On June 11, 2025, the news broke that U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby would lead a Pentagon review of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States security agreement (AUKUS). The Department of Defense has since articulated that this effort will be “an empirical and clear-eyed assessment of the initiative.”
If that standard is applied, the assessment must conclude, as a similar 2025 review in London did, that AUKUS is the strongest, most effective plan for the United States to deter China’s malign behavior in the Indo-Pacific.
China certainly knows that AUKUS’ promise to accelerate the deployment of advanced defense technology by the three participating nations, including the sale of conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, will counter the growing strength of its PLA Navy and missile forces in the Indo-Pacific.
China has repeatedly complained about AUKUS in public and in private diplomatic channels, which should speak volumes about its value to Under Secretary Colby as he conducts his investigation. AUKUS, in a nutshell, will blunt China’s regional advantage that threatens the 80-year success of the free and open Pacific.
Much of the AUKUS skepticism in the United States is premised on the misguided notion that the technology being shared and sold among the three allies will create an unacceptable drain on the U.S. military. Since AUKUS is not a binding treaty that commits Australia and the UK to every imaginable conflict in which the United States could be engaged, skeptics argue that the cost and risks of sharing too much are unacceptable.
Under Secretary Colby himself publicly questioned the planned sale of three Virginia-class submarines to Australia last year, before re-entering the Pentagon in 2024, citing concerns that the US Navy cannot afford it. This part of the plan, developed in 2022–23 by the leadership of all three countries as part of the AUKUS “Optimal Pathway,” is essential.
Australia operates an aging fleet of diesel submarines, which will need to be phased out in the 2030s, before its own domestic industrial base is able to replace them with new submarines. The U.S. defense industrial base, despite criticism, is expected to have delivered 28 Virginia-class submarines by the end of 2026, since the nuclear-powered attack submarine was first commissioned in 2004. Ten additional Virginia-class boats will be in the works after 2026. Those 28 submarines are in addition to over 20 Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarines and three Seawolf-class fast-attack submarines currently in the U.S. Navy fleet. For comparison, the Chinese Navy currently operates six nuclear-powered fast-attack submarines, while the British Royal Navy operates five.
Looking past the 2025 submarine tally, Under Secretary Colby’s review should focus on the evolving capacity of the U.S. industrial base when Australia actually purchases its submarines in the 2030s. A key part of this equation is the massive investment by Congress in the U.S. submarine industrial base over the last seven years, which is now coming to fruition.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney serves as Ranking Member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee.