US, UK & Australia Agreement To Counter China – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia announced a new defence deal on Thursday (September 16), under which America and Britain will help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines in the Pacific region.
• Although the leaders of these three countries have not said so specifically, the deal is being seen as a step towards curtailing China,
• Which has made significant aggressive manoeuvres in the Pacific region, especially in and around South China Sea, where it has expansive territorial claims.

What is the agreement?

• Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that a “a new enhanced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States”, named “AUKUS”,
• Will be a “partnership where our technology, our scientists, our industry, our defence forces are all working together to deliver a safer and more secure region that ultimately benefits all”.
• The first major initiative of AUKUS, Morrison said, would be to deliver a nuclear-powered submarine fleet for Australia.
• “Over the next 18 months, we will work together to seek to determine the best way forward to achieve this.
• This will include an intense examination of what we need to do to exercise our nuclear stewardship responsibilities here in Australia.”
• The nuclear-powered submarines will give Australia a lot of naval heft in the Pacific, where China has been particularly aggressive.
• While the US and Britain have had the capability for decades, Australia has never had one.
• China has nuclear-powered submarines, as well as submarines that can launch nuclear missiles.
• The three countries have made it clear though, that their aim is not to arm the new subs with nuclear weapons.

Deteriorating relationships

• China has been one of Australia’s biggest trading partners, but the relationship has soured over the last few years.
• It was in consideration of Chinese sensibilities that Australia had pulled out of the Malabar Naval Exercise with the US, India, and Japan after participating in the 2007 edition.
• Australia came back to Malabar in 2020, which marked the first time in 13 years that the navies of the four Quad nations war-gamed together.

But why is this seen in the context of possible military aggression involving China?

• This is primarily because a nuclear-powered submarine gives a navy the capability to far out into the ocean and launch attacks.
• Unlike conventional submarines, which are generally considered helpful for defensive purposes, the ability of a nuclear-powered submarine to go long distances, at a higher speed,
• Without being detected gives a nation the ability to protect its interests far from its shores.
• In the context of the AUKUS agreement, nuclear-powered submarines will give the Royal Australian Navy the capability to go into the South China Sea,
• Where China is increasingly getting aggressive, to protect its assets and conduct patrols — even though this has not been spelt out by the three countries.
• The US has in the past shared its nuclear propulsion technology only with the UK, in accordance with the nuclear power sharing arrangement that the two countries have had since 1958.

What makes nuclear submarines so important?

• A nuclear-powered submarine is classified as an “SSN” under the US Navy hull classification system, wherein ‘SS’ is the symbol for a submarine, and ‘N’ stands for nuclear.
• A nuclear-powered submarine that can launch ballistic missiles is called an “SSBN”.
• Conventional diesel-engine submarines have batteries that keep and propel — though not very fast — the vessel underwater.
• The life of these batteries can differ, from a few hours to a few days.
• The great advantage of an SSN is that its nuclear-powered propulsion gives the submarine a near infinite capacity to stay dived.
• Since it is propelled by a nuclear-powered engine rather than by batteries, it does not have to emerge on the surface at all, except to replenish supplies for the crew.
• SSNs are also able to move faster underwater than the conventional submarines.
• Added together, these advantages allow a navy to deploy these submarines quicker and at farther distances.

Does India have nuclear-powered submarines?

• Yes, India is among the six nations that have SSNs. The other five are the US, the UK, Russia, France and China.
• India has had the capacity since it got the Soviet-built K-43 Charlie-class SSN in 1987.
• Commissioned with the Red Fleet of the USSR in 1967, it was leased to the Indian Navy, and was rechristened INS Chakra.
• In 2012 India got another Russian SSN on a 10-year lease, called INS Chakra 2.
• In the mean time, India was working on building its own SSN, and the first Indian nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant, was commissioned in 2016.
• A second Arihant-class submarine, INS Arighat, was secretly launched in 2017, and is likely to be commissioned soon.
• After it demonstrated the capability to launch nuclear weapons in 2018, the INS Arihant is now classified as a Strategic Strike Nuclear Submarine or SSBN, which means it is a nuclear-powered ballistic submarine.

Questions emerges from the development

• The first and foremost is the open embarrassment faced by France.
• The new alliance, which will fast-track nuclear submarine development for Australia, nullifies the latter’s pre-existing deal with France.
• The submarine contract was worth $36.5 billion.
• France, in a strongly worded statement, said the new deal was “contrary to the letter and the spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia”.
• The next concern obviously is for countries like India, who are part of the Quad grouping often referred to as Asia’s NATO.
• Experts say, there are no reasons for India to be worried, as the new grouping pulls UK—another major global power—into the Indo-Pacific Cold War;
• The AUKUS would complement Quad, and further push France closer to India.

Q) Which of the following is referred to as Pirates Alley because of increased number of Pirate activities in it?

1. Gulf of Aden
2. Gulf of Oman
3. Red Sea
4. Gulf of Khambat

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