Australia’s Route To Aukus: An English School Analysis Of Australia’s National Identity And Strategic Alignment

Abstract

The announcement of the AUKUS partnership in September 2021 between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States generated immediate scholarly and policy attention (Beeson and Chubb 2021; Gyngell 2017; Medcalf 2020; Townshend 2022). Most early analyses interpreted the pact primarily as: • a realist balancing response to China’s rise, • a technological–defence cooperation framework, • or an element of broader U.S. Indo-Pacific containment strategy. While these interpretations remain analytically valid and useful, they largely frame AUKUS as a short-term strategic reaction within contemporary great power competition, which this dissertation sought to argue against (Curran 2021; Hall 2016; Laurenceson 2022; White 2019). The existing literature overwhelmingly focuses primarily but not exclusively on: • submarine capability, • military interoperability, • Indo-Pacific deterrence, • nuclear proliferation concerns, • and alliance management. However, the deeper historical and identity-based foundations of Australia’s participation in AUKUS have remained underexplored. This dissertation emerges from the recognition of this analytical gap.