AUKUS squadron

A new alliance is in the making via strategic reverberations of the AUKUS deal which will be great and lasting. A profound geopolitical shift is occurring at a moment of time when NATO already exists with the aim of guaranteeing the freedom and security of its members through political and military means. Australia is the missing link!

NATO stands for ‘The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or Atlantic Alliance which is an international political and military organization'. It is composed of the US, Canada, Britain, and a number of European countries. It was established by the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949 for collective security purposes.

NATO members include: Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Every now and then, you see the tectonic plates of geopolitics shifting right in front of you. Examples such as the Suez Canal in 1956, President Nixon going to China in 1972 and then the falling of the Berlin wall in 1989 are just a few some will remember. A trilateral defense pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America, now known as AUKUS is another solid formation.

AUKUS envisages a wide range of diplomatic and technological collaboration, from cybersecurity to artificial intelligence. At its core is an agreement to start consultations to help Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-propelled but not nuclear-armed submarines. In consequence, Australia who had already signed a contract for diesel-electric submarines worth tens of billions of dollars with France in 2016, has subsequently cancelled the agreement.

In announcing AUKUS on September 15th with the prime ministers of Australia and Britain, Scott Morrison and Boris Johnson, and President Joe Biden stressed that it was about investing in the greatest source of strength which is alliances. America’s oldest ally, France, has reacted with understandable fury. The foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has called it a stab in the back.

Then on September 17th President Emmanuel Macron withdrew France’s ambassadors from Washington and Canberra. However, it hasn’t yet happened in London.

Written by Carl Boniface

Vocabulary builder:

A tectonic plate (also called lithospheric plate) is a massive, irregularly shaped slab of solid rock, generally composed of both continental and oceanic lithosphere. Variations in plate thickness are nature's way of partly compensating for the imbalance in the weight and density of the two types of crust.