On Monday, March 13, three men stood in the sunshine by the shimmering waters of the Pacific and announced a new deal that some experts fear could threaten the nuclear non-proliferation treaty dating back more than half a century. 

The three men were U.S. President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian PM Anthony Albanese, representing their nations in the three-country 'AUKUS' military partnership. The backdrop was the San Diego U.S. Navy base, and the deal was a multi-decade plan to supply Australia with nuclear submarines at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.

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But what is AUKUS and what is the deal? What is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and how does this affect it? And how do experts – and other countries – feel about it?

What is AUKUS?

AUKUS – a contraction of Australia, UK and the U.S. – is a trilateral security pact between the three countries. Announced in September 2021, it was intended from the off to equip Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, as well as promoting cooperation on other military technology including cyber, AI, hypersonic and electromagnetic warfare. 

In focusing on military capability, the three-way AUKUS agreement is separate from the 'Five Eyes' intelligence-sharing alliance which includes all three members plus Canada and New Zealand.

What is the new AUKUS deal?

In a four-phase program forecast to cost between $179 billion and $245 billion by the mid-2050s, Australia will acquire a fleet of up to eight nuclear submarines from its partners. 

In the first phase, Australian personnel will be embedded with U.S. and UK navies, and U.S. nuclear submarines will make more visits to Australia for training purposes. From 2027, the U.S. and UK will rotate one UK Astute-class submarine and up to four U.S. Virginia-class subs through the HMAS Stirling base in Perth, Western Australia.

In the third phase, starting in the early 2030s, Australia will buy between three and five Virginia-class submarines. Finally, a new class of SSN-AUKUS submarine, incorporating UK design and U.S. defense technology, will enter service – in the UK by the late 2030s and Australia by the early 2040s.

What is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty?

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, often shortened to Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, was negotiated in the late 1960s by a United Nations-sponsored organization based in Geneva. 

Agreed in 1968 and in force since 1970, the NPT has been signed by almost 200 states – more than any other arms limitation agreement – and splits the countries of the world into two types: the five 'nuclear' states and the other, 'non-nuclear' states. The five are those who had built and tested a nuclear explosive device before 1967, namely the U.S., Russia (formerly part of the Soviet Union), the UK, France and China. 

The central intention of the NPT is that the non-nuclear states agree never to acquire nuclear weapons, while the nuclear states agree to share the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology and pursue nuclear disarmament.

Does the AUKUS deal contradict the treaty?

Not by the letter of the treaty. There is a loophole in paragraph 14, which allows for fissile material utilized for non-explosive military use – such as naval propulsion – to be exempt from investigation. 

If enacted, the AUKUS deal would be the first time the Geneva treaty's history that the loophole has been utilized for a nuclear state to transfer fissile material and nuclear technology to a non-weapons state. Only the five 'nuclear' states are known to possess nuclear submarines. 

The partners have been at pains to point out that Australia is being provided with nuclear power rather than nuclear weaponry. Biden insisted "These boats will not have nuclear weapons of any kind on them."

The fissile material from the U.S and UK will arrive in welded units that will not need refueling during the submarine's lifespan, while Australia has also undertaken not to acquire the equipment necessary to repurpose the spent fuel for use in a nuclear weapon. 

What has been the reaction?

Wang Wenbin, China's foreign ministry spokesman, said: "The latest joint statement from the US, UK and Australia shows that the three countries, for their own geopolitical interests, have totally disregarded the concerns of the international community and gone further down the wrong and dangerous path."

Wang accused the three Western allies of inciting an arms race, saying the security deal was "a typical case of Cold War mentality" which "constitutes a severe nuclear proliferation risk, and violates the aims and objectives of the non-proliferation treaty."

The deal has aroused the interest of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is the NPT's watchdog in its role of monitoring nuclear programs and inspecting nuclear facilities.

"This process involves serious legal and complex technical matters," said IAEA chief Rafael Grossi in a statement on Tuesday, citing Australia's commitment to a Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) under the treaty.

"The required arrangement under Article 14 of the CSA and the development of the necessary safeguards approach must be in strict conformity with the existing legal framework," Grossi continued. "Importantly, once the arrangement is finalized, it will be transmitted to the Board of Governors of the IAEA for appropriate action. 

"Ultimately, the Agency must ensure that no proliferation risks will emanate from this project. The legal obligations of the parties and the non-proliferation aspects are paramount."

The AUKUS project has widespread cross-party support in all three countries. Australia's opposition Coalition defense spokesperson Andrew Hastie said it is "truly a multigenerational nation-building task for the Australian people" that "cannot fail."

However, Australian Greens Senator David Shoebridge called the deal "A 368 billion [AUS] dollar nuclear-powered raid on public education, health, housing and First Nations justice that will starve core services for decades to come," saying "This political deal makes Australia a third wheel to the U.S.'s regional ambitions while forcing us into an arms race that escalates tensions in our region, making us all less safe."

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the West of fomenting "years of confrontation" in the Asia-Pacific region. "The Anglo-Saxon world, with the creation of structures like AUKUS and with the advancement of NATO military infrastructures into Asia, is making a serious bet on many years of confrontation," Lavrov said.

What do the experts think?

What worries some arms control experts is that the loophole could be exploited by others as a way of acquiring – and hiding from international monitoring – the enriched uranium or plutonium necessary for a nuclear weapon. 

"The nonproliferation implications of the AUKUS submarine deal are both negative and serious," said James Acton, co-director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "I am concerned that this removal will set a damaging precedent." 

"In the future, would-be proliferators could use naval reactor programs as cover for the development of nuclear weapons—with the reasonable expectation that, because of the Australia precedent, they would not face intolerable costs for doing so."

Acton is not alone in worrying about the implications of setting this precedent. 

"The precedent of such a state acquiring tons of weapons-grade uranium could unravel the global nonproliferation regime, because other countries would demand the same right," said Alan Kuperman, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the founding coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project. 

"If the United States refused to provide them bomb-grade fuel, they could construct their own uranium enrichment facilities to produce it for naval or other reactors, on grounds that Australia had sundered the decades-long international taboo against highly enriched uranium fuel."

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