On the 16th of September 2021, the leaders of Australia, the UK and the US announced the creation of a new trilateral security partnership called ‘AUKUS’—Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The three national leaders stated, ‘We will foster deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases, and supply chains. And in particular, we will significantly deepen cooperation on a range of security and defense capabilities.’

At a time of rapidly increasing strategic uncertainty, when it’s increasingly clear that authoritarian regimes are willing to use military power to achieve their goals, it’s important to monitor the implementation of AUKUS so that governments and the public can assess whether it’s achieving the goal of accelerating the fielding of crucial military technologies.

To track the implementation of AUKUS, ASPI will publish regular updates on progress. This is the first of those updates.