Australia's defense minister is hoping to use a recently announced tripartite pact with the United States and the U.K. to build a foundation of "seamless" industrial bases between the three countries as they look to leverage a host of emerging technologies and capabilities.
Still, Richard Marles, who also serves as Australia’s deputy prime minister, acknowledged today the hurdles that exist to creating that ecosystem within the alliance, known as AUKUS. Potential obstacles include export controls, which some observers have said impeded closer integration for countries part of the National Technology and Industrial Base.
“We need to see a breaking down of barriers across all three countries in terms of developing a more seamless industrial base across the three countries, and it would be fair to say that the achievement of the aspirations of AUKUS are going to be tied up significantly with our success or not in being able to break down those barriers,” he told reporters during an event hosted by the Defense Writers Group at the Australian embassy.
Marles’ comments came during the new government’s first senior leader visit to Washington since taking office. Throughout the week, he’s met with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, as well as senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and other officials.
In those discussions, he said “a big theme” has been exploring to what extent officials can translate what they’ve identified as areas of collaboration under AUKUS "as a basis" for a smooth technology coalition and ecosystem across the countries’ industrial bases.
In particular, “a lot of substance of the meetings” in recent days have centered on the impediments that exist to doing that, Marles said, though he added those barriers aren’t exclusive to the U.S. system. The focus on removing those roadblocks, he noted, is “completely shared” within the administration, Congress and others.
“I’ve been really heartened, actually, by the degree to which there is this desire, really I think a shared mission, to build team,” he said.
The AUKUS deal, which began in fall 2021, chiefly seeks to facilitate access to sensitive U.S. submarine technology while giving Australia the go-ahead to acquire nuclear-powered submarines for the first time. But the partnership was broadened in April to include hypersonic and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as accelerating defense innovation and quickening information sharing.
The alliance’s announcement kicked off an 18-month “consultation” period to allow Australia to make plans to purchase a nuclear-powered submarine and unveil by March 2023 an “optimal pathway” for such a capability.
Marles said today officials are still on track to announce their selection of a platform in the first quarter of next year and that they are also planning to share the timeline for fielding that submarine and addressing any capability gap that may arise.
Part of the solution “inevitably,” he said, will be extending the lifespan of the Royal Australian Navy-operated Collins-class submarines, in addition to efforts to speed up the delivery cycle and grow the submariner base to expand the pool of operators.
“This is a fundamentally important national mission, and we have been anxious that the way in which this has been handled over the last decade has meant there is the prospect of a capability gap opening,” he said.
Despite the nuclear-powered submarine focus, Marles characterized the broader AUKUS agreement as “a technology alliance” that can allow closer collaboration surrounding emerging capabilities.
On hypersonics and counter-hypersonics in particular, which Marles called “a really significant priority,” he declined to give examples on joint efforts he’d like to see pursued or go into details on what officials have discussed in that area. It’s also unclear when the technology will take more of a front seat in the AUKUS deal.
“We are focused right now in relation to the submarines,” Marles said. “It would be fair to say that that is the bulk of the work which is being done under the banner of AUKUS."
Australia and the United States have a separate hypersonics partnership under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, known as the SCIFiRE joint program. An Air Force spokeswoman previously told Inside Defense that the service is working on a framework “to collaboratively leverage” Australia’s hypersonics testing infrastructure under that project.