Grand alliances are usually measured in communiques, in the arithmetic of committments drafted in distant capitals. But every pact, sooner or later, acquires an address. On Tuesday the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United States and Britain acquired its own: the naval base of HMAS Stirling, at Perth, on the edge of the Indian Ocean.
The first American nuclear submarine to be stationed there, as the Australian Financial Review reported, will be the USS Colorado. The Australian and US governments named the boat in a joint statement, announcing that the Virginia-class submarine will take up its place as part of the pact’s Submarine Rotational Force-West beginning in late 2027. In time, the base is expected to host up to four American submarines and one British boat on rotation.
The boat with a name
Defence Minister Richard Marles called the announcement exciting and presented it as proof that the machinery of the alliance is turning. “The Submarine Rotation Force West is happening. It’s on track,” he told News24, describing the rotational force as AUKUS’s first real big milestone. American personnel, he noted, are already at HMAS Stirling, readying the site for the submarines to come.
The USS Colorado is no abstraction. A Virginia-class attack boat, nuclear-powered and built to hunt other submarines and ships and to strike targets on land with torpedoes and missiles, she entered service in 2016 and is ordinarily based in Hawaii. She carries a crew of 134 submariners and, fully armed, can bring as many as 38 torpedoes and missiles to sea.
There is an older rhythm in this, one that history students of empire would recognise: great powers do not merely sign agreements, they plant their pieces forward, on other people’s shores, and call it partnership. Whether the rotation of five allied submarines through Western Australia proves a shield or a provocation is a question the communiques leave politely unanswered. What Tuesday established is something more concrete. By the end of next year, the theory of AUKUS will have a hull, a crew of 134, and a berth at Stirling.