Australia Pivots to Secondhand Subs in AUKUS Shake-Up

Australia has announced it will buy only secondhand nuclear submarines from the US under the AUKUS agreement, a significant shift from the original plan, while also deploying new drone submarines to protect undersea internet cables. Defence Minister Richard Marles, speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, declared the seabed a battlefield and called out Beijing over maritime transparency.