Hello Lethe, over from the Ask Anything Thread! I am also a white Australian so I'm not sure about that part of the post, but in terms of the "Big Questions" you raised, I really really hope AUKUS gets cancelled & I think there's at least a moderate possibility of that happening.
I strongly doubt AUKUS included any ROK like language around US military command of submarines in the event of war, although I think both sides who made the deal de facto expected something like that. If such language were revealed, it would make AUKUS insanely unpopular in Australia. One possible read of Albo's current plan is that he might be trying to get the US to cancel/non-perform AUKUS. If he asserts Australian sovereignty over the Australian military (…assuming the American officers who recently joined our military don't make that an issue) & says "No, those submarines won't be used in a war over Taiwan, they'll only be used to protect the Australian national interest, which does not include either Taiwan or a US-China war", to me it's absolutely unthinkable that the US would ever actually give us the Virginia subs. Think about it, if there's any chance that those subs won't be available to the US in the important war, then giving those subs to Australia is effectively sinking them straight after they're made, from the US perspective. Given the US's issues with shipbuilding & meeting their own requirements, the AUKUS deal only makes sense for the US if the US can guarantee that it can use those subs regardless of their nominal ownership. If Albo credibly threatens that, the US would have to cancel the deal with no subs delivered and Australia only having paid $500Mn to $3Bn (if it gets cancelled soon). Albo's jabs at Trump & friendliness with China could be deliberately trying to push Trump to make the cancellation out of anger, while the assertion of sovereignty & national interest gives Colby cold feet - who would be left to advocate for AUKUS, something Biden very publicly claimed credit for?
Now that said, there's a giant hole in this theory, which is: where on Earth would we get our replacements for the nearly-expired Collins-class submarines? I personally think this isn't that big of an issue with this theory because non-performance of AUKUS by the US was always more likely than not. However, there is still a military (and domestic political) problem with not having subs. Japan? Go begging back to the French? Some sort of CANZUK decades long abomination? I don't know. I personally think "Nothing, no subs" is better than spending $350Bn on subs that won't get delivered to us & come with a commitment to being on the losing side of the largest conflict since WW2, but I understand that's not a great position electorally.
