AUKUS to help build our global defence enterprises

There was a lot of expectation around Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to the US last month and rightly so.

Nic Maan, vice president government solutions Asia-Pacific, KBR

There was a lot of expectation around Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to the US last month and rightly so.

AUKUS is the biggest defence partnership of its type undertaken by Australia. While there is an emerging narrative that “not much” is happening to progress the tripartite agreement, there is in fact a lot going on.

Congress is currently considering a raft of legislation that will pave the way for a stronger security and technology partnership with the UK and Australia.

Australia’s ambition is to become a “domestic source” like Canada, which would ease the current technology-sharing restrictions with Australia and the UK – an enormous roadblock for local companies wanting to access that market. These changes stand to benefit each nation and strengthen not only our deep relationship and shared values but also our ambition for rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond.

The sharing of world-leading defence technologies between the three nations under AUKUS has the potential to be the catalyst for leveraging our research and development and industrial capability, supporting both allied security and economic growth.

Until now, when operating in international markets, the US has understandably tended to favour the protection of its own domestic industrial interests underpinning its defence technologies and capabilities.

However, during the current discussions by congress, it is important that members don’t view the changes as “giving something away” but instead look to the industrial and security gains for all three partner nations. Working together, collective defences will be strengthened, economic prosperity will be enhanced.

A sticking point in discussions is understood to be the capacity of the US industrial base to support AUKUS on top of its own defence requirements. Australia and the UK also have challenges in filling the pipeline of highly skilled people needed.

AUKUS is an important reminder to all governments that despite domestic political differences, the support for our collective national and economic securities – and the freedom and safe passage of commerce and people – is broad-based and unwavering.

And while the congress discussion continues, the UK and Australian governments and industry partners are poised and ready to support AUKUS objectives and deliver the talent, technology and training required.

The knowledge sharing through the movement of suitably skilled people across our nations, enabled by appropriate security and visa protocols, will see our nations build a leading global defence enterprise that will help to maintain the rules-based global order that has delivered peace and prosperity for so many for so long.

Industry, academia and governments will ensure that world-leading technologies can be developed, enhanced and evolved for use across the US, UK and Australia to support changing and increasingly complex needs. The need for speed is paramount in an unstable geopolitical climate.

AUKUS’s Pillar 1 (the transfer and deployment of US nuclear submarine technology to Australia) and Pillar 2 (sharing and deploying advanced technology in support of the AUKUS mission) will arguably underpin the most important industrial change that we will see in our lifetime.

The imperative is clear, as are the enormous security and economic benefits for all three countries.

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Nic Maan is vice president of government solutions Asia Pacific for KBR.