Leaders | Nuclear submarines

The AUKUS pact is a model for Western allies

Pooling talent and resources is the only way to match China’s heft

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shakes hands with President Joe Biden during a news conference with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, at Naval Base Point Loma, Monday, March 13, 2023, in San Diego, as they unveil, AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, Britain, and the United States. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Image: AP

Australian and British sailors have been visiting American submarines for decades. It would be hard to imagine closer allies than their three countries. But as those sailors approached the engine room they would come to a watertight door that even they could not pass. For beyond it lay one of America’s most sacrosanct technologies, shared only with Britain in 1958: nuclear propulsion. The aukus pact throws that door open, pointing the way to a new phase in the West’s competition with China.

This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “In deep”

What’s wrong with the banks

From the March 18th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Leaders

How to respond to the riots on Britain’s streets

The violence demands robust policing, but it also requires cool heads

Is the big state back in Britain?

The risk is not too much interventionism, but too little audacity



Genomic medicines can cost $3m a dose. How to make them affordable

The treatments are marvels of innovation. Their pricing must be inventive, too

Chinese companies are winning the global south

Their expansion abroad holds important lessons for Western incumbents

The Middle East must step back from the brink

That still means starting with a ceasefire in Gaza