Pacific heights: With AUKUS, Britain finds new place in the world at last

Malcolm Chalmers, deputy director at the London-based think-tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said: “The big strategic dilemma the U.S. has had in terms of fighting a war with China is that the region is an awful long way from America but very close to China. The more the U.S. can forward-base a large part of their forces, the better. It gives them much more operational availability if a war was to start at short notice. From the Australian point of view, this provides them with greater visibility of American guarantee, which they would welcome.”