This week marks five years since US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership composed of two parts: Pillar I, the nuclear-powered submarine program, and Pillar II, a collaboration on advanced defence capabilities.

Since then, AUKUS has survived multiple leadership changes and national reviews or public inquiries in all three countries. At a time of heightened geopolitical risk, the case for acquiring the subs to help protect Australia’s access to sea-lanes and contribute to regional stability has endured.

But this milestone needs to be put in context.

For one, when AUKUS was announced on September 15-16 2021, we had very few details. The actual plans for the delivery of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia came much later, in March 2023.

And AUKUS still has a way to go. We’re barely a tenth of the way into the implementation of the 30-year “Optimal Pathway” for the program in its totality.

We’re at least six years away from receiving our first US-built Virginia-class submarine, and at least 15 years from receiving the first AUKUS-class submarine, to be co-developed and co-produced here and in the United Kingdom.

Still, five years after the initial announcement, it’s worth gauging what Australia has to show for a program the government has said is “too big to fail” and is without a “Plan B”.

We’ve tried to bring clarity to this question by focusing on three indicators of progress:

how much money Australia has invested so far

how much money Australia has invested so far

the development of Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-W) in Perth

the development of Submarine Rotational Force-West (SRF-W) in Perth

the state of US submarine production and fleet size.

the state of US submarine production and fleet size.

Though by no means exhaustive, these three metrics offer a snapshot of where the program stands at the moment, and the challenges that must still be overcome.

Read more: In view of Trump’s review of AUKUS, should Australia cancel the subs deal? We asked 5 experts

1. What Australia has spent so far

Australians are justified in wanting to know how much money their government has invested in AUKUS, and where it has gone.

When the Optimal Pathway was announced in 2023, the Albanese government costed it at 0.15% of GDP annually over the life of the program. This would amount to roughly A$268 billion to A$368 billion over three decades.

Since then, the A$368 billion figure has been widely cited by the media as the ultimate price tag.

Crucially, at the time, a third of this total – around A$122.9 billion – was set aside as contingency funding to absorb the........

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