The Australia, United Kingdom, & United States (AUKUS) trilateral security partnership met earlier this month to discuss the current status of the alliance and future plans to strengthen the impact of the program's goals. Originally launched in late 2021, the AUKUS partnership works to collectively advance each nations' weapons arsenals and ease trade between the countries in efforts to counter China's military forces. The alliance has been focused on building each nation's respective export control regimes to promote sharing of controlled software, hardware, and technical data between each country's industries in a compliant and safe form. The partnership is divided into two primary pillars. The focus of AUKUS Pillar 1 is to support Australia's acquisition of nuclear-powered submarine capabilities, while Pillar 2's goal is to build on cooperation and sharing of advanced technologies that have defense applications. During this month's ministerial meetings, leaders from each nation discussed potential new areas of multi-country cooperation under pillar 2, including possible expansion of the program with additional countries such as Japan, Canada, New Zealand, and South Korea. Pillar 1, however, is a currently ongoing multi-year effort, meaning any expansion under the program is not likely to happen for a number of years, and will be heavily dependent on the success of the current trilateral alliance and the roll-out of Australia's and the UK's revamped export control regimes. Talks of expansion of the alliance to include additional nations highlight the collective goal of advanced technology sharing and combatting China's access to the same.
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