reboot’ AUKUS, deliver ‘apex predator’ of naval warfare

Australia, the UK and the US are determined to “reboot” the AUKUS partnership and get on with delivering an “apex predator” of naval warfare, the British Defence Minister has told a meeting of the AUKUS partners in Washington.

But Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles says a “reboot” doesn’t mean wholesale change but rather a focus on making things happen.

UK Secretary of Defence John Healey used his opening remarks to the trilateral meeting overnight on Wednesday to thank his American counterpart Pete Hegseth for the “the spirit of cooperation which guided your department’s work” during the Pentagon’s AUKUS review.

“Those reviews are now done and all three of us are now determined to reboot AUKUS with a new commitment and a new determination, in particular, to deliver,” he said.

“And when we talk about delivery, we talk about the most powerful, most feared attack submarine the world has ever seen, the apex predator of the seas.

“We need more subs in the Indo-Pacific and in the Euro-Atlantic. We need more burden-sharing by America’s closest allies in Australia and the UK.”

Mr Marles said these comments should be seen in the context of all three countries now having reviewed the pact, when asked why AUKUS needed a reboot.

“The milestones are being met. AUKUS is on track,” he told reporters after the meeting.

“But this is a massive, massive task and it’s really important that we all have our shoulders to the wheel, all three systems working in a coordinated way to make this occur, and that’s what we’ve committed to.”

All three ministers echoed US President Donald Trump’s declaration in October that it was “full steam ahead” on AUKUS.

Mr Marles has seen the Pentagon’s review but has been reluctant to detail what it contains, amid uncertainty over whether it will be made public.

He said that it was “very much within the frame of being full steam ahead on delivering AUKUS and how we can do this better”.

“It is granular, it is specific in terms of how it looks at that,” he said.

Mr Hegseth has previously asked Australia and other partner countries to spend more on Defence.

But in his remarks at the start of the AUKUS meeting he indicated the White House was happy with where things were not.

“The President loves supporting countries that step up and whether it’s in the Indo-Pacific or … on the continent, the discussions we’ve had are a reflection of both Australia and the UK stepping up,” he said.