Virginia-class submarine USS Minnesota under construction in Newport News. US Navy photo by Chris Oxley
HONOLULU — A new report calls on the Biden Administration to grant Australia a blanket exemption from the export restrictions known as ITAR, in order to remove a major roadblock that threatens the AUKUS military technology agreement.
“AUKUS represents a generational opportunity for Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States to deepen cooperation on defence industrial integration and technology development,” the report, from the United States Studies Center at the University of Sydney, states. “Yet, within the US system, antiquated legal and regulatory settings and a mindset that discounts the value of allied inputs into collective strategies threaten the realisation of the AUKUS agenda to its fullest potential.”
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States have all committed great diplomatic and financial capital to build nuclear-powered attack submarines, known as Pillar I of the AUKUS agreement. Co-authors Bill Greenwalt, one of America’s top experts on arms exports, and Tom Corben, a fellow at the center, argue that ITAR restrictions on Australia pose a threat to both that effort and to Pillar II, which includes research and development work on quantum computing, cyber, underwater drones and other advanced technologies.
The authors urge a two-pronged approach to removing ITAR restrictions, starting with with the executive order to speed things along and then having Congress cement those authorities into law.
Congress comes second because, while powerful lawmakers already support changes to the law, the Hill often wavers when faced with the prospect of “easing” arms export law. After all, no member of Congress wants to be blamed for “giving” technology to a competitor such as China or Russia. So meaningful export reform can take several years to pass. In the run-up to a presidential election, with numerous other major issues to deal with, it would be especially difficult.
“As quiet work begins on Pillar I … there is a distinct risk that any progress towards setting the optimal legal and regulatory conditions for AUKUS, particularly Pillar II, to function as intended will falter,” the report says. The executive order and subsequent legislation “are essential to achieving the nature and scale of US export control reforms required to make AUKUS a reality. Without them, the chances of failure are uncomfortably high.”
As an example of how ITAR can impact the non-nuclear submarine portions of AUKUS, the authors point to Australia’s Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordinance (GWEO) enterprise, meant to rapidly expand Australia’s domestic manufacture of munitions in light of the massive expenditure of munitions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That effort is likely to take years to get underway because two American companies were picked to lead it, the report says.
“By contrast, European munitions manufacturers have recently secured agreements with the Australian Government to locally manufacture precision anti-ship munitions, including through technology transfer programs, and estimate that local production lines could be set up in much shorter time frames than those above,” the report says.
There is energy around working the ITAR issue in elation to AUKUS. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., one of the leading voices in Congress when it comes to seapower, has championed an ITAR exemption for Australia. And the House of Representatives passed a bill in March requiring the State Department and Pentagon to provide lawmakers with information about the approvals needed for Australia to get its nuke boats.
Still, as Courtney wrote in an op-ed for Breaking Defense earlier this year, more work is needed: “We can’t sit around and wait for issues to appear — now is the time for my colleagues in the US and our international partners to work through these challenges.”
