In September 2021, Australians were surprised by the sight of a rare three-way press conference featuring Prime Minister Scott Morrison, U.S. President Joe Biden, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The leaders had convened virtually, each in his own capital, to announce an ambitious trilateral security partnership known as AUKUS, which promised closer military and scientific ties between the three countries. The pact’s centerpiece was the joint development of a nuclear-powered Australian submarine fleet. Such a program required a commitment from Washington to share nuclear propulsion systems—one of the crown jewels of U.S. military technology.
This head-snapping development provoked fury in France. As a consequence of the new arrangement, Paris lost a prized contract to build conventionally powered submarines for Australia, and President Emmanuel Macron accused Canberra of subterfuge and Washington of double-dealing. The fact that AUKUS came on the heels of the messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, moreover, led some European analysts to claim that the United States was an unreliable ally.
