I'm guessing why Australia is so important to have in a partnership is the uranium reserves, no? In addition to geopolitics of course.<p>Also, I would love to have the French as part of AUKUS (but that _would_ really mess up a great acronym). The reason being I'm impressed with the French's nuclear nuclear experience through power generation (although, it's been a bit stagnent the last 20+ years). I'm curious if this was just too complicated to broker for some reason (4 parties instead of 3) or there was another reason I'm missing. As the article points out, French submarine reactors use different fuel, which could be a reason, but that seems like something that could be figured out given that we're talking about a clean sheet design anyway.