An announcement coming soon
AUKUS progress: Richard Marles heads for Singapore where underwater drones on agenda
‘Marquee project’ on underwater vehicles to kickstart AUKUS pillar two
Australia, the United States and Britain are preparing to announce a significant collaboration on uncrewed underwater vehicles as part of AUKUS, a move that proponents hope will tamp down industry disquiet about the slow progress of the pact’s second pillar.The marquee project will be announced at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security conference, at the end of this month, according to multiple sources familiar with the plans who were not authorised to speak publicly.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth (left) and his Australian counterpart Richard Marles are expected to meet again at the Shangri-La Dialogue.Getty ImagesThree of the people said the project related to unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), which have recently been the focus of joint testing and maritime exercises by the three countries off Australia’s east coast.
One person familiar with the plans said the project would involve sharing critical payloads for a range of UUVs, such as submarine-detecting sensors, equipment or weapons. Such technologies would typically be classified.
Defence Minister Richard Marles is expected to meet his US and UK counterparts at next week’s Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.At an AUKUS roundtable at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on Tuesday, held under the Chatham House Rule, a person confirmed a significant statement on pillar two was expected at that meeting.
Now that the Pentagon’s review of AUKUS had been completed, “we are getting back to normal, we are getting back to business on delivering”, the person said.
The imminent announcement was also discussed at a recent AUKUS industry conference in Washington hosted by Pyne and Partners, the defence lobbying outfit founded by former defence minister Christopher Pyne.
“On the AUKUS pillar two signature project announcement – because it’s pre-decision, I can’t go into a huge amount [of detail] on that, but there’s already been more than one project discussed,” one person told the summit, also held under the Chatham House Rule.
“The idea is for it to be a drumbeat [for more projects]. The idea is that there will be both things that are relatively low-cost and high-production, in terms of scale, and other things that are going to be very high-cost but lower-batch quantities of items.”
The Pentagon declined to comment.