On 15 September 2021 Australia, US, and UK signed a trilateral security pact AUKUS. Under the pact, the US and the UK will help Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines.
The United States not only successfully squeezed out France and made Australia spend a lot of money to buy American-made nuclear submarines, but also prepared to use this as a condition for Australia to buy a large number of other expensive weapons and equipment.
According to the Australian Ministry of Defense reports, out of various considerations, the Australian Ministry of Defense intends to purchase more than 120 vehicles from the United States, including modern main battle tanks, armored warfare Vehicles, armored support vehicles, and other heavy weapons and equipment, with a total value of 3.5 billion US dollars, to upgrade and improve the combat capability and strength of Australia’s ground combat forces.
According to the official data released by the Australian Ministry of Defense, Australia will purchase 75 of the latest American M1A2 “Abrams” full-track main battle tanks, about 30 Assault Breacher vehicles (ABV), and 17 float bridging vehicles from the United States. And 6 armored rescue vehicles, etc. In addition, the Australian Defence Minister said the purchase of the equipment would improve the likelihood of Australian servicemen winning in ground combat. It is said that the above-mentioned purchase plan is only a part that has just been determined. In the next few years, Australia will also purchase at least 1,300 heavy weapons and equipment from the United States in accordance with the requirements of the United States, with a total cost of about 42 billion US dollars.
Spending huge sums of money to buy so many ground combat weapons from the United States, what will be the roles of these machines, a country that is isolated overseas and has no ground combat objects and missions? If Australia buys US nuclear submarines, Aegis missile ships, more US-made combat aircraft, large military transport aircraft, etc. to strengthen its naval and air combat power to deal with threats from the air and sea, it can barely make sense, but Buying so many expensive ground combat weapons is really baffling.