ON SEPTEMBER 15, 2021, Australia, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (U.S.) entered into a trilateral security partnership to promote a free, open safe and secure Indo-Pacific region. The AUKUS partnership is comprised of two pillars. Pillar 1 (Progress) establishes a greater submarine presence in Australia and enables Australia’s development of an organic nuclear attack submarine force. Pillar 2 (Development) is a collaborative and innovative engagement among the three nations to develop advanced military technologies.
To achieve its goals, AUKUS will need to establish a global network of trusted public-private partnerships across the three nations, who are all at various stages of IT infrastructure modernization and transformation, that prioritizes the strategic use and scaling of technology.
PILLAR 1 PROGRESS
To advance Pillar 1, in 2021 the three nations signed the Exchange of Naval Nuclear Propulsion Information Agreement (ENNPIA) treaty. By sharing this nuclear technology, Australia will become only the seventh nation in the world with nuclear submarines (in addition to the U.S., UK, France, India, Russia, and China). With the omnipresent threat that China poses to the Indo-Pacific theater, with its growing Navy and other advanced military capabilities, the development of an Australian undersea fleet is an essential element to safeguarding the freedom and security of the region.
Also, in December 2021, the AUKUS Defense Ministers announced progress in Royal Australian Navy and industry submarine-related training and greater U.S. SSN port visits to HMAS Stirling, which will eventually include maintenance visits. These initiatives lay the groundwork for Australia to build their first SSN in the early 2040s.
In some ways, Australia has an advantage in developing its nuclear submarine fleet. While facing significant labor force and skills challenges, Australia is a greenfield for development, generally unincumbered by the need to address outdated processes and methodologies. With modern IT processes, virtual reality training, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and other advanced support capabilities, Australia can more effectively and efficiently build the required workforce, educational pathways, and accompanying infrastructure, with the ability to accept support from the U.S. and the U.K.
In short, while the U.S. is in the middle of its IT modernization journey and challenged to leverage digital labor technology to address some of its labor shortages, Australia has the capability to optimize its workforce at the outset, in partnership with U.S. digital transformation efforts, an example of which is depicted in Smart Shipyards Are Essential to Navy SIOP Transformation: A Digital Backbone Is Critical To Force Generation and On-Time Deployment of Ships [USNI Proceedings, April 2024].
PILLAR 2 DEVELOPMENT
While Pillar 1 will increase needed SSN presence in the Indo-Pacific in the near and far term, Pillar 2 is also critical to accelerating the development and scaling of advanced technology to maintain our narrowing military advantage. Foremost among the advanced capabilities listed are AI and quantum applications, both critical
to achieving information and decision advantage. Other critical advanced capabilities include undersea capabilities, advanced cyber, hypersonic and counter hypersonic capabilities, electronic warfare, innovation, and information sharing.
In a 2023 report, Strengthening the Future of the AUKUS Partnership, IBM’s Center for the Business of Government outlined three imperatives to effectively adopt these advanced capabilities.
- Put data at the heart of decision making
- Accelerated innovation and pull-through with deeper digital collaboration and skill development
- Harness and enable the AUKUS-wide industrial ecosystem
The first imperative, harnessing data and sound data management through complex systems, is intrinsic to all of the advanced capabilities that Pillar 2 seeks to achieve. Similarly, the second imperative, accelerated innovation, runs across all capabilities, not simply the AI and quantum computing capabilities. The chart to the right from IBM’s Center for Business of Government maps these advanced capabilities to the critical challenges of decision superiority, systems commonality, innovation pull through, industry collaboration, and skills building.
Fulfilling these three imperatives will require “Global public-private partnerships, built in a collaborative fashion and using company footprints in each of the partner countries” leading a series of country-specific industry partnerships that can be shared across the ecosystem.
AUKUS will require support from industry with practical expertise, established thought leadership and teams on the ground across all three nations, as well as demonstrated success in areas such as business process automation, predictive program management, workforce capacity analytics, supplier risk sensing and other expertise. Also as mentioned earlier, sound data management and governance coupled with responsible and trusted generative AI and, in the future, quantum computing will be critical to success.
As the IBM report states, AUKUS would benefit from a combined approach to determining where and how generative AI can deliver real value to the defense enterprise and harness the power of data and AI technologies to improve its capabilities, sustain the resiliency of autonomous and AI-enabled systems, respond to emerging threats, and maintain its advantage in a rapidly evolving environment.
In addition to accelerating quantum position, navigation, and timing, quantum safe technology is required for AUKUS partners to begin the process of protecting their nations’ data, including nuclear secrets. As tracked by Quantum Insider, at roughly $15 billion, China doubles the public spending on quantum computing research and development compared to the U.S., UK and Australia combined. AUKUS needs to better leverage its private industry quantum technologies leadership and apply increased resources to adopting the technologies in support of Pillar 2.
Lastly, a key consideration for the success of AUKUS’s public-private partnership initiatives is the proven ability to navigate government processes, policies and bureaucracy to efficiently and effectively overcome obstacles and identify and mitigate risks, including the legislative, regulatory, and defense institutions in each country. Ultimately, AUKUS must be more than the sum of its parts, but rather a synergistic symphony of governments and businesses working across boundaries and with allies and partners to achieve the goal of long-term safety and security in the Indo-Pacific.