Gaps in AUKUS communication strategies limit public understanding of its benefits and allow malign actors, such as China and Russia, to sway public opinion.

A roundtable held by ASPI’s Washington office on 3 December served as a forum to address these gaps. It involved experts from academia, government and think tanks, and was the first in a series of roundtables aiming to improve AUKUS messaging strategies and public understanding through open and inclusive dialogue.

The question at the heart of this discussion was: ‘What are the most significant obstacles each AUKUS partner nation faces in effectively communicating the program’s public benefits, and how can these be addressed to build stronger public support?’

Early on, the participants identified the need to align the narratives surrounding AUKUS into a story.

A challenge in writing this story is to define what importance AUKUS has for the public in the future. AUKUS is fundamentally a security partnership, but it presents an opportunity for partner nations to reshape their economies by revitalising their defence industries and integrating them with each others’.

This promise of economic stimulation needs to be at the centre of the story that is communicated to the public. Citizens must be shown how investment into the defence priorities of AUKUS will improve their lives. Beyond economic growth, AUKUS’s technological advancements could revolutionise defence technologies. This could deliver broader societal benefits similar to the internet and GPS, which were both military inventions.

There should be an understanding from AUKUS governments that multiple levels of messaging will be needed to help AUKUS maintain its political resilience. These include the international, national and local levels.

Subnational messaging through local politicians and community leaders will be essential to building support for AUKUS in their relevant constituencies. These local voices can fight perceptions that defence is a dirty industry. They can also better define the immediate benefit to their constituents, framing the growth of defence industries as a net positive for their regions as it facilitates economic development and positions them as centres of innovation.

These communication channels can counter misinformation and politicisation surrounding AUKUS by increasing the transparency of the initiative’s objectives. Public engagement will dispel false narratives before they arise and ensure that AUKUS objectives cannot be co-opted for political advantage. It is also important that each nation has its own approach to messaging around AUKUS that reflects the concerns of its population.

Canberra currently faces a greater scrutiny for its AUKUS spending because Australians are more knowledgeable on the program than those of other partner nations. The government must acknowledge the tradeoff between massive spending on AUKUS and spending on issues facing young Australians, such as a cost-of-living crisis.  To justify this spending, the Australian government must communicate beyond the security benefits of the program and highlight the economic benefit AUKUS will bring to Australia, particularly in the form of high-paying science and technology jobs.

Britain must highlight the technological benefits of AUKUS, particularly for rejuvenating and sustaining the nation’s submarine industry for decades to come. Brexit significantly hampered London’s approach to economic engagement and technological cooperation with the EU, and AUKUS can provide some economic reprieve. Subnational messaging will be important to celebrate economic and technological wins in the post-Brexit context.

In the United States, foreign policy is rarely a voting issue, but the economy almost always is. Subnational messaging can be used to present economic benefits of AUKUS with a focus on domestic issues, rather than those on the other side of the planet. In Washington, it will be important to drive home the point that AUKUS is a counter to China’s growing influence to justify congressional spending and maintain its status as a bipartisan issue.

AUKUS will bring about change and technological advancement, but we may have to wait for it. It is difficult to sell benefits that are not immediate, but a constant focus on the future is necessary to maintain support for AUKUS in all three nations.