The “Pivot to Asia”: AUKUS in the Perception of American Politicum

The article is devoted to forecasting the ways of further evolution of the Western partnership called AUKUS, taking into account the geopolitical plans of J. Biden administration, and based on an analysis of the approaches of the most influential groups among the American political elite to the project. In the context of the American strategy “Pivot to Asia”, differences in views of these groups on the content of AUKUS and its prospects are shown. Special attention is paid to the study of the American experts’ and politicians’ ideas about the potential of using nuclear submarines in the Indo-Pacific region by Australia with regard to “containing” China, as well as technological cooperation between the partnership member countries in order to expand a common industrial base. While the Conservative Republicans believe that it is necessary to focus only on creating a fleet of submarines for Australia (the “first pillar”), Conservative Democrats and Moderate Republicans demand to concentrate exclusively on technological cooperation not merely of the three AUKUS countries (the “second pillar”), but also attracting other players to it – Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada. Only the Centrist Democrats, who are the most loyal supporters of the administration, are confident that the alliance countries will be able to “pull through” the implementation of both “pillars” of the project. The authors underscore that the coalition of the “second pillar” looks preferable today. It is concluded that the radical divergence of the elite groups’ views makes the future fate of the AUKUS quite uncertain, and the partnership can acquire different configurations depending on the balance of forces within the U.S. political establishment.