New AUKUS agency sees much more than nuclear submarines

An initiative launched with UNSW Sydney will support the statecraft underpinning the AUKUS security pact.

The AUKUS security partnership was about far more than nuclear submarines and should promote and maintain long-term stability in the region, said the Director of a new initiative to support the development of the pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Professor Craig Stockings, UNSW Director of Security & Defence PLuS, said the purpose of the AUKUS partnership was peace and stability in a challenging geopolitical environment.

He made the statements during the launch of Security & Defence PLuS at the Advancing AUKUS Conference on November 14. Conference speakers included former minister for defence, Kim Beazley, and the former Australian ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey.

Security & Defence PLuS is a core initiative of the PLuS Alliance, a collaboration between Arizona State University, King’s College London, and UNSW Sydney that combines the expertise of the three leading defence research intensive universities with defence industry and government sectors to solve complex military challenges.

Security & Defence PLuS expands on that, with a focus on advancing and supporting statecraft, research and commercialisation of competitive advantage capabilities for AUKUS defence forces, and policy in the spirit of the AUKUS partnership.

Professor Stockings said that when the AUKUS agreement was announced last year, all headlines around the security partnership between focused on the delivery of nuclear-powered, conventionally-armed submarines to the Royal Australian Navy.

But AUKUS was about a great deal more than technology and weaponry.

“AUKUS is a group of like-minded countries interested in maintaining the status quo in the Indo Pacific area,” he said.

“The aim is to maintain peace."