Global, Naval Warfare

Indo-Pacific Expo will look beyond AUKUS subs

This week kicks off the Indo-Pacific Exposition in Australia, a major gathering for defense players in the region. In this new analysis, Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute lays out what to expect at the conference — and what will be missing. 

Indo-Pacific naval and industry leaders meet in Sydney this week for the Indo-Pacific Exposition, amid growing concerns that AUKUS, the region’s signature defense initiative, is running out of steam. Despite substantial investment over the last decade, the US submarine industrial base is generating as much backlog as boats, leading US lawmakers to question the wisdom of selling a tenth of the operational US submarine fleet to Australia. On the other side of the Pacific, a chorus of Australian leaders is balking at the potential bill for a country of 26 million to field its own nuclear submarine force.

Given the lack of senior US officials attending, most of the arguments will likely focus on the practical problems of establishing nuclear maintenance facilities in Australia or ramping up US submarine production, instead of the strategic argument needed to sell AUKUS in both America and Australia: that the United States benefits from selling subs to Australia even if it reduces US inventory, because it permanently places more hulls forward at a time when US submarine availability is at an ebb.

And yet, with record setting attendance expected — organizers are claiming over 830 companies or organizations exhibiting and 21 nations represented — there will be plenty of AUKUS discussion worth paying attention to, even if it’s at a more tactical level, with a focus on advanced technologies expected.

The expo’s agenda is stuffed with discussions about how new technologies can transform the Australian Defence Force and those of its Southwest Pacific and Southeast Asian partners. Two of the expo’s three sub-conferences are focused on maritime technology, with one focusing on ships and shipbuilding and the other on uncrewed systems. This is arguably where most of the new ideas will emerge.

The Royal Australian Navy is in the midst of a complete recapitalization, of which the AUKUS submarine deal is one of the final elements. However, its fleet of about 50 ships and 16,000 personnel is small compared to the vast region it has to protect and the alliance operations it may need to support.

And demands on the RAN are only likely to grow, as the new Australian Defence Strategic Review highlighted. Australia’s sparsely-populated northern approaches are expected to be critical for supporting alliance air and naval operations in a confrontation with China, but sustaining a presence across thousands of miles of water will be impossible using the existing Australian fleet and air force.

AUKUS’ Pillar Two, which focuses on emerging technologies, offers a solution and will be a feature of the expo’s conferences. US and Australian companies are developing a panoply of uncrewed systems in the air and on or under the water to help address the capacity challenges faced by Australia’s military.

Although maritime domain awareness is what many of these companies are selling, an encouraging development is the focus on using uncrewed systems to deliver effects, combining various unmanned and crewed platforms in ways that could create dilemmas for an opponent like China. This is one goal of the new US Replicator initiative, and projects like the Boeing Australia Ghost Bat uncrewed aircraft or the C2 Robotics Speartooth and Anduril Ghost Shark uncrewed undersea vehicles could enable Australian power projection until the RAN can field its own nuclear submarines.

Relief on export controls is essential to AUKUS’ success, and ongoing efforts in the US Congress to formalize changes in technology transfer law will surely be a hot topic at the Indo-Pac Expo. Leaders in Washington are increasingly worried Australia could go it alone on unmanned systems and other technologies if the United States does not get its export controls in order. Systems like Ghost Bat, Speartooth and Ghost Shark are homegrown projects that Australia would like to share with the US military, but only if they don’t become technology-transfer hostages, unable to return to their creators. (While Boeing and Anduril are both US firms, they have developed these particular systems for Australia first.)

Charting the course

From the Australian perspective, the most eagerly-awaited presentations at Indo-Pac are about Canberra’s plans for the future fleet. The Defense Strategic Review marked a substantial change in priorities for the Australian military, with traditional ground formations and equipment being deemphasized in favor of naval and air forces and emerging technologies.

To implement the DSR’s direction, the Australia DoD is conducting a force structure assessment and the RAN’s portion—focused on the surface and amphibious fleet — is reportedly wrapping up. Industry leaders, navalists and allies will be looking for indications at Indo-Pac of how the RAN will rebalance the fleet between now and 2035 to counter the growing challenges from China and climate change.

The Australia DoD is also changing its approaches to acquisition and innovation, taking a page from recent US efforts with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), and processes like the Middle Tier of Acquisition. The DSR established a new Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator in the Australia DoD with responsibilities similar to those of the US DIU and SCO. Charged with speeding up the introduction of new technologies and providing an on-ramp for commercial suppliers, ASCA will likely be at the center of the Australian military’s efforts to innovate under AUKUS Pillar Two.

With most eyes on Europe and the Middle East, the headlines out of Indo-Pac may not get above the fold in US newspapers. However, given the importance of Australia to countering Chinese aggression and the goal of seamless innovation between the US, UK, and Australian militaries, what happens in Sydney this week may be more impactful to the long-term course of the US-China competition.

Bryan Clark is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute