Why AUKUS Must Win the Information Contest in Southeast Asia
Editor’s Note:
This essay is from the Security & Defence PLuS Emerging Voices Series, which highlights the next generation of scholars and practitioners shaping thinking on strategy, security, and defense. The series brings together perspectives from PhD candidates and early career researchers, grounded in the complex geopolitical realities of the 21st century.
The collection explores a “Latticework of Resilience” that connects often-overlooked sectors, such as subnational diplomacy and critical infrastructure inherent in agriculture security, to the core of national security. Taken together, the essays emphasize the importance of adaptive, multidisciplinary approaches to building resilience in an increasingly complex global environment.
The first event in the Emerging Voices series was held at Arizona State University on 2 March 2026, with events to follow at King’s College London and UNSW. Watch the event recording: The Emerging Voices Series: Strategy, Security & Defence at Arizona State University.
Last year, the second Trump administration has backed AUKUS “full steam ahead”. While that secures the pact for now, it also underscores the vulnerability that AUKUS’s long-term durability remains uncertain and is tied to shifting political commitments. How AUKUS performs in the information environment will be decisive as future support will depend on its legitimacy which is constantly being contested.
The Iran war has reinforced this uncertainty as strategic priorities are being reshaped. Rising oil prices are creating openings for adversaries—easing constraints on Russian energy exports and simultaneously accelerating the shift to renewables, an area China already dominates. Likewise, the crisis is redirecting attention and resources away from the Indo-Pacific. U.S. naval assets operating in the South China Sea, including the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), have been redeployed to the Middle East.
These developments may seem temporary, but they send a signal about U.S. reliability to a region where states closely watch for – and value – consistency and resolve. These dynamics shape not only political narratives, but strategic calculations about risk and geopolitical alignment. This is the information environment in which AUKUS must operate, and its success will depend on how well it navigates the political landscape. It cannot assume that the capability of its submarines will speak for itself. If AUKUS does not manage how it is understood, others will do it for them.
This challenge is magnified by the changing nature of warfare, which is now no longer confined to traditional domains. As the UK Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee recently warned, in this “new warfare… open liberal democracies are sitting ducks”. The concept of cognitive warfare—now central to NATO thinking—captures this shift: the weaponization of the information environment to shape how societies perceive reality and make decisions.
This matters directly for AUKUS in Southeast Asia. In a region where states hedge between major powers, perception is strategy. Yet the United States has weakened its own defenses in this domain, even as it confronts Iran’s wartime disinformation campaigns, rising anti-American sentiment globally, and a China that has, for the first time, surpassed the US in global approval ratings. The contest over perception will shape how regional and domestic actors interpret AUKUS as well.
Washington, Canberra, and London developed AUKUS in 2021 as a deterrence initiative—most notably through Australia’s acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines, but also through expanded cooperation in cyber, AI, and undersea systems. It is framed as a response to China’s historic military expansion—the largest buildup since the Cold War—and as a means of reinforcing long-term strategic alignment, and advancing and deepening technological integration to help uphold the international rules-based order.
Since its inception, AUKUS has been met with competing narratives from Beijing. It is framed not as deterrence, but as a Cold War-style bloc designed to provoke China, fuel an arms race, and drive regional instability. China’s communication strategy begins with top-level political signaling. In a 2023 speech, Xi Jinping stated that “Western countries led by the United States have implemented all-around containment, encirclement and suppression of China”. The framing is reminiscent of, and designed to evoke, the US containment policy of the Cold War.
However, that official signaling diffuses outward across decentralized networks. For example, a New York Times investigation found that some seemingly grassroots movements, including “No Cold War” and Code Pink, are part of a broader network backed by at least $275 million in donations funneled through U.S.-based nonprofits and international advocacy groups. While presenting as independent peace activism, analysts have noted how such efforts resemble anti-militarist Soviet-style front organizations. These networks—often involving American, British, and Australian activists—amplify China-aligned narratives that portray China as a non-threatening power while casting the United States and its allies as destabilizing and aggressive actors.
The Philippines offers a clear example of how these narratives play out in practice. Amid conflict in the Middle East, Philippine defense officials warned that some actors were using the Iran war to “sow fear and apprehension,” suggesting—incorrectly—that Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites could become targets. In response, officials were forced to repeatedly clarify that EDCA sites are not U.S. bases, but Philippine-controlled facilities used for joint training, humanitarian assistance, and defense cooperation. This is precisely the challenge AUKUS faces. The issue is not simply what these arrangements are—but how they are understood. Strategic narratives can exploit local sensitivities around sovereignty and foreign military presence, reframing routine security cooperation as escalation.
Nowhere is this more consequential than in Southeast Asia. States in the region are masters of hedging, a strategy of balancing major powers that has long served them well. But cognitive warfare changes the equation. States can hedge relationships; however, they cannot hedge reality. That vulnerability is particularly acute for AUKUS when it comes to regional anxieties about nuclear technology. From 1946 to 1996, the US, the UK and France conducted more than 300 nuclear tests in the Pacific, including in French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands. The 15-megaton Castle Bravo test alone in 1954 was 1,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb and left a legacy of displacement, contamination, and generational trauma.
Narratives that draw on these historical memory and emotional legacies, continue to shape and delegitimize how AUKUS is perceived in the region. Australia’s submarines are conventionally armed and Canberra has recently reaffirmed its commitment to non-proliferation. Australia has already taken important steps in public diplomacy and demonstrated a strong commitment to nuclear stewardship, yet, in public discourse, the word “nuclear” is loaded and the distinction between nuclear propulsion and nuclear weapons is often blurred, sometimes deliberately.
China has leaned into and amplified this ambiguity, exploiting existing fears. It has framed AUKUS as undermining the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, despite the fact that AUKUS submarines will not carry nuclear weapons, while China itself maintains a nuclear arsenal and operates nuclear-armed submarines. At the same time, Chinese officials have described AUKUS as part of “ethnic and geopolitical cliques”, tapping into broader themes of anti-colonialism, Global South solidarity, and anti-Asian discrimination.
China’s expanding influence over global media infrastructure has created asymmetric advantages in reaching Southeast Asian audiences. From content moderation and information control on widely used digital platforms, to pressure on journalists and influence over local-language media ecosystems China-aligned narratives can circulate more effectively across the region. In the West policy analysts often dismiss inaccurate and misleading claims for what they are –incorrect – and therefore assume they are irrelevant. While caution against overstatement is warranted, dismissal is not a strategy. These narratives must be addressed because their effectiveness does not depend on whether they are true, but on whether they resonate.
AUKUS partners therefore must compete for credibility. The rest of this article will provide some ideas in those directions. First, AUKUS must provide a compelling rationale – a clear raison d’être that resonates with both regional and domestic audiences. Such a rationale would be most effective if disseminated in the form of a story, a story that not only explains what AUKUS is or does, but why AUKUS matters and why it is the best security solution we have available. While AUKUS partners have taken steps in public diplomacy, these efforts must continue to meet audiences where they are and convey information in language that is accessible. For example, Australia has already taken important steps in demonstrating a strong commitment to nuclear stewardship, waste management, and environmental protection.
Second, AUKUS partners must invest in societal resilience. Cognitive warfare succeeds where societies are divided, distrustful, and unprepared. As such, strengthening media literacy, protecting independent journalism, and addressing polarization are central to whole-of-government, integrated deterrence. This also requires supporting credible empathy-based approaches at civic and cross-partisan dialogue. Critics sometimes dismiss “talking to the other side” as frameworks that create false equivalences and risk conceding to falsehoods or harmful views, but it does not. Engaging with misinformation does not legitimize it, it reduces its effectiveness by addressing the underlying vulnerabilities that allow it to spread in the first place and empowers citizens to better navigate it. Other known and better researched strategies include raising awareness of information threats. When societies experience and anticipate disinformation, such as in Taiwan or Ukraine, they are less susceptible to them. Public attribution of disinformation campaigns, transparency, and collaboration with digital platforms can further reduce their impact.
Third, AUKUS must embed within the regional order. Southeast Asian states have long emphasized ASEAN centrality, inclusivity, non-alignment, and sovereignty. Yet, evolving regional dynamics have led many to cautiously and pragmatically accept AUKUS—an opening that should not be taken for granted. AUKUS partners would do well to address ASEAN concerns through sustained engagement, reassurance, and trust-building. They should support regional institutions as much as possible and demonstrate that AUKUS enhances (not undermines) regional stability. This means embedding AUKUS within existing regional frameworks rather than operating alongside them. Initiatives such as the recent Australia-Indonesia defense partnership may offer one pathway toward deeper alignment with ASEAN priorities, while remaining consistent with AUKUS’s core strategic purpose.
Integrated deterrence is not just about coordinating military power across domains, but aligning diplomacy, information, economic tools, and societal resilience into a whole-of-government effort. In this context, AUKUS must be strong not only in capability, but in credibility—because shaping perception is as central to deterrence as projecting power.
