The trilateral security partnership between australia, the uk and the us, known as aukus, was established in 2021 and is organised into two strands. Pillar i supports australia’s acquisition of a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability; pillar ii pools the three nations’ work on advanced military capabilities. Pillar ii has, to date, attracted criticism in some quarters for slow progress by comparison with the submarine programme. On 30 may 2026, at the shangri-la dialogue security summit in singapore, the three nations announced the first signature project under pillar ii: the joint development of payloads and enabling systems for uncrewed undersea vehicles (uuvs), with first capabilities expected in service from 2027. The accompanying joint statement also recorded progress across the submarine programme and a commitment to widen the trilateral licence-free environment for defence trade.
