# COLUMN: AUKUS and Its Swarm Drones — The Silent Response Beijing Hears Loud and Clear

> On June 22, 2026, under near-constant rain in the difficult woods of Salisbury Plain in England, Australian, British, and American soldiers flew up to six drones simultaneously as part of the Army Warfighting Experiment 2026. These drones carried no bombs — they searched for targ

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Column
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/aukus-et-ses-drones-en-essaim-la-reponse-silencieuse-que-pekin-entend-tres-fort

## Introduction: Under the Rain in England, a Signal Sent All the Way to Beijing

### June 22, 2026 on Salisbury Plain: an experiment in future warfare

On **June 22, 2026**, under near-constant rain in the difficult woods of **Salisbury Plain** in England, Australian, British, and American soldiers flew up to **six drones simultaneously** as part of the **Army Warfighting Experiment 2026**. These drones carried no bombs — they searched for targets, shared their data in real time through a **common command hub**, and tested **artificial intelligence** algorithms capable of recognizing and confirming targets in complex forested environments.

It was not the most spectacular military exercise of the year. There were no tanks or aircraft carriers. Just soldiers with tablets and drones in the woods. But in the logic of global strategic competition, this discreet exercise sends a message that **Beijing** receives with perfect clarity: the democracies of **AUKUS** are quietly building the next generation of warfare.

### AUKUS Pillar II: the technologies that frighten Beijing

**AUKUS** — the trilateral alliance between **Australia**, the **United Kingdom**, and the **United States** — rests on two pillars. **Pillar I**, the most publicized, concerns the nuclear-powered submarines that **Australia** will receive from its partners. **Pillar II**, less visible but equally important, covers **advanced military technologies**: autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, hypersonic weapons, underwater capabilities. The **Salisbury** tests fall under **Pillar II** — and it is precisely this pillar that matters most to the military planners thinking through a potential conflict in the **South China Sea**.

*AUKUS has been criticized since its creation in 2021 for promising too much, delivering too slowly, and talking more than it acted. These swarm drone tests do not refute all of those criticisms — but they show that Pillar II is producing concrete results. And concrete results, in matters of deterrence, are worth more than the best speeches.*

## What Swarm Drones Represent Militarily

### From two drones to six: expanding the coverage

During the **Salisbury** exercises, operators progressed from a configuration of **two drones** to one of **six simultaneous drones**. Corporal **Kai Smith**, a drone operator with the **1st Armoured Regiment** of the Australian Army, described the basic mechanics: **"the drones would go to a location, use swarming software to break down the sector, conduct their scan and send images back to the end user's device."**

This understated description conceals significant sophistication. A **drone swarm** does more than multiply sensors — it creates **collective intelligence**. Each drone shares its data with the others and with the human commander. The system can be programmed to automatically allocate search zones, to prioritize targets according to pre-defined criteria, to distinguish a civilian vehicle from a military one. This is what military planners call **"enhanced target recognition"** — one of the most sought-after advantages in modern warfare.

### Interoperability: the real revolution of AUKUS

**Hing-Wah Kwok**, an engineer from **DSTG** (Australia's Defence Science and Technology Group) embedded in the exercise, articulated what gives these tests their true added value: **"Being able to refine and retrain models in the field and rapidly exchange them between AUKUS partners through common standards is a true force multiplier. It allows AUKUS partners to leverage each country's models, building capabilities beyond what any single country could achieve alone."**

This point is crucial: the value of **AUKUS** lies not just in any single country's capabilities, but in their **interoperability**. An Australian drone trained to recognize targets in specific environments can share its AI models with its British and American partners in real time. This technological integration creates a force whose sum exceeds its parts — and that is precisely what **Beijing** cannot easily replicate with its own partners, whose technical architectures are less compatible.

*Interoperability of military AI systems — this is an area where the West has a genuine lead. China produces many drones, fast, but its systems are designed to operate within a centralized architecture, not a distributed network interoperable with allies. This architectural difference is a strategic advantage that must be preserved and deepened.*

## The Signal to Beijing: Discreet but Powerful

### Drone swarms as a response to Chinese quantitative supremacy

**China** is building its military advantage in the **South China Sea** and the **East China Sea** on quantity: more ships, more aircraft, more missiles. Faced with this numerical superiority, the democracies of **AUKUS** and their allies cannot simply replicate by building faster. They must find technological asymmetries that compensate.

Drone swarms are one of those asymmetries. They allow a numerically inferior force to cover a much larger air and maritime space, to saturate enemy defenses, and to operate in **"contested"** environments where conventional aircraft would be vulnerable. Colonel **Jake Penley**, who oversees these experiments, put it directly: **"Autonomous systems are no longer experimental. They are moving to the core of how land forces operate, particularly in contested environments."**

### The South China Sea: the imagined theatre behind the English woods

When the soldiers of **Salisbury** were flying their drones through the difficult woods in the rain, the tactical scenario they were testing was not abstract. The **"contested environments"** that Western military planners speak of are notably the artificial islands and reefs built by **China** in the **South China Sea** — fortified installations equipped with missiles, electronic warfare systems, and radar capabilities. Any conflict scenario in that region would require intensive prior reconnaissance in environments hostile to conventional aircraft.

**China** has not ignored the AUKUS exercises. China's Foreign Ministry has regularly condemned the partnership as **"provocative"** and **"likely to trigger a regional arms race."** Those protests are precisely the sign that the signal is being received. When **Beijing** shouts, it is often because it hears something that concerns it.

*There is something deliberately discreet about the way AUKUS communicates its technological advances. No spectacle is made of it. It tests, refines, and shares in silence. That is a form of strategic sophistication: not provoking Beijing unnecessarily while still sending the message that the capability exists and is progressing.*

## AUKUS Pillar II: Signature Projects and the Expansion of the Partnership

### The first signature project: underwater drones

On the sidelines of the **Shangri-La Dialogue** in **June 2026**, the Defence Ministers of the three AUKUS countries announced the first **"signature project"** of **Pillar II**: the development of **underwater drones** equipped with advanced sensors and weapons systems to detect, deter, and neutralize underwater threats, notably against undersea cables and pipelines. The **United Kingdom** committed an initial contribution of **£150 million sterling** (approximately **$200 million**) to this program.

This project directly targets a vulnerability identified by the allies: undersea telecommunications cables and energy pipelines are critical infrastructure whose protection is becoming a strategic priority. Recent incidents, notably in the **Baltic Sea**, have shown that this infrastructure can be sabotaged. The AUKUS underwater drones will be deployed to monitor and protect these networks.

### AI algorithms deployed aboard an Australian P-8A

Another discreet but significant advance mentioned during the **Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations (AUKMIN)** on **June 10, 2026**: **AUKUS-designed AI algorithms** were for the first time deployed aboard an Australian **P-8A** maritime patrol aircraft, enabling faster processing of sonar data from acoustic buoys from all three nations. This real-time integration of underwater surveillance data represents a qualitative leap in the capacity to detect enemy submarines — notably Chinese ones — in the **Indo-Pacific** region.

These developments do not make front pages. But they accumulate, brick by brick, a technological lead in domains — submarine, autonomous systems, AI — where **China** is investing massively to catch the West. The race is real. It is being run in English woods, on Australian coastlines, in laboratories that issue no press releases.

*I remember analysts who, in 2021, said AUKUS was mostly symbolic and that nothing concrete would emerge for decades. Three years later, AUKUS algorithms are running in Australian aircraft on active operations, and drone swarms are being tested in real conditions in England. Reality has overtaken the skeptics.*

## The Limits of AUKUS: What the Drones Cannot Do

### The submarine question: Pillar I's Achilles' heel

While **Pillar II** is advancing, **Pillar I** — the nuclear-powered submarines — remains much slower and more problematic. Australian analysts are publicly questioning **AUKUS**'s ability to keep pace with the rapidly expanding Chinese submarine fleet. An Australian **Sky News** program in June 2026 cited concerns that the future AUKUS submarines **"may not be able to keep pace"** with the Chinese fleet, whose quality and quantity are increasing simultaneously.

This concern is legitimate. The first Australian AUKUS submarine will not arrive until the 2030s. **China** will build dozens of submarines in that interval. The AUKUS response to this challenge — more underwater drones, more distributed sensors, a denser surveillance architecture — is sensible, but it does not fully replace the firepower of submarines.

### Beijing counter-maneuvering

**China** is not passively watching the development of AUKUS capabilities. It is itself investing massively in drone swarms, autonomous systems, and anti-access/area-denial capabilities. Its comparative advantage is **production speed** and **quantity**. Chinese drones are individually less sophisticated — but in sufficient numbers, they can saturate enemy defenses.

The **Salisbury** exercises tested a swarm of **six** drones. **China** has demonstrated swarms of several hundred units in military exhibitions. The quantitative gap is real. The AUKUS response bets on **quality, interoperability, and continuous innovation** rather than mass. That is a coherent strategy — but one that demands sustained and continuous investment that democracies must maintain despite the potential fatigue of their publics.

*The quantitative comparison of China versus AUKUS on drones concerns me. But the real question is not how many drones each side possesses — it is who can operate, train, and maintain them most effectively under real combat conditions. On that terrain, exercises like Salisbury have a value that raw numbers cannot capture.*

## Artificial Intelligence at the Heart of the Swarm: What the Drones Really Do

### Autonomous target recognition: the technological leap

The **AUKUS** exercise on **Salisbury Plain** was not simply a remote-piloting exercise. The key test concerned the ability of drones to identify, classify, and engage targets **autonomously**, with minimal human supervision. According to the communiqué from the **Australian Department of Defence**, the AI algorithms used integrated modules developed under the **P-8A AUKUS AI** program — a joint signal-processing and image-recognition project that exploits data collected by maritime patrol aircraft.

This level of autonomy raises legal and ethical questions that the three governments prefer to keep in the shadows for now. The **Geneva Conventions** and UN discussions on **LAWS** (Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems) have still not produced a binding treaty. In the meantime, the democracies developing these capabilities advance in a relative legal vacuum — granting themselves decisive operational advantages while carefully avoiding naming them for what they are: semi-autonomous killing machines.

### The difference between a drone and a swarm

A single drone is an intelligence platform or a guided weapon. A **swarm of six drones or more** coordinated by AI is a systemic weapon of a different nature: it can saturate enemy counter-drone defenses, cover far larger geographic areas, maintain continuous surveillance without interruption for recharging, and adapt its formation in real time to enemy countermeasures. The Ukrainian lesson is clear: anti-drone defenses such as **Gepard** systems or American **Counter-UAS** systems can shoot down individual drones. They are quickly overwhelmed against a coordinated swarm.

**AUKUS** is here testing a response to the drone swarm doctrine that **Russia** and especially **China** are actively developing. The **PLA** (People's Liberation Army) has showcased swarms of **200 to 1,000 drones** in publicized exercises. The **six drones** of **Salisbury** are a starting point, not a final answer. But the inter-allied coordination framework established — with **Australia**, the **United Kingdom**, and the **United States** sharing the same algorithms and the same command protocols — is the true strategic asset that no camera filmed.

*Six drones above Salisbury today. Perhaps six hundred above the Taiwan Strait in ten years. The technological trajectory is clear; the political question of if — and how — to use it is far less so. And that is what should keep us awake.*

## The AUKUS Submarine Program: More Than a Signal, a Strategic Revolution

### Australian nuclear submarines: timeline and realities

While drones made headlines at **Salisbury**, the true core of **AUKUS** continued advancing quietly: the transfer to **Australia** of conventional nuclear submarine capability (**CONV-NUKE**). According to the joint **Australia-United Kingdom** communiqué of **June 22, 2026**, the first **Virginia**-class submarine under the Australian flag should be operational by **2032**, with a permanent naval base at **HMAS Stirling** near Perth, in **Western Australia**.

This timeline is tight but credible according to naval experts. The **US Navy** has agreed to temporarily reduce its own orders for **Virginia**-class submarines to allow delivery of the first Australian examples, a significant political concession in a context where American shipyards are themselves under pressure. In parallel, the **AUKUS Underwater Drone** program funded at **£150 million** by the **United Kingdom** is developing autonomous underwater drones capable of patrolling the approaches to the **South China Sea** without exposing human crews.

### Why Perth and not Sydney: the strategic geography of AUKUS

The choice of **Perth** as the operational base is not incidental: it is the Australian city closest to the **Indian Ocean** and the straits of **Malacca** and **Sunda**, mandatory transit points for maritime trade between **Asia** and **Europe**. A submarine fleet based in **Perth** can monitor and, if necessary, deny those routes far more effectively than a fleet based on the eastern Australian coast. That is a geostrategic lesson the **Royal Australian Navy** did not need to relearn — the **Second World War** had already proven the critical importance of those straits.

For **China**, this projection of Australian submarine power is a direct threat to its **String of Pearls** strategy — its network of maritime bases and influence extending from the **South China Sea** to the **Indian Ocean**. **Beijing** has labeled the **AUKUS** agreement a **"Cold War mentality"** and a **"violation of non-proliferation obligations."** These are accusations that **Washington**, **Canberra**, and **London** firmly reject — but they reveal the intensity of Chinese anxiety in the face of this new strategic reality.

*We build submarines in Perth to monitor straits that most Westerners cannot even name. That is real geopolitics: not summit speeches, but tempered submarine steel slipping silently through waters no one sees.*

## The Political Limits of AUKUS: What the Partnership Does Not Resolve

### Southeast Asia caught between two fires

While **AUKUS** sends a strong signal to **Beijing**, it also generates deep ambivalence among the countries of **ASEAN** (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Major trading partners of **China** such as **Indonesia**, **Malaysia**, and **Vietnam** fear being forced to choose sides in a Sino-American confrontation they do not want. **Indonesia** officially protested **AUKUS** upon its announcement in **2021**, expressing concern about a nuclear arms race in the region. Those reservations have not disappeared in **2026**.

The **AUKUS** strategy bets on the clarity of the signal to **Beijing** while hoping that **Southeast Asian** countries will understand that their own security depends on a balance of power that prevents **China** from unilaterally dominating the region. That bet is not yet won. Several regional capitals — **Bangkok**, **Kuala Lumpur**, **Jakarta** — continue to believe that the best strategy is a careful equidistance between the two superpowers, which Westerners sometimes call **"active neutrality."**

### What AUKUS cannot replace: American diplomatic presence

The submarines and drones of **AUKUS** cannot replace American diplomatic and economic presence in **Asia**, which the **Trump** administration has significantly reduced since **2025**. The American withdrawal from **CPTPP** (Trans-Pacific Partnership), trade tensions with several **ASEAN** members, the reduction of **USAID** funding in the region — all of this erodes American influence in ways that joint military exercises cannot easily compensate.

**Beijing** is not merely building missiles and destroyers: it is financing ports, roads, universities, and hospitals throughout the region. The competition with **China** is therefore simultaneously military, economic, technological, and soft power. **AUKUS** responds effectively to the military dimension — it leaves the other three dimensions insufficiently covered. And in the long game being played for influence over **21st-century Asia**, ignoring those dimensions would be a major strategic error.

*You can have the best drones in the world and the most silent submarines in naval history — if you no longer have ambassadors in regional capitals, if you cut development aid, if you wage trade wars against potential allies, you still lose. Soft power remains irreplaceable, even in the age of swarms.*

## Conclusion: The Silent Signal That Resonates Across the Indo-Pacific

### Deterrence that does not speak loudly

What strikes me about the AUKUS exercises at **Salisbury** is their deliberate discretion. No flashy press conference. No spectacular videos posted on social media. A factual communiqué, a few quotes from soldiers and engineers, and that is it. It is the opposite of Chinese or North Korean strategic communication, which loves grand parades and launches filmed from every angle.

That discretion is itself a strategic choice. The AUKUS democracies do not need to provoke **Beijing** — they need to deter it. Deterrence works when the adversary knows you have the capabilities, without knowing exactly which ones and where. The **Salisbury** exercises serve that function: they exist, they are known, but their technical details remain in the shadows.

### A message Beijing hears loud and clear

**China** follows very closely the technological developments of its potential adversaries. It knows what **AUKUS** is testing. It knows what AI interoperability between **Australia**, the **United Kingdom**, and the **United States** means in terms of command resilience under combat conditions. It knows that the next generation of warfare is being decided in algorithms and autonomous swarms, not just in aircraft carriers and missiles.

The **Salisbury** exercises send a simple but powerful signal to **Beijing**: the democracies are adapting. They are learning. They are integrating the lessons of the war in **Ukraine** and recent conflicts in the **Gulf**. And they are doing it together, with an interoperability that authoritarian systems cannot easily replicate. That is the real answer to Chinese expansionism — not a loud answer, but a deep one.

*AUKUS may be the most important defensive partnership of the 21st century. Not because it is the strongest — but because it is the most carefully thought through. It marries cutting-edge technology, shared history, and political will in a coherent architecture. If the democracies hold the course, if they do not let themselves be divided by trade disputes or social media storms, this discreet signal sent from Salisbury will resonate for a long time.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Australian Defence — AUKUS partners test drone swarming tactics — June 22, 2026](https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/news/2026-06-22/aukus-partners-test-drone-swarming-tactics)

- [UK Government — Australia-UK Ministerial Consultations: joint statement, June 2026 — June 22, 2026](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/australia-uk-ministerial-consultations-joint-statement-june-2026/australia-uk-ministerial-consultations-joint-statement-june-2026)

- [Ground News / AUKUS — AUKUS Launches Underwater Drone Weapons Program — June 21, 2026](https://ground.news/article/aukus-launches-underwater-drone-weapons-program_18798d)

### Secondary sources

- [Bloomberg — Sea Drones Emerge as Crucial Weapon to Counter China's Power — June 24, 2026](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-24/sea-drones-emerge-as-crucial-weapon-to-counter-china-s-power)

- [NOSI — U.S. Asymmetric Aid Program Transfers Unmanned Vessels to the Philippines — June 24, 2026](https://nosi.org/2026/06/24/u-s-asymmetric-aid-program-transfers-unmanned-vessels-to-the-philippines-plans-attack-drone-transfer-by-2027/)

- [Sky News Australia — Concerns whether Australia's AUKUS submarines will be able to 'keep pace' with China's fleet — June 21, 2026](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvhSPQAhUYk)

- [Eurasia Business News — Defence: Germany joins France in the capital of KNDS — June 22, 2026](https://eurasiabusinessnews.com/2026/06/22/defence-germany-joins-france-in-the-capital-of-knds/)

-

---

Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/aukus-et-ses-drones-en-essaim-la-reponse-silencieuse-que-pekin-entend-tres-fort