AUKUS

• It is a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
• The pact was announced on 15 September 2021 for the Indo-Pacific region.
• Under the pact, the US and the UK will help Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. 

Significance of the pact

• The AUKUS alliance is seen as probably the most significant security arrangement between the three nations since World War II.
• The pact will focus on military capability, which will separate it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.
• Having them stationed in Australia is critical to US influence in the region.
• The nuclear submarines under the agreement are much faster and harder to detect than conventionally powered fleets.
• They can stay submerged for months, shoot missiles longer distances and also carry more.
• The US is sharing its submarine technology which it had previously only shared with the UK.
• Australia will become the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines, after the US, UK, France, China, India and Russia.
• Australia has reaffirmed it has no intention of obtaining nuclear weapons.

Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance * The Five Eyes is an intelligence alliance consisting of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. * In 1941, British and American intelligence signed the Atlantic Charter, which listed global objectives for the two countries beyond the conclusion of the war. * This Charter paved the way for the Britain-USA agreement, and later the UKUSA agreement, which was signed in 1946. * The agreement was expanded to include Canada in 1948, and Australia and New Zealand in 1956, thereby creating the Five Eyes alliance, partly due to past shared Commonwealth heritage. * In 2020, India and Japan joined the Five Eyes nations in a joint appeal to tech companies to permit “backdoor access” to encrypted applications on smartphones.