Austin, AUKUS partners announce Pillar II plans: Maritime exercises, DIU challenges, industry forums

Breaking Defense says the State Department also cleared a potential sale of $2bn-worth of training-related equipment to Australia for the nuclear-powered submarine portion of the AUKUS arrangement known as Pillar I. Caliber.Az reprints the report.

The top defense officials from the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia today announced a raft of new initiatives associated with the AUKUS security pact’s second pillar, focused on trilateral maritime exercises and opportunities to engage industry from all three countries.

“Again and again AUKUS proves that we are stronger together,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a joint press conference, flanked by United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps and Australia’s Minister for Defence Richard Marles. “And every day we move closer to our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Just before the defense leaders addressed the public, the State Department said it had approved a potential foreign military sales case to Australia for various articles and services related to AUKUS Pillar I, which is focused on the provision of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The potential sale is valued at an estimated $2 billion.

“The sale will advance the AUKUS trilateral agreement by providing the equipment to train Royal Australian Navy crews in areas such as submarine navigation, communications, ship control, and other capabilities,” according to the announcement. “Additionally, it will also provide the means to train select Australian civilians and contractors at the United States naval shipyards. This trained workforce will grow Australia’s submarine capability, which is expected to ultimately incorporate technologies from all three AUKUS partner nations.”

Marles also said today the “most significant maintenance” of an American nuclear-powered submarine will occur in Australia in the third quarter of next year, which “will crystallize the development that needs to be occurring in terms of both infrastructure and skills within our workforce and our submariner base.”

But, he said, “In terms of today’s meeting, it is actually Pillar II, which has taken center stage. … I think today’s meeting will be regarded as a critical moment in the history of Pillar II of AUKUS and that is the sharing and development of advanced technologies between our three countries.”

The second pillar of AUKUS revolves around jointly developing and employing advanced technologies such AI and autonomy, advanced cyber and electronic warfare. Among the new initiatives announced was a maritime autonomous experiment and exercise series. (Perhaps a sign of the focus on advanced tech, the trilateral meeting took place at the US military’s Defense Innovation Unit in Mountain View, Calif. )

“This effort will consist of a series of integrated trilateral activities aiming to enhance capability development and improve interoperability,” a senior US defense official told reporters ahead of the press conference. “Experiments and exercises will also provide opportunities for defense industry to participate in capability demonstrations, development and delivery.”

“These exercises and experiments will demonstrate the tangible impact of AUKUS,” the official added.

The official said an example of a specific capability under development as part of AUKUS is deploying “common artificial intelligence algorithms” on platforms such as the P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft to gather and process large amounts of data collected by sonobuoys deployed by the three countries.

Austin and his counterparts also announced an “innovation challenge series” in which private industry from any of the three countries can participate. The senior official did not offer specifics in terms of funding available but did say the first challenge will focus on electronic warfare and is expected to be announced in more detail by DIU in early 2024.

“We view enhancing our electronic warfare capabilities as critical from the perspective of all of our defense strategies, and it’s an area that we’ve been working together on in AUKUS,” the official said.

The three defense leaders will establish an industry forum “to help inform policy, technical and commercial frameworks to facilitate the development and delivery of advanced capabilities. The first meeting of that industry forum will occur in the first half of 2024,” according to the official.

The trio also confirmed that the US, Australia and the UK are creating a joint radar network for enhancing space domain awareness, with each home to one of three planned sites for the US Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC).

“In the coming years, our nations will be creating a global radar network, bringing together three ground base stations, one in each of our countries,” Shapps said. “Radars more sensitive, more accurate, more powerful and agile than anything that has gone before giving us the ability to see beyond the clouds to detect, identify and track in space, up to 22,000 miles away.”

DARC is being developed by Northrop Grumman under a February 2022 contract to provide global monitoring of geosynchronous orbit 24/7 in all kinds of weather and during daylight. The trilateral network is apart from but will support Pillar II of the AUKUS agreement, and help the allies keep tabs on potentially Chinese and Russian spacecraft.

The announcements around the advancement of Pillar II come as the Pentagon awaits action from lawmakers to advance multiple pieces of legislation that the Defense Department says is crucial to allowing AUKUS to move forward. Among those proposals are changes to laws governing which foreign countries are permitted to access advanced technologies held by the Pentagon, also called the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

The defense official said that while the Pentagon is hopeful that Congress will enact its proposals, the exercises and capabilities announced by Austin and his counterparts today are already permissible under current laws, meaning unexpected hiccups on Capitol Hill should not impede progress.