AUKUS subs deal commits Australia to backing US in conflict with China: Hugh White

In a scathing assessment of the deal touted by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese as a "transformational moment" for the nation, Professor White doubted it would ever result in the delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine and warned the arrangement locked the country in to America's China containment strategy.

The Australian National University professor of strategic studies said the cost of the deal went far beyond the $368 billion price tag for the submarine fleet.

"We're also going to pay with a promise to go to war against China," Prof White told the Australian National University's Democracy Sausage podcast.

"You can't separate AUKUS from a strategic environment in which the Americans are looking to ... commit Australia more deeply than we've ever been committed before, to supporting them in a role in a war with a major power."

China using military force against Taiwan was "a very serious possibility", Prof White saying the chances that the US would respond were "quite high".

In that situation, America would expect Australia to deploy its submarines in the front lines of the conflict.

"This is a very serious transformation of the nature of our alliance with the US," he said.

"A war between America and China over Taiwan would be World War Three. And it would have a very good chance of being a nuclear war."

The government has argued the AUKUS deal, under which Australia will acquire up to eight nuclear-powered submarines from the US and Britain over the next 30 years, will strengthen national security and contribute to regional stability. It is supported by the opposition.

But the arrangement has come under heavy criticism over its strategic rationale and the complexity and cost of the undertaking, most notably from former prime minister Paul Keating, who labelled it the "worst deal in all history".

Prof White said the issues raised by Mr Keating were significant and had not been publicly examined before the government committed to the deal.

He said the US has fewer Virginia class submarines than it needs and would not have agreed to sell three to Australia unless it was "absolutely sure" they would be available to it in a conflict with China.

"AUKUS is really about the alliance. [The US government doesn't] really care about our submarine capability. What they deeply care about, is tying Australia into their...containment strategy against China as tightly as they can."

In rejecting Mr Keating's criticisms, Mr Albanese argued the former prime minister did not understand the changes that had occurred in the geopolitical environment in the region.

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But Prof White said the current government and opposition lacked understanding.

"They still think America is the dominant power in east Asia and is going to remain so forever. But the balance of wealth and power between the United States and China has shifted radically in the last couple of decades," he said.

Prof White admitted that withdrawing from the deal would significantly damage Australia's alliance with the US but said: "That might be a price worth paying. I actually think that is what we should do."