Australian Defence

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence 5/30/23 Australian Interviews in the Wake of the 30 March 2023 Seminar By Dr. Robbin F. Laird, Research Fellow, The Sir Richard Williams Foundation

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 1 Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence AUSTRALIAN INTERVIEWS IN THE WAKE OF THE 30 MARCH 2023 SEMINAR Introduction........................................................................................................................................... 2 Deterrence in Shaping Australia’s Path in the Global Transition.......................................................... 6 Shaping a Way Ahead for the RAAF .................................................................................................... 7 Triton’s Role in Australian Defense and Deterrence ............................................................................. 9 Agile Basing and Endurability as a Key Deterrent Capability ............................................................ 12 The Role of Geography in the Direct Defence of Australia ................................................................. 13 Force Distribution, Sustainment and Logistical Support: A Major Challenge Facing the ADF............. 15 Deterrence in Shaping Australia’s Path in the Global Transition........................................................ 17 Australia in the New Strategic Environment: The Australian-Japanese Relationship Within in an Evolving Deterrent Context ................................................................................................................. 18 Rethinking Sustainable Defence Forces: A Discussion with Dr. Alan Dupont .................................... 19 The Role of Maritime Autonomous Systems: Mission Thread Capabilities to Meet the Needs of Modern Warfare .................................................................................................................................. 21 Australia’s Joint Operations Command: The Perspective of Air Vice-Marshal Michael Kitcher......... 23 The Key Elements of Deterrence in Dealing with the Chinese Challenge: A Discussion with Ross Babbage.............................................................................................................................................. 25 An Update on the Ghost Shark ........................................................................................................... 27 Shaping a Way Ahead in Integrated ISR Enablement for the ADF: The Coming of Triton .................. 28 Maritime Autonomous Systems Providing Mission Threads for Australian Defence and Security: The Case of the Bluebottle USV ................................................................................................................. 30 The Role of the Australian Army in the Way Ahead for Australian Deterrence Strategy.................... 34

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 2 INTRODUCTION The Williams Foundation seminar held on 30 March 2023 was placed between the important AUKUS submarine announcement and the release of the Australian government’s strategic defence review. We focused in that seminar on the question of the Australian focus on deterrence in the context of the significant shift in the strategic situation due to changing role of China in the region and beyond. As chief of Army, Lt. General Simon Stuart put it clearly at the seminar: “Pax-Americana was an historic anomaly. The norm in human history is a violent transfer of power from one empire to another – and 14 of the 16 transitions between empires in human history have involved wars. “We live in an era that might be described as post-peak globalisation. Understanding how the international system works, what the great economic or trading blocks are, is an endeavour we need to understand. “There are a range of theories, but personally I like Parag Khanna’s new regionalism model because it emphasises partnerships, and partnerships within the context of regional blocks from an economic perspective – but also from the other elements of national power, which are in the ascendancy in the global system today. “To some of our more recent history and the thinking from the 1980s that shaped our national security and defence policy, strategy, and practice over the last 30 years. “The thinking that we do today, and the decisions that our elected representatives make today, will influence our policy and practice over the next few decades. “That thinking, in my view, failed to engage with the world as it was, failed to engage with globalisation, either refused to engage or didn’t recognise pretty much everything we’ve actually been doing these past few decades. “It was defensive and inward looking. “And finally, the wars we’ve been involved in, the wars we’ve been fighting over the last 20 years, the socalled ‘wars of choice’, did not touch Australia and did not touch Australians. “They were a Defence endeavour, involving only the military element of our national power, and largely an ADF endeavour. They did not touch the society we live in.” In our upcoming September 2023 seminar, we will be focusing on concrete tasks the ADF must address in the strategic shift. In anticipation of that focus, I conducted a number of interviews after the seminar with senior ADF officials and with Australian analysts specifically with regard to the tasks facing the country in the next two to five years. I continued on to Honolulu and conducted similar interviews with PACFLEET and PACAF with regard to the same questions as well. In this report, I have brought together the Australian interviews which represent the transition from our first seminar of 2023 and the next one. They are presented in terms of the date published along with the title if the interview as published on that date. Deterrence in the evolving strategic situation facing Australia was the main theme of the seminar. Several of the interviews continued the discussion of this key theme. Dr. Andrew Carr emphasized that Australia due to its history has not really focused on shaping a deterrent strategy from its national perspective. Ross Babbage has recently published a book which looks at the broad challenges facing Australia and its allies in deterring

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 3 China, with a clear emphasis on needing to build strategic depth and endurance for the fighting forces, but also the need for a national security strategy, not just a defence strategy for Australia. Another key aspect of deterrence is effective working with core allies. Although AUKUS has garnered the headlines, Australia needs to work with other key allies and partners in the region if there is a primary focus is on extended direct defence of Australia. In the discussion with Professor Fruehling, we focused on the Australian-Japanese relationship as a key part of the Australian defence future. A second theme is the question of how Australia can provide strategic depth for its own defence and within its broader alliance structure. Here Dr. Carr addressed the question of the role of geography in the direct defence of Australia. The Air Commander of Australia in his interview the imperative and the challenges facing the RAAF and the joint force to do so. The Chief of Army, Lt. General Stuart underscored how crucial the Army was for Australian defence notably when considering how to leverage Australian geography for direct defence and when considering the projection of joint force. And with heightened role of working in the neighborhood, the Army is a key player within ADF or whole of government strategies. A third theme was the changes in terms of the RAAF’s role and capabilities to operate in the new deterrent situation. As Air Marshal Chipman noted: Air Marshal Chipman: “My three key priorities are readiness, resilience and resourcefulness. We are shifting our focus from delivering new capabilities through a 10-year acquisition cycle, to integrating the capability we have in service today, to deter actions here and now. “I have to fight with what I have, and that is as much about tactics, techniques, and procedures that we employ as it is about the equipment we buy now. Air Force is in a relatively good position. We have bought good equipment for 20 years, so it is not as if we are starting at a position of significant disadvantage. We now have to make sure we can employ what have, and what we might add, optimally at any moment.” A key aspect of the evolving alliance situation in facing the China challenge is how the core allies Japan, Australia and the United States actually will craft more effective use of the air, maritime and land baes they use over the Pacific thought of as an extended operational space. If the three countries can work creatively land basing, with seabasing, with air basing with the use of new autonomous systems they can field and evolve an effective force for the long game of competition with China. Certainly, from this perspective, I would view Australia is the strategic reserve of the broader alliance. As Chipman commented: “I haven’t heard it described that way. But I think that’s what we are working towards. I think that’s the mindset that we have. The idea that Australia provides strategic depth for forces moving forward, is absolutely part of our thinking.” A key capability enhancement going ahead is in the domain of ISR/C2. Here the interviews focused on Triton as a contributor to shaping the overall strategic shift in this area. As Jake Campbell noted: “In my talk, I emphasized the need to have a layered ISR capability, which is from space to undersurface, and everything in between. There is no one capability that will do everything for you in terms of intelligence collection. “Space provides some capability, but obviously there’s limitations in the sense that it’s very predictable. Whereas Triton still has the advantage of perspective by operating well above 50,000 feet. It is also persistent, and it has uncertainty in terms of an adversary understanding when it might be in the area of operation, so that’s a significant advantage, the ability to operate at range for an extended period, at the time and choosing of the operator.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 4 “And with the increase in the submarine threat, you want P8 to be focusing on that mission, much more so than then just doing standard ISR missions. Triton frees up the P8 to be able to go and focus on more of the ASW and other high end warfighting missions.” Wing Commander Keirin Joyce, Program Chief Engineer RPAS (MQ-4C Triton) for the RAAF broadened the discussion. “Wing Commander Joyce highlighted that with the U.S. Navy and the RAAF both operating the Triton, working cooperative operations can clearly be envisaged as Australia and the U.S. Navy will compliment areas of operations of significance to both countries to enhance the ISR/C2 capabilities of both. And as the ADF builds out its longer-range strike capabilities, having the Triton as an asset to assist in the targeting process will be important as well. In short, Triton comes at a key time in the evolution of ADF capabilities to enable longer-range effects from Australia out into the region. Joyce commented that what will be interesting to note ‘is this enough’? He thinks Australia will need even more assets, and uncrewed/automated/autonomous assets are probably the answer in the current challenging climate of attracting and retaining workforce.” The focus of the ADF in shaping a way ahead is clearly on enhanced ability to operate an integrated force to maximise its combat and deterrent effect. Air Vice-Marshal Michael Kitcher discussed in his interview what this entails in the shift from the Middle East to prioritising the Indo-Pacific for the ADF. A theme discussed at the seminar was the core challenge of crafting a more sustainable force which will require much more than building out the ADF and its supplies: it is a question of societal resilience. Alan Dupont in his interview underscored: “I think we should move away from this defense industrial base language which can be very clunky and 20th century. People think in terms of big factories and production and development cycles of 20 years. We need a very different focus.” Captain David Beaumont focused on the challenge of having logistical and sustainment capabilities which would make the ADF a sustainable force as opposed to what Babbage fears the current state is simply having “a one-month force.” Finally, I focused on the key challenges facing acquisition to become much more capable of rapid adjustments. I focused on the one area where this both possible and necessary in the short term – maritime autonomous systems. CDR Cavanagh highlighted the nature of the transition and Anduril and Ocius provide two Australian examples of his assessment of the transition. Much needs to be done in the short and middle term to achieve the strategic shift necessary for Australia and its allies. After my time in Australia, I went to Honolulu for meetings with PACFLEET and PACAF which were follow up to meetings with MARFORPAC in 2021. My conclusion from those meetings as well as my time in Australia is as follows: Since 2018, the U.S. military has been reworking their defense operations in the Pacific to enhance the survivability of their forces and by so doing working a path to deter their adversaries from believing they could significantly degrade the U.S. military to a point where rapid escalation dominance could be assured by them. In effect, the operational strategy is a combination of three key approaches: force distribution; shaping ISR and C2 capabilities whereby distributed forces can operate as combat clusters able to cross-leverage fires to create the desired effects; and counter-ISR capabilities which degrade the adversaries targeting capability raising significant doubts about their ability to attrite enough of the U.S. forces as to make a decisive difference.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 5 Combined with this operational approach has been an expanded cooperation with core allies. What the Chinese have successful done is to activate the core players in the Pacific to enhance their national military capabilities along with enhanced exercises and training with each other and the United States to place the distributed force within the context of a distributed alliance structure as well. What generally has not been realized is that concept of operations changes are strategic in character and will require significant changes in platform and payload acquisition in the future, new logistical support capabilities, new approaches to sustainment, supply locations and “basing,” as well as fully embracing the autonomous systems revolution to add the expendable, the numerous and the much less costly platform/payload combination. How do you take the con-ops revolution underway and shape the resulting force into a more enduring one? How do you supply such a force? With what do you supply it? How do you build cross-national production and distribution for the disparate national capabilities and forces? The thinking from the operational forces needs to drive force design and force development, rather than think tanks and acquisition officials remote from the operating forces. As payloads change – new weapons, new sensors, new approaches to cloaking forces, new ways to disrupt the adversary’s society and dominate their decision cycles – rapid acquisition is required. How rapidly can the acquisition system and its slow-paced process of development be put aside to do so. The changes occurring in Pacific operations are dramatic; the recognition of the impacts of these changes has not been.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 6 DETERRENCE IN SHAPING AUSTRALIA’S PATH IN THE GLOBAL TRANSITION 18 April 2023 As global conflict continues apace, and Australia navigates its way ahead, there is a clear desire to defend Australia’s interests and to deter actions by China which significantly undercut those interests. But what does Australia wish to deter? How does it do so? And how does it work its allied and partner relationships in conjunction with defining its new relationship with China? During my current trip to Australia, I had a chance to discuss these questions with Dr. Andrew Carr of Australian National University. We started by focusing on the salience of deterrence and its discussion and debate in Australia to shaping Australia’s way ahead in dealing with China. Carr: “What are we deterring China from doing? This is not just a military task. We need to address it publicly, both to gain ongoing support from the public but also to clarify what we expect from government coordination across the whole of government to deter China. “Deterrence is very new in the Australian experience. We have been part of a Western coalition for a very long time, but we have never had to do the kind of messaging and communication which is a crucial part of deterrence. There is not a lot of muscle memory in Australia for deterrent discourse.” China has become a different kind of competitor and adversary and partner as it changed from the reform years and building its economy to that of the China under President Xi who is combining elements of power to shape the global system more in the Chinese image. What will Australia accept in working with its main trade partners? And what will it not? What role will foreign students from China play in Australian universities? What actions by China are clearly to be countered? Which tolerated? Which ignored? All of this is part of shaping deterrent language and narrative. What tools does Australia need to deter against which types of actions? Where does the military fit into a broader deterrent effort involving broader Australia economic, social, cultural, information and security interests? Carr’s key point s that such questions need to be central to Australian debate and consideration, and regularly so. There are ongoing considerations of what is to be deterred and what means need to be developed to do so. Carr concluded our conversation by highlighting a central problem facing Western policy makers. Simply put, with the end of the Cold War and the seeming end of history and the victory of liberal democracy underwritten by the United States, policy makers saw the rules-based order as global with little clarity with regard to what are core versus peripheral interests. The term global commons came into vogue and suggested a global interdependent order in which interests were dictated by the need to deal with the gaps in the seams wherever and whenever they occurred. Deterrence is national in character and to be effective requires clarity with regard to core interests versus peripheral interests. It also requires a realistic sense of limits. What can the nation actually do that will be seen as credible by the adversary? And will the nation have the will to do so? As Carr put it: “The gray zone challenge comes from this global lack of clarity. With our “rules-based order” language, we tend to suggest that everything in the status quo is of interest for the West. Chinese actions in the South China Sea and Russia’s actions in Crimea in 2014, called our bluff.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 7 “Deterrence is then a policy of limits as well as focus. But it cannot remain a policy only pursued by the military, while absent from the discussions of the political class and the public” The China relationship shaped in the past two decades cannot continue; but what kind of relationship can it be? What are its limits and what are the paths of cooperation and the focus of deterrence? SHAPING A WAY AHEAD FOR THE RAAF 4 April 2023 I have known Air Marshal Chipman since he was the first co-chair of Plan Jericho. My first interview with him was with his co-chair Jake Campbell, now of Northrop Grumman. In that first interview conducted in their offices in 2015, the emphasis was taking the coming of the F-35 as a forcing function of the joint force to create what was identified in later seminars as a fifth generation enabled force. “In effect, the blending of strike with situational awareness within a distributed C2 environment is one of the key targets of the Plan Jericho effort. And reshaping the template for operations in light of the coming of the F-35 makes sense as a C2/ISR fighter comes into the force, playing a catalytic role for further change, notably in a force which is being reconfigured to a more effective 21st century combat force.” Now as Chief of the RAAF, the challenge is to reap the advantages of that transition to deal with new strategic situation facing Australia and its allies and to build effective short to midterm change for the ADF with its allies but in way that would lead to successful deterrence in the long term. Much like the original focus of Plan Jericho was to work on the foundation of change, that challenge remains central for the RAAF. After his participation in the Williams seminar on the future paths of deterrence, I had a chance to sit down with Air Marshal Chipman in his office to expand on his views about the challenges and the way ahead for his air force and the ADF. I started by raising the point that the other air force commander who spoke at the seminar was General Wilsbach, the U.S. Pacific Air Force Commander. I noted that General Wilsbach has come to several Williams Foundation Conferences, the first being when he was 11th Air Force Commander. His interest in working with Australia is suggestive of the evolving U.S. relationship with the ADF and in particular the RAAF relationship with PACAF. It is not widely known that General Wilsbach has an Australian Deputy Commander, which reflects the nature of the evolving relationship. Air Marshal Chipman: “General Wilsbach has been a fantastic partner for Australia. He has been interested in our evolution and commits a lot of his time and his intellectual firepower to working with us. He has created a position for an Australian Deputy Commander in his headquarters. We are very fortunate to have someone who recognizes the value of our strategic partnership.” It also important to respect differences in terms of allied cultures and objectives in crisis situations. I wrote an essay in my new book Defense XII precisely on the question of recognizing differences and working relationships among the AUKUS partners, for example. Air Marshal Chipman prior to becoming air chief had some experience in Europe working with various allies and organizations and brings that experience to his current job. He noted: “In terms of our relationship with PACAF, for example, we need to understand what his ambitions are, what his needs are and how we partner to support him. At the same, we need to both understand and convey our requirements for independent operations as well. We need to be clear what part of our defense effort is focused on supporting the alliance and what part is prioritizing sovereign capability.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 8 Alliance relationships are best understood as overlapping circles in a Venn diagram dynamically evolving in shaping capabilities and commitments, rather than being cast simply in historical terms. I then turned to the F-35 and the question of moving beyond simple interoperability. The promise of the F-35 as an international program has been to operate as a forcing function for a kind of interoperability which we have not seen before. But this promise has not been fully realized. I asked the Air Marshal for his thoughts on this challenge. Air Marshal Chipman: “The F-35 enterprise has the potential to be a forcing function for working together much more closely and effectively. The common threats we are facing are driving us to work more closely together. We will be incrementally disadvantaged over time if we are not. If the F-35 does play a forcing function, we will see this in our ability to provide collective logistics support and operate the aircraft as a common fleet.” I reminded him of what General Carlyle when he was PACAF hoped to see in the future. In a 2015 interview I did with Carlisle, this is what he hoped would happen: “General Carlisle was asked what would be the impact of a fleet of F-35s (allied and US) upon a Commander of PACAF a decade out. “It will be significant. Instead of thinking of an AOC, I can begin to think of an American and allied CAOC (Combined Air Operations Center). By sharing a common operating picture, we can become more effective tactically and strategically throughout the area of operations.” The coalition aspect is crucial for the ADF. But Chipman emphasized that such cooperation was crucial in deterring the big conflict but will not eliminate the need to manage the spectrum of conflict. To operate across the spectrum of conflict requires capabilities across that spectrum to deal with different conflict or crisis situations. This is how Air Marshal Chipman put it: “As I highlighted in my presentation last week at the Williams Foundation Seminar, there is strength in numbers to deter the worst possible outcomes but such an approach will not by itself prevent smaller scale coercion. We have to be prepared as a middle power to deal with actions from the adversary that will not trigger a broader alliance response, but nonetheless are important to us.” I then turned to the question of what are his priorities for the short to mid-term. Air Marshal Chipman: “My three key priorities are readiness, resilience and resourcefulness. We are shifting our focus from delivering new capabilities through a 10-year acquisition cycle, to integrating the capability we have in service today, to deter actions here and now. “I have to fight with what I have, and that is as much about tactics, techniques, and procedures that we employ as it is about the equipment we buy now. Air Force is in a relatively good position. We have bought good equipment for 20 years, so it is not as if we are starting at a position of significant disadvantage. We now have to make sure we can employ what have, and what we might add, optimally at any moment.” A key aspect of the evolving alliance situation in facing the China challenge is how the core allies Japan, Australia and the United States actually will craft more effective use of the air, maritime and land baes they use over the Pacific thought of as an extended operational space. If the three countries can work creatively land basing, with seabasing, with air basing with the use of new autonomous systems they can field and evolve an effective force for the long game of competition with China. Certainly, from this perspective, I would view Australia is the strategic reserve of the broader alliance.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 9 As Chipman commented: “I haven’t heard it described that way. But I think that’s what we are working towards. I think that’s the mindset that we have. The idea that Australia provides strategic depth for forces moving forward, is absolutely part of our thinking.” He underscored that an alliance that could take advantage of the multiple basing solutions which I highlighted, noting that would take “distributed logistics to the next level, where we need to be.” TRITON’S ROLE IN AUSTRALIAN DEFENSE AND DETERRENCE 6 April 2023 I have followed the progress of Triton in the coming of the 21st century U.S. Navy kill web enterprise for some time. The first interview I did focusing on Triton was during a 2011 visit to San Diego. In an interview with Commander Johansson, the P-3 commander looked towards the future: “I’m not a big fan of calling them unmanned anymore. I call them remotely piloted, because it takes a lot of people to operate these systems. We moved to the family of systems (BAMS and P-8) because we felt that we could move some of the persistent ISR capabilities to a more capable platform, BAMS. “BAMS long dwell time can provide the persistence necessary more efficiently than a rotation of P-8 24/7/365. Also, if we used P-8 to do that we would have to increase squadron manpower to give them the necessary crews to fly 24/7 MDA in addition to the ASW/ASUW missions. We hope to have 5 orbits flying 24/7/365 to cover the maritime picture were required. The great thing about BAMS and P-8 is that they can work together to meet the COCOMS requirements.” That was in 2011 and through visits to Norfolk and to Jax Navy in more recent periods, I have been able to document the standup of this teaming arrangement by the U.S. Navy to create a whole new capability in delivering layered ISR for the fleet. In fact, it is a major part of why the Navy is able to craft a maritime kill web force. As we wrote in our book on the subject: “The U.S. Navy is crafting a significant paradigm shift, one which we call the kill web. In some ways, this shift is akin to the famous comment in a play by the 17th-century French playwright Molière that Monsieur Jourdain has been speaking prose for all his life but not knowing that he had. The kill web shift with the current force lays down a foundation from which to incorporate new platforms and technologies over the next phase of maritime force operations and development. No better case in point is the maritime patrol reconnaissance force. “This is a force which was defined by the P-3 anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft flying “alone and unafraid” to its displacement by a “family of systems” which work together to deliver distributed but integratable kill webs capabilities to the force, both naval and joint. And as this “family of systems” shapes a new ecosystem working with the fleet, that ecosystem shapes key challenges which need to be resolved as part of the expansion of maritime autonomous systems or passive sensors added to platforms throughout the fleet.”[1] But the U.S. Navy is not doing this alone and as one U.S. Navy Admiral referred to their global partnerships as shaping “kill web matesmanship.” No force in the world is more important in this journey than the ADF. But the ADF, unlike the U.S., does not have a naval air force; they have an air force which operates in an integrated fashion with its Navy.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 10 During one visit to Australia, I went to the base where the ADF is building the operational facility integrating P-8 with Triton. In 2017, I visited RAAF Edinburgh, which is near Adelaide in South Australia and I had a chance to discuss the standup of the base and to look at the facilities being built there. Now six years later, I was able to get an update on the Triton piece of the effort from Jake Campbell, Triton Program Director, Northrop Grumman Australia. At the recent Williams Foundation on the way ahead for the Australian deterrence effort, Campbell provided an overview on how layered ISR capabilities provide Australia with deterrence capabilities across the spectrum of the deterrence options. During the presentation, he really did not focus a great deal on Triton specifically, but later we sat down to do an interview where he did precisely that. I asked him to provide an update on the program. Jake Campbell: “Triton has been supporting USINDOPACOM since 2020 as part of early operating capability. The early operating capability deployment to Guam proved Triton’s invaluable capabilities for the maritime patrol and reconnaissance mission. Meanwhile, Australia’s Triton program is making great progress with the rollout of the first aircraft from Northrop Grumman’s facility in Palmdale California in Sept. of last year. “The government is committed to three airplanes plus the associated ground systems. The facilities are being built at RAAF Edinburgh where they are building out the ground facilities right now. We will start rolling out the system late this year into next year. The first airplane will arrive in Australia mid-next year and first flight as soon as possible after that. “The first two Australian airplanes are currently in Palmdale going through the process of evaluation and finalization. The third one will soon join the other two in Palmdale. We will do the final shakedown flights there and then they will go to Pax River Naval Air Station for the process of finalization before being delivered to Australia.” Australia is tapping into what for the U.S. Navy is a mature production process, but the Navy now is adding a new payload to the Triton – the multi-SIGINT package. The U.S. Navy and Northrop Grumman are fully immersed in delivering the multi-intelligence configuration of Triton, which will provide commanders an unprecedented amount of information to support critical decision making. The multi-intelligence payload includes a Northrop Grumman ZPY-3 Multi-Function Active Sensor (MFAS) electronically scanned surveillance radar under the fuselage; a Raytheon DAS-3 electro-optic, infrared (EO/IR) sensor under the nose; as well as SIGINT Sensors. This common configuration on Triton will allow the RAAF and U.S. Navy to share data easily and provide a significant contribution to the ‘kill web’. Australia is on both the P-8 and Triton as a cooperative partner and that means that they are part of the ongoing development of the systems which allows customization to their needs as well. As Campbell underscored: “Because Australia is a cooperative partner in the program, Defence here gets to influence requirements for the future evolution of the program. The mission control stations will be at Edinburgh but the Triton will fly out of RAAF Tindal in the Northern Territory” The fact that the U.S. and Australia will fly the same airplane but into complimentary but different operational areas and environments will have an important impact as well on the future development of the program, in terms of shaping new requirements going forward.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 11 Campbell noted: “Australia has the potential to operate Triton well south to Antarctica, across the Indian Ocean, across the Southwest Pacific as well as North into Asia. This will give Australia unique experience with Triton compared to the U.S. Navy. And both experiences will flow back into the program.” We then discussed the unique capability which Triton contributes to the layered ISR system which Australia is constructing and which Campbell discussed in his Williams Foundation presentation. Campbell continued: “In my talk, I emphasized the need to have a layered ISR capability, which is from space to undersurface, and everything in between. There is no one capability that will do everything for you in terms of intelligence collection. “Space provides some capability, but obviously there’s limitations in the sense that it’s very predictable. Whereas Triton still has the advantage of perspective by operating well above 50,000 feet. It is also persistent, and it has uncertainty in terms of an adversary understanding when it might be in the area of operation, so that’s a significant advantage, the ability to operate at range for an extended period, at the time and choosing of the operator. “And with the increase in the submarine threat, you want P8 to be focusing on that mission, much more so than then just doing standard ISR missions. Triton frees up the P8 to be able to go and focus on more of the ASW and other high end warfighting missions.” While Australia and the U.S. have a variety of means to collect information on maritime activities, Triton provides a unique capability for persistent awareness across the vast and complex environment of the APR region. As Campbell noted, “No other system can provide the range, persistence, or coverage area. Satellites are limited and predictable, offering episodic coverage. Manned reconnaissance aircraft only provide limited ISR at the sacrifice of their other missions, such ASW patrols.” Triton’s high-altitude, long-endurance capabilities make it much more than an ISR & Targeting platform. With an operating altitude greater than 50k feet, and endurance great than 24 hours, Triton can provide continuous communications relay to keep a distributed force connected to ensure commanders are operating off a shared common operational picture. In addition, Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy are continuing to progress advanced capabilities insertion and mission expansion to keep pace with the threat and ensure Triton plays a key role in helping provide a seamlessly connected fleet for information dominance, a critical step as the branch achieves its naval operational architecture to enable distributed maritime operations. Northrop Grumman is leveraging its Triton Flying Test Bed (a manned Gulfstream IV surrogate as an uncrewed system) to research, develop, integrate, and demonstrate technologies to meet the Navy’s current and future ISR&T requirements. Just this past summer, Northrop Grumman demonstrated JADC2 across distributed platforms showcasing interoperability among F-35, MQ-4C Triton, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, and surface vessels. By leveraging MQ-4C Triton’s utility as a gateway node the aircraft showcased the ability to connect fifthgeneration platforms with naval assets across a distributed maritime fleet. The first-of-its-kind demonstration was conducted in partnership with Naval Air Systems Command, Office of Naval Research, Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, and BAE Systems. [1] Laird, Robbin F.; Timperlake, Edward. A Maritime Kill Web Force in the Making: Deterrence and Warfighting in the 21st Century (p. 194). Kindle Edition.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 12 AGILE BASING AND ENDURABILITY AS A KEY DETERRENT CAPABILITY 11 April 2023 My colleague John Blackburn and I met with Air Vice-Marshal Darren Goldie, the Air Commander of the RAAF, in his office on 4 April 2023. One key element which we discussed was the growing significance of agile basing and operations as part of the evolving Australian deterrent posture. In my earlier conversation that week with Goldie’s boss, Air Marshal Chipman, we discussed the new basing and support structure being worked in Australia and across the alliance. As highlighted in that interview: “A key aspect of the evolving alliance situation in facing the China challenge is how the core allies Japan, Australia and the United States actually will craft more effective use of the air, maritime and land baes they use over the Pacific thought of as an extended operational space. “If the three countries can work creatively land basing, with seabasing, with air basing with the use of new autonomous systems they can field and evolve an effective force for the long game of competition with China. Certainly, from this perspective, I would view Australia is the strategic reserve of the broader alliance. “As Chipman commented: “I haven’t heard it described that way. But I think that’s what we are working towards. I think that’s the mindset that we have. The idea that Australia provides strategic depth for forces moving forward, is absolutely part of our thinking.” Air Vice-Marshal Goldie picked up on that theme as follows: “Our engagement through two decades in the Middle East has arguably driven us down a single service route to force generation, focused on expeditionary operations, hosted from secure bases. We now need to look to evolve our approach to joint force generation from Australian territory. “We don’t have the level of knowledge and normative experience we need to generate regarding infrastructure across Western and Northern Australia for the Australian version of agile combat employment.” He contrasted the Australian to the PACAF approach to agility. The USAF in his view was working on how to trim down support staff for air operations and learning how to use multiple bases in the Pacific, some of which they owned and some of which they did not own. The Australian concept he was highlighting was focused on Australian geography and how the joint force and the infrastructure which could be built — much of it mobile – could allow for dispersed air combat operations. This meant in his view that “we need to have a clear understanding of the fail and no-fail enablers” for the kind of dispersed operations necessary to enhance the ADF’s deterrent capability. A key element of this is C2. Rather than looking to traditional CAOC battle management, the focus needs as well to focus on C2 in a dispersed or disaggregate way, where the commander knows what is available to them in an area of operations and aggregate those forces into an integrated combat element operating as a distributed entity. Goldie commented: “We are developing concepts about how we will do command and control on a more geographic basis. This builds on our history with Darwin and Tindal to a certain extent, although technology has widened that scale to be a truly continental distributed control concept. “We already a familiar with how an air asset like the Wedgetail can take over the C2 of an air battle when communications are cut to the CAOC, but we don’t have a great understanding of how that works from a

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 13 geographic basing perspective. What authorities to move aircraft, people and other assets are vested in local area Commanders that would be resilient to degradation in communications from the theatre commander – or JFACC? “We need to focus on how we can design our force to manoeuvre effectively using our own territory as the chessboard.” Air Vice-Marshal Goldie underscored that the ability to work with limited resources to generate air combat capability is exercised regularly by the normal activity of 75 Squadron, flying F-35s in Australia’s Air Combat Group. This squadron operates from RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory and as Goldie put it: “they have to operate with what they have in a very austere area.” He highlighted a recent exercise which 75 squadron did with their Malaysian partners. The squadron operated their F-35s, and each day practiced operations using a different support structure. One day the operated with a C-27J which carried secure communication, along with HF communications systems and dealing with bandwidth challenges each bearer posed. Another day they would operate with a ground vehicle packed with support equipment and on another day, they would operate without either support capability. The point being the need is to learn to operate in austere support environments and to shape the skill sets to do so. By learning how to use Australian territory to support agile air operations, and to take those capabilities to partner or allied operational areas, Australia will significantly enhance its deterrent capabilities going forward. This is a key challenge being squarely addressed by the RAAF. THE ROLE OF GEOGRAPHY IN THE DIRECT DEFENCE OF AUSTRALIA 17 April 2023 As Australia reworks its deterrence and defence strategy to deal with China, the question of the reach of the Australian defence force as well as its survivability is a key one. In providing answers to these questions, Australia’s geography can play a key role, in both providing for deployment and sustainment mobility as well as providing diverse launch points for longer range effects, alone or with allied engagement from Australian territory. I had a chance to discuss these developments with Dr. Andrew Carr of Australian National University during my current visit to Australia. Carr started by reminding me that the question of the use of territory in the direct defense of Australia has a long history. “Looking back at Australian history, there has been experience which can be drawn on as we look forward. And much of our investment in the ADF has focused on infrastructure in Australia. But with the more direct challenge posed by China, there is a re-think and re-focus going on with regard to how best to leverage Australian territory in our defence posture.” Carr noted that the focus has previously not been fighting off Australian territory, but that is a focus now. But the focus now is upon “what are the key areas of Australia for defence efforts, whether population centers, bases, supply centers, production centers and so on. In effect, what is being considered is an archipelago concept in terms of understanding how the Australian territorial chessboard can be most effectively utilized in deterrence and defence.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 14 This has an important impact on the Australian Army, for example, as the Army shifts from a primary focus on being an expeditionary force going somewhere globally, to being a key enabler of the direct defence of Australia and leveraging Australian territory as an enabler in regional defence and deterrence. The Northern and Western parts of Australia provide significant territory in such an effort, but resources and population are scarce to do so. But new technologies – notably various autonomous technologies, such as UAVs, USVs UUVs, and ground robotic vehicles – provide for new ways to leverage Australian territory even in the presence of limited civilian infrastructure. If one thinks of Australian territory as a launchpad for operations into the region, then how do you organize the ADF to do so? How do you work with core allies such as the U.S. and Japan to share use of territory for projection of force? What kind of new basing solutions might be created to share operations between Australians and allies and to enable more robust ADF national operations? Care noted: “We are perhaps talking about a new alliance bargain for Australia. We would work together as coalition partners, and we would be doing tasks towards a common mission. “But I think clarity about how Australia contributes to the alliance, what Australia is getting from that alliance are actually going to be first order questions in order to make the specific operations from Australian soil more effective. “If we just simply have more Japanese forces and more American forces here on Australian soil, and they’re replicating what the Australians are trying to do, or they’re competing for use of the key locations and key airfields, and things like that, then there’s going to be real challenges and impediments to operations and potentially negative public spillover from such strategic confusion.” Carr concluded: “When we think in terms of a chessboard or archipelagic metaphor, then some of the distinctions between what is specifically Australian territory and what are kind of forward presence points are crucial will start to become clearer. It will be our ability to move between a whole range of access points that will be absolutely critical.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 15 FORCE DISTRIBUTION, SUSTAINMENT AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT: A MAJOR CHALLENGE FACING THE ADF 17 April 2023 To ensure enhanced survivability, the ADF is looking to distribute over Australian territory more effectively. But this makes logistical support for distributed forces a major strategic challenge. And with the changing threat calculus, the force needs to have greater endurance which requires enhanced sustainability. So how best to combine distribution of combat forces, with effective logistical support, but have credible sources of supply that can sustain the force? In many ways this poses a significant strategic triangle which has to be built and operated in the period ahead to have an effective ADF and, of course, the ADF is not alone in terms of meeting this challenge. Most notability, its major warfighting ally in the Pacific, the United States, faces the tyranny of the Pacific in dealing with this strategic matrix. During my trip to Australia in March-April 2023, I discussed this challenge with Colonel David Beaumont of the Australian Army, who has worked on logistics issues his entire service life. Currently, he is Director of Joint Professional Military Education at the Australian Defence College located in Canberra.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 16 As Beaumont characterized the challenge: “Sustainment and logistics capabilities determine the endurance of your force. They shape the ability of your force to remain operable. They determine how your force can sequence its operations and operate at the tip of the spear. It can be described as the arbiter of opportunity to paraphrase Thomas Kane. By that I mean, it determines when the force can and cannot act.” We are experiencing a major shift from just-in time wars and just-in time delivery systems to facing the challenge of response to crises created by adversaries which will challenge our ability to act, to endure and prevail. As Beaumont put it: “We have been used to certain ways of operating of the past 20 years or so. “We have operated in surges and cycles that have been well planned in advance and shaped our routines. Forces have been allocated on the basis of what we can reasonably sustain. For a country like Australia, we have been able to choose judiciously the forces we can operate with because we know we can sustain them at the right moment and with the right resources.” The challenge now is to prepare for a different scale and intensity of conflict which simply does not comply with limited sustainability and just-in time logistics. Beaumont added: “We will need now to operate at the maximum of our potential and that requires logistics resources and sustainability planning to suit.” We turned to the real challenge of getting procurement systems in Australia or the United States to be able to prioritize sustainment and logistics as a strategic issue rather than a residual one. Beaumont argued that Western military acquisition systems have for a long-time prioritized platform acquisition over operational sustainability and preparedness, with corporate success often defined be the perceived effectiveness of platform delivery programs. This emphasis means that moneys tend to be drawn from sustainment or logistics budgets to pay for new platforms or cost over runs of platform programs. How then does one change this culture and focus? Beaumont noted that one way to do so that is being started in Australia is to deal with a specific commodities capability needs to be dealt with as a program in its own right, such as the newly launched guided weapons program. It is also important to go beyond headline logistics deficiencies and resolving broader sustainment gaps across the force. When one considers the problem of mobilization of resources from the general economy, it is easier to conceptualize rather do or fund. If Australia wishes to pursue greater self-reliance in stocks, then mobilization is an inevitable subject which needs to become real in terms of programmatics and funding. There is the question of enhancing production with allies in order to have an allied-wide approach to production in a new arsenal of democracy model. But the challenge remains for each of the countries involved in joint production or acquisition of stocks available in times of crisis to the national forces. Then there is the question of logistical means to move stocks to forces which themselves are working the art of force mobility. My interview with the Air Commander Australia highlighted his concern with an enhanced ability for air mobility from diverse locations in Australia. But how to move the parts and supplies necessary to support such an agile operating RAAF? The blunt fact is that Australia cannot act as if the United States is the arsenal of democracy. The U.S. has reduced its defense industrial base dramatically over the years, as well as its industrial base. Australia is simply not an industrial country. One can NOT assume that mobilization of supply will be a simple switch

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 17 turning exercise. In today’s world, it has to be built and funded. This is not an easy task nor one that is politically popular as well. And with a large territory, how will Australia produce, stockpile, and move the supplies necessary for itself and allies who are using Australian territory? This requires an effective national and allied interoperable IT system for logistics enterprise management as well as the ability to use maritime, rail, or road systems to move supplies to the point of need. In short, force mobility, sustainability and logistics have become a strategic triangle shaping the capability for force endurance, effectiveness and relevance to conflict with the authoritarian powers in the 21st century. DETERRENCE IN SHAPING AUSTRALIA’S PATH IN THE GLOBAL TRANSITION 18 April 2023 As global conflict continues apace, and Australia navigates its way ahead, there is a clear desire to defend Australia’s interests and to deter actions by China which significantly undercut those interests. But what does Australia wish to deter? How does it do so? And how does it work its allied and partner relationships in conjunction with defining its new relationship with China? During my current trip to Australia, I had a chance to discuss these questions with Dr. Andrew Carr of Australian National University. We started by focusing on the salience of deterrence and its discussion and debate in Australia to shaping Australia’s way ahead in dealing with China. Carr: “What are we deterring China from doing? This is not just a military task. We need to address it publicly, both to gain ongoing support from the public but also to clarify what we expect from government coordination across the whole of government to deter China. “Deterrence is very new in the Australian experience. We have been part of a Western coalition for a very long time, but we have never had to do the kind of messaging and communication which is a crucial part of deterrence. There is not a lot of muscle memory in Australia for deterrent discourse.” China has become a different kind of competitor and adversary and partner as it changed from the reform years and building its economy to that of the China under President Xi who is combining elements of power to shape the global system more in the Chinese image. What will Australia accept in working with its main trade partners? And what will it not? What role will foreign students from China play in Australian universities? What actions by China are clearly to be countered? Which tolerated? Which ignored? All of this is part of shaping deterrent language and narrative. What tools does Australia need to deter against which types of actions? Where does the military fit into a broader deterrent effort involving broader Australia economic, social, cultural, information and security interests? Carr’s key point s that such questions need to be central to Australian debate and consideration, and regularly so. There are ongoing considerations of what is to be deterred and what means need to be developed to do so. Carr concluded our conversation by highlighting a central problem facing Western policy makers. Simply put, with the end of the Cold War and the seeming end of history and the victory of liberal democracy underwritten by the United States, policy makers saw the rules-based order as global with little clarity with

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 18 regard to what are core versus peripheral interests. The term global commons came into vogue and suggested a global interdependent order in which interests were dictated by the need to deal with the gaps in the seams wherever and whenever they occurred. Deterrence is national in character and to be effective requires clarity with regard to core interests versus peripheral interests. It also requires a realistic sense of limits. What can the nation actually do that will be seen as credible by the adversary? And will the nation have the will to do so? As Carr put it: “The gray zone challenge comes from this global lack of clarity. With our “rules-based order” language, we tend to suggest that everything in the status quo is of interest for the West. Chinese actions in the South China Sea and Russia’s actions in Crimea in 2014, called our bluff. “Deterrence is then a policy of limits as well as focus. But it cannot remain a policy only pursued by the military, while absent from the discussions of the political class and the public.” The China relationship shaped in the past two decades cannot continue; but what kind of relationship can it be? What are its limits and what are the paths of cooperation and the focus of deterrence? AUSTRALIA IN THE NEW STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT: THE AUSTRALIANJAPANESE RELATIONSHIP WITHIN IN AN EVOLVING DETERRENT CONTEXT 8 May 2023 Working with core allies and deepening military and political-military cooperation in the region and beyond is a core part of how Australia is shaping its way ahead. The AUKUS agreement is certainly an expression of this; but it clearly is not the only element of what Australia needs to do. During my visit, I had a chance to talk with my colleague Professor Stephan Frühling about a key aspect of this issue, namely, the significant evolution of the Japanese strategic relationship with Australia. Recently, Frühling taught for several months in Japan and gained some first-hand insights into the situation. He argued that the U.S.-Japanese defence relationship has been built around close political-military and force integration capabilities. Australia’s relationship with Japan has not been constructed this way. But he argues that Australia and Japan have clearly moved towards such a relationship. Last Fall, the Japanese Prime Minister visited Australia and the two governments agreed to a new strategic relationship in which their intelligence and military forces would work more closely together, and the scope and ambition for policy dialogue on how both countries’ strategic posture can coalesce significantly expands (the agreement is reproduced at the end of the article). There was an agreement for Japanese forces to be part of allied exercises on an ongoing basis in Australia, which could see a much broader relationship in terms of providing mutual strategic depth for both countries. Hitherto, Australia has avoided anything looking like an American-Japanese defence agreement. But Frühling suggests that such a path might have started for the two countries with the new agreement and the joint concern with the Chinese strategic threat to the region. But growth along these lines will require a culture change in Canberra, Frühling argues. Given the absence of a deterrence focus in Australian strategic culture, defence cooperation has been limited to the technical aspects of interoperability and cooperation at the political level, rather than building a robust politicalmilitary working culture.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 19 In such a culture, one would shape key agreements on how Australia works with allies in working the strategic chessboard to support deterrence before a conflict breaks out. Canberra’s experience in working with the United States was shaped through joint operations that started after conflict had already broken out, especially in the Middle East, rather than joint presence and signaling for deterrence. In the past few years, this is changing. And shaping new political-military relationships along with military cooperation agreements can be expected to grow. Frühling made the interesting observation that the AUKUS agreement by bringing the UK military into a more direct role in Australian defence could bring the significant experience the Brits have in political-military allied cooperation efforts to bear on the Australian experience. This would be a sort of cultural contribution of the British military with their long history within NATO institutions as well as their most recent bilateral US-UK capability integration evident in the coming of the UK aircraft carrier and carrier aviation. Frühling underscored: “What we’re talking about actually is operational integration in the sense of relying allies’ contributions in a crisis rather than a technical focus on interoperability.” In the Australian-Japanese context this would mean direct discussions on what the two sides would be willing to commit to in case of crises to meet their joint operational requirements in fluid strategic situations. There is a clear need to expand how Japan and Australia might cooperate bilaterally or with other allies in generating new military capabilities, sustainment depth or joint logistical support in a crisis. In a discussion I had with a U.S. senior military official earlier this year, he made quite a similar point with regard to shaping the way ahead with allies. When operating in a coalition, it is not simply a question of whether the forces can work together but of where and with what authorities to do so in a crisis. As this official put it: “My definition of interoperability begins with our ability for systems to talk to each other, and our TTPs to be synchronized. Interchangeability is where we understand where our national objectives overlap, and we drive into that space, and then we operate in that space. “For example, with regards to Australia and the United States, our objectives, have a have a large overlap in a Venn diagram. Maybe Indonesia and the United States don’t overlap as much. I’m not asking them for support. I’m understanding what their objectives are, and I’m finding where our objectives overlap, then I will let the policymakers understand how in the warfighting perspective it’d be great if we can help reshape the Venn diagram of intersecting objectives. But that’s not my job. My job is to understand, what’s an ally’s objective.? What’s your objective in the South China Sea? What’s your objective as far as freedom of navigation? Are we on the same page? Let’s just start there. And then work together.” There is much to be done by Canberra in dealing with Tokyo along these lines. What Frühling is suggesting is that effort has begun in earnest. RETHINKING SUSTAINABLE DEFENCE FORCES: A DISCUSSION WITH DR. ALAN DUPONT 9 May 2023 In an earlier discussion with David Beaumont, I focused on the challenge facing the ADF of managing what I called the strategic triangle for force enablement. At the core of the triangle is the challenge of sustainability, the provision of supplies, magazine depth and what can be produced by the allied arsenal of democracy. At the 28 March 2023 Williams Foundation Seminar, Dr. Dupont looked at the sustainability challenge as understood in terms of the capabilities of the defence industrial base. He provided an assessment of the

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 20 significant limitations facing the Western industrial base to support sustainable defense forces which could endure through a significant period of conflict. As Dupont characterized the very significant challenge facing the liberal democracies: “The country or alliance that can deliver the biggest punch and outlast adversaries will win. Right now, that is not us. The arsenal of democracy has been replaced by the arsenal of autocracy. The Ukraine conflict has exposed Australia’s and the West’s thin, under-resourced defence industrial base. If we don’t fix the problem – and quickly – we won’t prevail in a conflict with a better equipped adversary.” This is a key challenge as the West simply has hollowed out basic consumable production for just-in time wars supported by just-in time supply chains. But neither the industrial base nor the supply chains are up to prolonged conflict of any sort. If Australia and the West want to deter the post-Cold war legacy approach to defense industry and supply chains will simply not be adequate. A major re-think and re-structuring is in order. I had a chance after the seminar to discuss with him on 3 April 2023 on how to do so. One could consider this a discussion of the defense industrial base, but we both think this is too limiting as it really is about shaping the entire eco-system for sustainable defense forces, which includes specific defense companies, new acquisition approaches, companies that support the core capabilities which defense taps into but are not specifically defense companies per se, and tapping into new logistical and support approaches to support distributed force. As Dupont concluded our conversation: “I think we should move away from this defense industrial base language which can be very clunky and 20th century. People think in terms of big factories and production and development cycles of 20 years. We need a very different focus.” Dupont started the discussion by laying out his methodology for building what he considers to be an appropriate Australian defense industrial effort. As it stands know, Australia is almost entirely dependent on overseas supplies and when Australia orders what it needs it joins the queue along with other customers, with no certainty be supplied in a timely manner. Added to this the tyranny of distance facing the transportation of military parts to Australia, and you have a perfect storm facing Australian defence in terms of conflict. To deal with this challenge, Australia needs to enhance its sovereign defense production capabilities. But to do so, Dupont suggests the need for a realistic methodology to shape the way ahead. What does Australia need in terms of defense capabilities over the next two decades? How much of what it needs could realistically be produced in Australia? What can it do with co-development or co-production with key allies? And what will it simply have to procure from allied countries and producers? In those areas where it feasible to build sovereign capabilities, a new development approach is needed. Many of the dynamic new capabilities being used by defense forces come from smaller more innovative firms. Australia has such firms but there is no Australian government policy to support them or to ensure that they have the capital to grow. There is a need for an Australian industrial policy in this area. In areas where Australia could produce for its own needs, the government should commit to a South Korean, Israeli, or Swedish path of growing for exports. He pointed out that South Korea now exports 17 billons of dollars of exports which provides a key pillar for its own defence.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 21 In addition, to discussing his methodology for the development of Australian sovereign defense industrial capabilities, we discussed the strategic direction of defense and how best to support it. Defence forces in the Pacific for the liberal democracies are focusing on force distribution for survivability. There are new technologies to support force distribution such as synthetic fuel production and 3D printing in the field. New approaches to sustaining distributed forces through a relevant development and production support are crucial to provide enhanced capabilities for distributed forces. New platform/payload combinations are being introduced through such sectors as aerial and maritime autonomous systems. How will Australia support this effort? How will it do so in a way that allows for exportability? How will it work with core allies to enhance the rapidity of change in this area? Cost effective and expendable platforms carrying a variety of payloads are a key element of the new defense equipment ecosystem. How will this ecosystem be supported and thrive? Most likely not with old acquisition approaches and older concepts of a “defense industrial base.” In short, a reworking of the Australian approach to supplying its forces is required. But it should be done a realistic manner but with a focus on the force structure changes taking place and the need to help sustain a distributed defense force both now and in the future. THE ROLE OF MARITIME AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS: MISSION THREAD CAPABILITIES TO MEET THE NEEDS OF MODERN WARFARE 11 May 2023 If you are looking at the potential role of maritime autonomous systems from the standpoint of traditional acquisition approaches, the legacy concept of platforms, and are not focused on the priority for software transient advantage in modern warfighting, then you will totally miss what the coming of maritime autonomous systems is all about. During my March-April 2023 visit to Australia, I had a chance to meet again with Commodore Darron Kavanagh, Director General Warfare Innovation, Royal Australian Navy Headquarters, to discuss maritime autonomous systems and their role going forward. As a nation facing major maritime challenges, there is probably no nation on earth that needs to get this right more than Australia. Threats tend to focus the mind and the efforts. Maritime autonomous systems don’t fit into the classic platform development mode or the sharp distinction between how particular platforms operate or perform and the various payloads they can carry. They are defined by the controlling software and the payloads they can deliver individually or as a wolfpack with the role of platforms subordinated to the effects they can deliver through their payloads. The software enables the payloads to be leveraged either individually, though more likely in combination as a wolfpack or a contributor to a combat cluster. We started our discussion by focusing on mission threads as a way to understand the role and contribution of maritime autonomous systems. What missions does a combat commander need to accomplish? And how can maritime autonomous systems contribute to a mission thread for that combat commander, within the context of combat clusters? As CDRE Kavanagh underscored: “One of the issues about how we’ve been looking at these systems is that we think in terms of using traditional approaches of capability realization with them. We are not creating a

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 22 defense capability from scratch. These things exist, already, to a degree out in the commercial world, regardless of what defense does. AI built into robotic and autonomous systems are in the real world regardless of what the defence entities think or do. “And we have shown through various autonomous warrior exercises, that we can already make important contributions to mission threads which combat commanders need to build out now and even more so going forward.” And that is really the next point. The use of maritime autonomous systems is driven by evolving concepts of operations and the mission threads within those evolving CONOPS rather than by a platform-centric traditional model of acquisition. CDRE Kavanagh pointed out that traditional acquisition is primarily focused on platform replacement and has difficulty in supporting evolving concepts of operations. This is how he put it: “We’re good at replacing platforms. That doesn’t actually require a detailed CONOPS when we are just replacing something. But we now need to examine on a regular basis what other options do we have? How could we do a mission in a different way which would require a different profile completely?” Put another way, combatant commanders can conduct mission rehearsals with their forces and can identify gaps to be closed. But the traditional acquisition approach is not optimized for closing such gaps at speed through the use of disruptive technologies. The deployment and development of autonomous systems are part of the response to the question of how gaps can be closed or narrowed rapidly and without expensive solution sets. In an interview I did earlier this year with a senior Naval commander, he identified the “gaps” problem. “Rehearsal of operations sheds light on our gaps. if you are rehearsing, you are writing mission orders down to the trigger puller, and the trigger puller will get these orders and go, I don’t know what you want me to do. Where do you want me to be? Who am I supposed to check in with? What do you want me to kill when I get there? What are my left and right limits? Do I have target engagement authority? “This then allows a better process of writing effective mission orders. so that we’re actually telling the joint force what we want them to do and who’s got the lead at a specific operational point. By such an approach, we are learning. We’re driving requirements from the people who are actually out there trying to execute the mission, as opposed to the war gamers who were sitting on the staff trying to figure out what the trigger pullers should do.” But how to close the gaps? As CDRE Kavanagh argued: “We need to deliver lethality at the speed of relevance. But if I go after the conventional solution, and I’m just replacing something, that’s actually not a good use of my very finite resources. We need to be answering the operational commanders request to fill a gap in capability, even if it is a 30% solution compared to no solution on offer from the traditional acquisition process.” These are not technologies looked at in terms of a traditional acquisition process which requires them to go through a long period of development to form a platform which can procured with a long-life use expectancy. CDRE Kavanagh simply pointed out that maritime autonomous systems are NOT technologies to be understood in this manner. “We build our platforms in a classical waterfall approach where you design, develop and build a platform over twenty years to make them excellent. But their ability to adapt quickly is very limited. This is where software intensive systems such as maritime autonomous systems are a useful complement to the conventional

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 23 platforms. Maritime autonomous systems are built around software first approaches, and we are able to do rapid readjustments of the code in a combat situation.” And the legacy acquisition approach is not well aligned with the evolution of warfare. Not only is the focus changing to what distributed combat clusters can combine to do in terms of combat effects but the payload impacts at a point of relevance is also becoming of increased salience to warfighting approaches. What is emerging clearly is a need to adapt more rapidly than what traditional platforms and their upgrade processes can do. Gaps will emerge and need to be closed not just in mission rehearsals but in the combat operations to be anticipated in the current and future combat situations. And to endure in conflict, it will be crucial as well to protect one’s core combat capital capabilities and platforms which calls for increased reliance on capabilities like maritime autonomous systems to take the brunt of attrition in combat situations as capital ships become mother ships rather than simply being the core assets doing the brunt of combat with whatever organic capabilities they have onboard. As CDRE Kavanagh noted: “The nuclear-powered submarine is absolutely necessary for what we need to do for our defense in depth, but what we’re focused on with maritime autonomous systems completely complements it, because what I want to do is ensure that the dangerous stuff gets done by the autonomous forces as much as possible, because we can rebuild that capability much more rapidly. We can actually restore it whereas we can’t restore a nuclear-powered submarine quickly if lost.” I wrote in a previous piece about the shift from the distributed force being shaped in the Pacific to an enduring force. The distributed force and its correlated capabilities are a near to mid-term answer to providing for enhanced Pacific defense and deterrence, but longer-term answers are needed for an enduring force. CDRE Kavanagh closed our discussion by emphasizing the crucial need for Australia to have an ability to stay in the fight in case of conflict in the Pacific. He argued that having their own abilities to innovate in autonomous systems areas was part of such a desired capability. “Resilience in a combat situation is an ability to be able to experiment and adjust on the fly. To have an enduring force that can operate until statecraft can shape an end state, the warriors and their support community must adjust the combat force rapidly to the real-world combat conditions. By shaping a deployment and ongoing development process in the maritime autonomous systems area, we are contributing to such a combat capability.“ AUSTRALIA’S JOINT OPERATIONS COMMAND: THE PERSPECTIVE OF AIR VICE-MARSHAL MICHAEL KITCHER 12 May 2023 During my March-April 2023 visit to Australia. I had a chance to meet with Air Vice-Marshal Michael Kitcher, Deputy Chief Joint Operations (DCJOPS) and to talk with him about the Joint Operations Focus on regional defence after a long period in the Middle East. AVM Kitcher is responsible for assisting Chief Joint Operations (CJOPS) with the command of ADF joint operations, directing command units and assigned forces in the planning and conduct of campaigns, operations, joint exercises, and other activities.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 24 I last met with him during a 2018 visit to Williamtown Airbase with Murielle Delaporte. He was then the Air Combat Group Commander as Air Commodore Kitcher. During that visit we focused on the transition from legacy aircraft to a fifth-generation force. We started the April 2023 discussion by focusing on the shift of the Joint Operations Command from the shaping of a joint force for operations in the Middle East to a refocusing on joint operations in the region with core allies to shape more effective coordinated allied operations. Kitcher pointed out that the command had been established in 2007 to plan, execute and optimise the conduct of ADF joint operations. I noted that during the ADF’s participation in the Middle East Wars, the RAAF for the first time deployed an integrated air task force which included air battle management aircraft, lifters, tankers, and fighters and that this experience laid a foundation for bringing back into the Indo-Pacific region an ADF force that had exercised really for the first time this level of air tasking integration. But as Kitcher underscored: “The focus in this period, up to say 2017, for CJOPS was on operations in the Middle East whilst managing operations in our region. We clearly have leveraged the earlier experiences in our renewed focus on the conduct of Operations, Actions and Activities, OAA, in the Indo Pacific. We are focused on developing a theatre campaign plan to translate strategic guidance into the OAA we execute in our region to achieve our desired objectives. “We are focused on ways we can operate as a joint force to optimise our regional OAA to have the maximum positive effect in supporting our theater campaign plan. You don’t get the maximum benefits from a joint force unless firstly the services provide you with trained personnel capable of executing joint missions and then HQJOC, through focused joint planning, maximises the potential of the individual components. We have made good progress along this path but still have a way to go.” Air Vice-Marshal Kitcher highlighted that we are “now squarely focused on managing operations in a coordinated fashion in our region.” And this means both how to get the best joint force effect but also how to coordinate the ADF effort with core allies in also getting the best proper coalition effect. Obviously in working with coalition partners, national sovereignty has to be respected but at the same time for effectiveness in operations coalition forces need to operate in an integrated manner. This is a key tension which needs to be managed, notably in crises where the government of the day will make decisions about the allowable operations of their national forces, these individual decisions may challenge the effectiveness of a coalition force. This is challenge which CJOPS has to be prepared to deal with in both exercises and real-world operations. Kitcher underscored: “Planning and exercises prepare the way for joint and coalition capabilities but executing them in an actual operational situation requires agility and flexibility of command by CJOPS and his staff, and our parallel staff in the various coalition headquarters.” Air Vice-Marshal Kitcher emphasized that working with partners to deal with challenges in the region has clearly grown in importance for both deterrent and operational impacts. The relationship with U.S. forces has certainly become closer. He mentioned an upcoming CPX exercise with the U.S. Indo-PACOM command in which the ADF and the U.S. will run a detailed CPX on a regional scenario together. The cooperation with both Japan and India is also growing. And with Australia’s regional defence emphasis, joint operations will need to focus on regional partners in the Australian neighborhood. This will see more emphasis on building regional expertise and continued engagement with regional countries through relationship building, languages, cultural awareness and local

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 25 knowledge. This can provide an important aspect of Australian leadership in a regional military coalition but dependent on the crisis, a differentiator for Australian involvement as well. As Air Vice-Marshal Kitcher summarized their job: “We’ve got a responsibility to make sure that we optimize how well the joint force works together for the greatest positive effect and present the best possible options to government on how that force might be employed. We’ve also got a remit to ensure that we can work as closely and as efficiently and effectively as possible with our regional partners in both peacetime HADR situations and potential crisis situations. “We’ve got a responsibility to be as efficient and as effective together among like-minded nations militaries. If we are not careful, uncoordinated actions in our region will overwhelm smaller countries and not have a positive effect. Planning and conducting OAA together ensures we present a much more credible regional security capability than we do as individual nations. The militaries have a large part of the responsibility to generate how we can do so. And then it’s up to individual governments to determine how those forces will be employed at any one time or in any one set of security circumstances.” We closed the discussion by focusing on a question I asked him with regard to how does Australia best leverage its geography in shaping its defence and deterrent structure? He answered that is a core challenge and question. He noted: “The really good thing about Australia is the size of Australia and the amount of nothing that is in Australia. The really bad thing about Australia is the size of Australia and the amount of nothing that is in Australia.” Australia’s population and economic base is in the South and East of the country; the core defence locations for projecting force into the region are in the North, North East and North West of Australia. Northern Australia (especially the North and North West) is lightly populated without significant infrastructure and major industrial base. How does Australia have capabilities which can be used to project force into the region from Northern Australia but the majority of the population and industrial base remains well in the south? For example, the RAAF has a number of bare bases in northern Australia in addition to their main operating bases. But how can those bases really be used for operations in a crisis, and flexibly use all of the basing options available? How to support all these locations? How to move fuel and weapons? How to ensure the necessary level of resilience and that combat support, logistics and health elements are available? There are no easy or cheap solutions to achieve a viable outcome. Air Vice-Marshal Kitcher concluded: “The challenge of how we optimize the Australian geography for defence is real and is quite significant. As is how we use Australian geography for the best effect of allies and partners that we might invite to deploy here. This is an ongoing process and a real challenge.” THE KEY ELEMENTS OF DETERRENCE IN DEALING WITH THE CHINESE CHALLENGE: A DISCUSSION WITH ROSS BABBAGE 15 May 2023 I met with Ross Babbage on 5 April 2023 in Canberra to discuss his new book and his assessment of the way ahead in building credible deterrence of the China of President Xi. Ross Babbage in his new book, The Next Major War: Can the U.S. and its Allies Win Against China? takes the wider view of the Chinese military challenge.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 26 Rather than limiting himself to a force-on-force analysis, he looks at the broader nature of the war the Chinese have prepared themselves to fight and examines the situation which the liberal democracies have put themselves into with decades of globalization and accepting Chinese intrusions into their domestic economies and politics. This is an important book and reflects the serious thinking and work which Babbage has devoted himself to over the past few years. One of the remedies which Babbage believes necessary to get the West into “fighting shape” is for the strategic leaderships in the West to discuss frankly with their publics all of the dimensions of the strategic challenge we now face. Babbage himself very much contributes to such leadership. In our recent Williams Foundation seminar, we focused on the re-orientation of Australian defence in shaping and contributing to a wider national and alliance deterrent strategy. In my discussion with Babbage, we focused on what he considers the three key elements to being able to shape broader defence capability. For Babbage, shaping a broader defence capability is not just about the ADF and its own operational capability. “If you’re looking at it from Beijing’s point of view, they’d have to think very carefully about messing with us for we do have a very capable although small military and we have even more powerful friends.” But the ADF lacks strategic depth and sustainability. As Babbage noted: “We are in danger of being a onemonth operational military in case of conflict due to the lack of economic and industrial depth, such as the provision of fuels and key munitions and spare parts.” The second aspect for Australia is its alliance structure. As Babbage underscored, Australia has focused upon ramping up its alliance working relationships to the point where its own forces can more effectively integrate with the Americans and are working towards greater cooperation with other allies as well, notably the Japanese. The result is clear: “The sum of alliance efforts is greater than any of the parts. This is a consideration which Beijing has to realize is not working to its advantage. The Chinese threat has drawn many nations in the Pacific closer together to resist authoritarian interference.” And it is not just Pacific allies: a number of European states have woken up to the realization that China directly threatens their interests, and they have to find ways to contribute to the deterrence of China as well. Babbage noted: “We will cooperate with a range of others, including a number of relatively powerful and capable Europeans with whom we have long-standing partnerships.” And that led to the discussion of the third element in Australian deterrence, developing more effective regional partnerships. Here he discussed evolving relationships with India, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian and South Pacific countries. Australia is working hard to develop closer military, security, economic, technological and diplomatic relationships that can strengthen regional cooperation and deterrence. Working with its neighborhood much more directly and effectively is a key part of shaping the way ahead for Australia’s deterrence strategy. But beyond these three key elements for shaping the way ahead for Australian deterrence, an important broader question is the need for a national and alliance-wide efforts to strengthen strategic sustainability and endurance. We did not discuss this at length in this meeting, but it is the core of the analysis in his new book.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 27 The challenge is to move from the near and mid-term efforts at enhanced national military capability and allied interoperability to a stronger capability for resilient societies that empower enduring forces, not just one-month militaries. The close allies need to review and restructure their strategic supply chains as a matter of urgency to reinforce each other’s economic and industrial strengths and cover their respective weaknesses. New levels of allied cooperation are required along with new planning and management mechanisms. These initiatives are needed urgently if the allies are to have a credible deterrent going forward and if they are going to be able to endure and sustain themselves in the event of major conflict. AN UPDATE ON THE GHOST SHARK 17 May 2023 In a 20 April 2023, an article by Gregor Ferguson in The Australian provided an overview of the Ghost Shark program. In that article, the author highlighted the anticipated role of the XL-AUV or extra Large Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. “Make no mistake, (XL-AUVs) will be a game-changer,” said former Royal Australian Navy Head of Navy Capability Rear Admiral Peter Quinn when he officially named the XL-AUV the Ghost Shark last year. “They will provide militaries with a persistent option for the delivery of underwater effects in high-risk environments, complementing our existing crewed ships and submarines as well as our future uncrewed surface vessels. “The Ghost Shark program will create uncertainty in the minds of our potential adversaries and will deter both illegal and coercive behaviour,” he added. “Due to their modular and multi-role nature, our adversaries will need to assume that their every move in the maritime domain is subject to our surveillance, and that every XL-AUV is capable of deploying a wide range of effects, including lethal ones.” “Exact roles and performance targets are classified, but to achieve these goals, it will be modular, customisable and optimised with different payloads for different missions.” I met with David Goodrich OAM, Executive Chairman and CEO of Anduril Australia and Asia Pacific at his office in Sydney on April 21 to get an update on the program. The Ghost Shark program is a jointly funded and managed project with Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Anduril Australia (Anduril). Anduril is contributing $70 million to the project and using technology from its Dive LD capability and Lattice artificial intelligencepowered operating system as starting points. Anduril brought their Dive LD commercial AUV to Australia as a testbed vehicle to expedite development of the XL-AUV. The Dive-LD is a commercial product used for a variety of offshore missions for companies needing to do littoral and deep-water survey and inspections. Anduril is developing the XL-AUV platform for both commercial and defence applications, with the Ghost Shark being the defence-specific platform with defence payloads defined by the RAN. Three prototype XL-AUVs will be delivered to the Royal Australian Navy over three years. Each prototype will be iterative, using agile engineering approaches. As Goodrich describes the approach: “Each prototype

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 28 will build upon and improve upon the previous one. By the time we have the third prototype in the water, it will be a deployable capability that can be manufactured at scale. This is the Anduril way.” In fact, the Anduril team is already focusing on what is needed to deliver an at-scale manufacturing program to the Commonwealth. As Goodrich explains: “We are designing the Ghost Shark with the manufacturing process front of mind so that, at the end of the three-year program, we can manufacture capability at scale. This is standard practice in the commercial world, but not so much in the traditional defence environment.” He noted that China has successfully accelerated the build-up of their military by leveraging the commercial sector effectively. Liberal democracies need to shape their own variant of this strategy and embrace the innovation and agility available in the commercial sector. Clearly the Ghost Shark program is cut from this cloth. The iterative design and upgrade process will be core to the program as it is implemented as well. Anduril is a ‘software first’ defence tech company that believes software-defined hardware-enabled defence capabilities can transform defence and restore competitive advantage. Goodrich underscored: “Because we’re not building crewed platforms, our engineering cycles can be a lot faster and more agile. Our objective is to get a minimum viable product into the hands of the defence customer as quickly as possible and have that customer shape the evolution of the product through actual use over a very short period of time.” Not only does the defence customer need capabilities delivered more rapidly than through a traditional acquisition process, but rapid upgrades in conflict are key to mission success. As Goodrich warned: “In conflict, as we have seen in Ukraine, you can’t wait months for upgrades at high cost. You need to have a softwarecentric approach to retain the transient advantage in combat. Upgrades must be provided in days, not months and not at a cost of millions of dollars. “Using a software first approach, we can push live updates of our software code to respond to adversary countermeasures in real-time. This refreshes our transient advantage on the battlefield. We can move faster than competitors and give our warfighters the capabilities they need to win. They deserve nothing less.” SHAPING A WAY AHEAD IN INTEGRATED ISR ENABLEMENT FOR THE ADF: THE COMING OF TRITON 19 May 2023 During my recent visit to Australia in March-April 2023, the main focus of attention was on the re-set of Australian defence to deal with the evolving strategic challenges in the Pacific. An important area for expanding the reach and viability of the ADF in its regional focus on the direct defense of Australia is upon building out an effective, redundant, and survivable distributed ISR set of networks to serve the ADF and the nation in their efforts. At the Williams Foundation Seminar held on 30 March 2023, Jake Campbell, a former RAAF officer involved in such efforts and now working at Northrop Grumman Australia on the Triton, sketched the way ahead in his presentation on layered ISR capabilities within Australia’s evolving deterrence strategy. I continued this discussion with Wing Commander Keirin Joyce who has dealt with uncrewed systems within the combat force both as an Army and now as an Air Force officer. Currently, he is Program Chief Engineer RPAS (MQ-4C Triton) at Royal Australian Air Force.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 29 We started by discussing Triton and its progress in terms of coming into the ADF. And we then moved to the broader discussion of the evolving ISR/C2 ecosystem of which Triton is a part of an evolving capability for the ADF. The point can be put bluntly: one can discuss Triton as a platform, but that really would miss the major point – it is a contributor to an evolving mesh of elements making up an ISR web which is being crafted to provide the force with a common operating picture to enable continuity of operations in even high intensity operations. As Joyce noted in our last interview, Triton as a platform can be understood this way: “In effect, Triton is a very low Earth orbiting satellite, and it helps monitor a wide area of interest from the sensors because it operates at such a high altitude. We can move this sensor rich aircraft to a specific area of interest. And that is the huge advantage of Triton…” In our meeting in April, Joyce provided an update on the program for the Australian Triton. “Our first airplane is almost finished on the production line. It will then enter the U.S. Navy certification and calibration process and will come to Australia in about a year from now. There are two other airplanes in production. We are a cooperative partner in the program, so we are already looking at the upgrade path, even before the delivery of our first plane. Upgradeability is built into the airplane and as a cooperative partner we are participating in the upgradeability process on the ground floor.” Much of our discussion focused on the eco-system which Triton is to be part of and the need to help build it. There is the evolving Australian space effort which is seen in the defence project JP9102. As Triton is highly complementary to what Australia is likely to do in space, how Triton and its data will interact with the payloads in space and the data they provide is part of the overall ISR/C2 defence effort. Electronic warfare is being re-worked into counter-ISR efforts which Admiral Paparo in my interview with him in late April indicated was a key element of the evolving deterrence strategy as well. Joyce discussed the enterprise approach to ISR, and an Australian specific capability which is designed to contribute to the way ahead in the EW part of ISR, namely, MC-55A, the Peregrine manned aircraft. As Dan Parsons and Tyler Rogoway described this program: “The airframe, configured with what have been described as “airborne intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare” (AISREW) mission systems, bristles with antennas and has a recognizable belly “canoe” that contains additional sensors…. It is not known for certain what capabilities Australia’s MC-55A will have, but based on the name and equipment seen on the aircraft, it is likely to perform some combination of electronic warfare (EW), signals intelligence (SIGINT), and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. We can also expect it to be capable of working as a networking relay and data-fusion platform that will tie other RAAF aircraft and ships together digitally.” The key point made in my discussion with Joyce was that the Triton coming into the broader EW/ISR/C2 enterprise was being done with a clear focus on the various elements of a broader enterprise and effort, rather than simply a platform-specific one. This led naturally to the question of the evolving ground system architecture for receiving information from the enterprise and to an ability to move data to a variety of access and processing points. When I visited the Edinburgh base near Adelaide in 2017, it was already evident that a major ground station processing effort was being built there to handle P-8 and Triton. Joyce indicated that ground station modernization is a key part of the ecosystem which can exploit information provided from Triton as part of

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 30 the wider enterprise. While the facilities at Edinburgh will be a key hub able to deliver relevant data to military and government users, the ADF is working on distributed data capabilities as well. Finally, Wing Commander Joyce highlighted that with the U.S. Navy and the RAAF both operating the Triton, working cooperative operations can clearly be envisaged as Australia and the U.S. Navy will compliment areas of operations of significance to both countries to enhance the ISR/C2 capabilities of both. And as the ADF builds out its longer-range strike capabilities, having the Triton as an asset to assist in the targeting process will be important as well. In short, Triton comes at a key time in the evolution of ADF capabilities to enable longer-range effects from Australia out into the region. Joyce commented that what will be interesting to note ‘is this enough’? He thinks Australia will need even more assets, and uncrewed/automated/autonomous assets are probably the answer in the current challenging climate of attracting and retaining workforce. MARITIME AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS PROVIDING MISSION THREADS FOR AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE AND SECURITY: THE CASE OF THE BLUEBOTTLE USV 21 May 2023 In my discussion with Commodore Darron Kavanagh, Director General Warfare Innovation, Royal Australian Navy Headquarters, he emphasized that one way to look at the contribution of maritime autonomous systems was in terms of the mission threads to which they contribute. As CDRE Kavanagh underscored: “One of the issues about how we’ve been looking at these systems is that we think in terms of using traditional approaches of capability realization with them. We are not creating a defense capability from scratch. These things exist, already, to a degree out in the commercial world, regardless of what defense does. AI built into robotic and autonomous systems are in the real world regardless of what the defence entities think or do. “And we have shown through various autonomous warrior exercises, that we can already make important contributions to mission threads which combat commanders need to build out now and even more so going forward.” And that is clearly a good way to understand the contribution already being made by the Bluebottle USV designed, developed, and built by Ocius. During my trip to Australia last September, I had my first discussion with Robert Dane, the founder and CEO of Ocius who introduced me to the product and in my recent trip I received an update from him April 6 and then visited the Ocius facility in Sydney on April 21. During the April 6 discussion, I received an update on the product and will discuss that update in the terms suggested by Commodore Kavanagh in this article. I will discuss the visit to the Ocius facility in a future article. The Bluebottle USV is a USV which provides persistence surveillance. As one source describes it: “The Bluebottle USV harvests solar, wind and wave energy to remain at sea for months at a time, making a forward speed of up to 5kt. It remains in touch with a shore station using on-board communications systems and deploys a range of above water and underwater sensors to detect and track targets, including underwater objects, sea mines, surface vessels and other USVs.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 31 On their webpage, the company identifies four basic attributes of the USV in its description of the platform. It has a folding solar sail, a unique rudder flipper, various payloads of sensors with an integrated and networked communication system, and a patented keel winch cassette. Each attribute is described as follows: “Solar Sail: When deployed, the patented hard solar sail harnesses both solar and wind energy. When not desired it automatically folds snuggly into the deck of the Bluebottle like the wing of a bird, so it’s 100% retracted but also not taking up precious payload space within the vessel. Intelligent programming means the solar sail reacts autonomously to the sea, sun & wind conditions to ensure efficient and safe operation for all mission requirements. “Rudder Flipper: The patented rudder-flipper steers, guides and powers the unmanned vessel generating forward thrust from the pitching of the vessel in the waves of the ocean. The bigger the sea state the stronger the forces. In Seastates over Seastate 6 the solarsail automatically lowers and the rudder passively propels the vessel in the desired direction. If left in the mid position it passively turns the bow of the Bluebottle into the oncoming seas giving Bluebottles unprecedented seakeeping and survival capabilities requiring zero energy. “Sensors and Communication: Multiple sensors are available as options underwater, inside the hull and on the aft comms mast. An Integrated and networked communication system allows live tracking. All vessels can be monitored while operating autonomously or controlled remotely, constantly sending data back to the control room. “Keel Winch Cassette: The patented ‘reel in the keel’ winch is a cassette that displaces water ballast in the keel – so adding or changing a cassette does not interfere with the displacement or trim of the Bluebottle. The cassette can be flat packed and shipped to anywhere in the world for customers to install, commission and test their sensor or array on the winch before inserting it into the payload bay of a Bluebottle – being ready to go.” In my April 2023 update, Dane provided an overview of ways the Bluebottle had been used by the Australian government in the past few months. We discussed three mission threads which Bluebottles have been used for in the past few months: support for the Army in amphibious operations; support for the government in fisheries protection; and in support of the Navy in shaping autonomous systems con-ops in the underwater warfare area. The first was done in October 2022. The event and the role of the Bluebottle was described in a 22 November 2022 press release by the Australian Ministry of Defence as follows: The seventh rotation of Army’s Regional Force Surveillance Group (RFSG) used Bluebottle USVs, developed by Ocius Technologies, which can provide a 24/7 on-water surveillance capability, with the flexibility to be readily maneuvered to respond to emerging surveillance requirements or tasks. During the two-week deployment in October, the contingent conducted surveillance and reconnaissance on and around remote islands off north Western Australia for foreign fishing vessels and evidence of illegal activities. The contingent of 18 personnel was drawn primarily from Northwest Mobile Force (NORFORCE) and 10th Force Support Battalion, with attachments from the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment and 1st Combat Signal Regiment. Major Alexander Brent, the Maritime Border Command (MBC) Liaison Officer to Rotation 7, said the use of the Bluebottles, and the embedding of an Ocius employee within the task unit headquarters, added significant capability to the operation.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 32 The trial by NORFORCE will likely inform future teaming with unmanned maritime assets to support amphibious and littoral combat manoeuvres. As one of three Regional Force Surveillance Units which form the 2nd Division’s RFSG, NORFORCE provides a persistent screen in northern Australia, living by the motto ‘Ever Vigilant’. Several times a year the RFSG screen is supported by enabling assets, including medical teams, remote command-and-control nodes and Australian Border Force (ABF) assets to enhance the effectiveness of the screen as part of Operation Resolute. NORFORCE Patrol Master, Captain Stephen Sewell, said the efforts increased situational awareness of illegal activities in the region. “The soldiers conducted surveillance from observation posts, dismounted patrols across the islands and patrols in the littoral environment by watercraft,” CAPT Sewell said. The contingent conducted surveillance and reconnaissance of about 5500 square kilometres. Major Brent said inter-agency cooperation was vital for the continued success of operations like Resolute. “There is a very close relationship between the ADF and ABF, facilitated through MBC, which enables shared effort and the sharing of information to achieve better operational outcomes and security for Australia,” Major Brent said. “At the local level, the Regional Force Surveillance Units have an intimate relationship with the Indigenous communities and leaders in their respective areas of operation, which is vital to the enhanced understanding of country, patterns of life and access across the north of Australia, all of which directly contributes to the land component outcomes for Op Resolute. “When you add contractors, local councils, local land councils and private industry, who all have vested interests in northern Australia, the level of inter-agency cooperation required to ensure successful Op Resolute outcomes is immense.” As Dane commented about working with the Army in this effort: “We provided over the horizon ISR and what I call the ‘google street view’ of the areas where they would operate. They could see a beach on a satellite but the satellites cannot provide the views which we can provide an amphibious force. “We deployed from Broome 350 NM away about a week before the operation, arrived before the operation started, operated for 10 days in the exercise in an archipelago with strong currents, under control from Darwin and then sailed home, with each of the two boats covering around 1900 nautical miles.” The second was done in January and February 2023. Here the Bluebottles were tasked with providing surveillance of fishing areas to assist the government in monitoring activity to help prohibit illegal fishing activities. A 31 January 2023 Australian government press release described this effort as follows: Uncrewed marine vessels known as “Bluebottles” have taken to the waters of Two Rocks and Jurien Marine Parks to stop illegal fishing in Australian Marine Parks. Minister Plibersek has announced that Parks Australia is testing the efficacy of two uncrewed surface vessels during a 30-day trial through January and February to capture 24/7 real-time imagery of activity in the two marine parks off the Western Australian coast.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 33 The trial will test technology to see if can be used into the future to monitor and prevent illegal fishing. The 22ft solar, wind and wave-powered Bluebottles were developed by Australian company Ocius and launched from the Ocean Reef Boat Harbour in Western Australia. The vessels, which look similar to a small yacht, are equipped with 360-degree day/night infrared cameras, radar and satellite communications. They can autonomously monitor designated areas for months at a time. The innovative Bluebottle technology will allow Parks Australia to monitor marine vessel activity across these two important marine parks that have previously been difficult and costly to patrol. These new surveillance measures help to protect the plants and animal species in the marine parks including Western Rock Lobsters. The annual migration of the Western rock lobster from the coast to deeper waters is known as the ‘whites run’ and attracts thousands of licensed cray fishers who target this prized species. To make sure the species survives, some areas in Marine Parks are designated “no take zones”. Stopping illegal fishing protects the species and protects legal fishers who do the right thing, and who rely on lobsters for their livelihood. The Bluebottle boats aren’t the first use of new technology to monitor Western Australia’s marine parks. During last year’s Western Rock Lobster migration event, two underwater recorders called sound traps were installed at Two Rocks Marine Park to provide information on vessel activity in the park. Drones with high resolution cameras are also being tested in no fishing zones of Australian Marine Parks to monitor marine vessel activity from the air. Australian Marine Parks are special places and monitoring compliance breaches is essential to protect and conserve our rich marine life and biodiversity in these areas. At Two Rocks Marine Park in the last financial year there have been 15 illegal recreational fishing incidents detected. The Government issued penalty infringement notices of $687 per incident as well as issuing official warnings. Minister for the Environment and Water, the Hon Tanya Plibersek MP said: “Marine National Parks are such special places. We need to protect the animals and plants that live there so future generations can see them in the wild. “No-take zones are vital to protect threatened species, and also mean that surrounding areas see increases in fish stocks. “Whilst most fishers do the right thing and stay in legal fishing zones, we aren’t afraid to crack down on those doing the wrong thing by fishing in the ‘no take’ areas. Fishing is not allowed in the National Park Zones of Australian Marine Parks. “The new Bluebottle vessel technology will enable large marine areas to be monitored over longer periods of time. “We’re testing the Bluebottles as a cost-effective addition to the current monitoring and surveillance tools we’re using. They join drones and sound traps as the latest technology we’re testing.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 34 Dane indicated that the effort has had the desired effect. “We sent two boats on a 30-day mission whereby we split time between two maritime sanctuaries. We obtained 19 identifications of the number and name of boats violating the sanctuary and each of these people received notice from the government. The result was immediate. After the notification, the word was out and the next weekend there were no violations.” The third was completed recently at Autonomous Warrior 2023. In my meeting with Kavanagh, the Commodore indicated that this AW was different from the last. At the last AW, contractors were showing their wares and Kavanagh’s team was getting a chance to see what the various platforms and systems could do. This one was a dedicated underwater effort whereby only invited Australian contractors attended and were given various tasks to perform and evaluated in terms of their ability to perform. Julian Kerr in a 1 December 2022 article by Australian Defence Magazine highlighted the Bluebottle coming to AW 2023 as follows: “The first two of the five future Bluebottles will participate in the RAN’s Exercise Autonomous Warrior 2023, now disclosed to be taking place at Jervis Bay in March. Subsequent deliveries will take place in April, May and June. “This latest iteration of Autonomous Warrior will also involve two Bluebottles – Barra and Bombora – fitted respectively with Thales Australia thin line fibre optic passive and active towed sonar arrays for antisubmarine warfare and surveillance missions. Both boats were named at an event at Ocius headquarters in Randwick on 25 November, happily coinciding with signature of the RAN contract the previous day.” Dane indicated that the Navy had their own Blue Bottle USVs (they are buying five but had two at the exercise) involved in the exercise, and Ocius brought two of their own. This meant that four boats were involved in the exercise. In short, the Bluebottle USVs are precisely doing what Commodore Darron Kavanagh said maritime autonomous systems will be asked to do by the Australian government – provide for enhanced mission capability for the ADF and the Australian government. As Australia and its allies begin to use these capabilities more, the creativity in working the integration of crewed and uncrewed platforms will no doubt deliver new capabilities and new concepts of operations. THE ROLE OF THE AUSTRALIAN ARMY IN THE WAY AHEAD FOR AUSTRALIAN DETERRENCE STRATEGY 23 May 2023 The Sir Richard Williams Foundation Seminar on 30 March 2023 focused on the way ahead with regard to deterrence of adversaries in the region, notably with both the behavior and the capabilities of the PRC in mind. The question of refocusing the role of the ADF in the defense of Australia and its role in the region was a key element for consideration. Clearly, the joint force focus is significant but is the role of service components in the joint force as it adapts its role in the new strategic context. At the seminar, LTGEN Simon Stuart, COS of the Australian Army, provided a general look at the deterrence challenge, the role of the ADF and of the Australian Army. He concluded: “From an Army perspective, from the contribution of land power to that integrated force, we offer presence, persistence, asymmetry through first-mover advantage, utility, and incredibly good value for money.”

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 35 I had a chance to continue the discussion with him on his perspective when we met at his office on April 10th. Here he further elaborated on how he saw the role of the Army within the evolving joint force whose mission was being refocused on the region. LTGEN Stuart started by focusing on what he viewed as key elements of Army’s value proposition for the joint and increasingly integrated force. He underscored in this context Army’s key role in C2, logistics, domestic security and providing national infrastructure within Australian territory for regional power projection. He then argued that Air Force and Army are developing and will do so even more in the future their working relationship at the strike and shield aspect of defence of Australian defence infrastructure and territory. He put it this way: “How will integrated air defense be worked in terms of the overall approach to leveraging our strategic geography and our force projection forces?” LTGEN Stuart highlighted a key element for shaping the way ahead, namely working force integration, including force design and with allies as well. “We must have an architecture that we are building to in terms of our platforms and systems which allow us to leverage the benefits of an integrated force. This also enables us to better plug into allied and partner forces through exercising rotational forces and where appropriate operating for joint basing.” The geography of Australia is a key consideration in shaping a way ahead for both the direct defense of Australia and the projection of power from Australia. Earlier, I had discussed the geography aspect at length with Professor Andrew Carr, who emphasized the following: “We have an archipelagic country that has very distinct cultures that are also connected and for a defence perspective, that leads to a different way of operating or thinking about your ability to move across and between settlements. “Rather than being tied to the direct defence of every specific inch of territory. How do we extract benefit from such an approach? How you can we move force between sea and lands seamlessly and recognizing that it’s not simply the defence of your territory but having the ability to move out into the region in cooperation with partners and allies, where Indonesia is the largest traditional archipelago in the world? There are many significant archipelagic nations in the South Pacific, and we are going to need an ADF that is able to operate seamlessly across those environments as well.” Carr’s characterization provided a way to think about two key Australian Army contributions. The first is clearly the presence of Army structure throughout the country thought of an archipelago. And second, the role of the Army in working in the region with partners, and exercising on their territory as well, or, in other words, working the neighborhood. LTGEN Stuart spoke at some length to the territorial presence role of the Australian Army as underwriting the ability for direct defense and shaping an effective foundation for joint force power projection from Australia. “At the foundation and during my presentation, we emphasized the importance of being able to leverage Australian geographically for strategic purposes. The Army is located in 157 locations around the country, from the most northern tip of Cape York to Tasmania and from the West to the East coast. And our connection into local towns, cities and communities is through these 157 locations where our people are located. “One of the key design principles for our Army Objective Force is what we call the total workforce system. We have a flexible set of arrangements for people to work full or part time or a combination of both throughout their career in the Army. That helps us have a workforce in 157 locations, as some of these are sparsely populated.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Page 36 “Our capacity to leverage our total workforce system means we can leverage our part time brigades to project force from the bases South of the Tropic of Capricorn into the northern geography to reinforce and protect our sustainment capabilities in that part of the country. “We have restructured our 2nd Division to be a division which leverages our total workforce system. Its six formations leverage our part time people in great part.” With recent natural disasters in Australia, such as the bush fires, the Army has been mobilized to help the nation in non-defense crises. This has meant that C2 has been used for national mobilization as well as transport equipment to move force to the point of need. There is the challenge of overtaxing the Army for such tasks, but it does suggest that mobilization is a whole of nation effort, not simply a tip of the spear warfighting support effort. Because of concern for overstretching the Army in dealing with national disasters, Australian analysts such as Professor John Blaxland have suggested need for a national mobilization system which engages the citizenry to deal with national disasters and could operate as a reserve for national crises, up to those of war itself. We did NOT discuss this, but clearly if the government is to consider whole of nation solutions for national security and defense, such ideas need to be considered. We then discussed one aspect of mobilization which has become clearly evident, namely a relationship between government and industry to provide for war materiel at levels of effectiveness and not just in time efficiencies. Alan Dupont and others spoke at the seminar of the impact of the Ukraine war which has demonstrated the absence of the kind of arsenal of democracy which Australia and the liberal democracies need. We did discuss the munitions challenge which requires significant investment in development and the buying of weapons stockpiles. With regard to Australia, LTGEN Stuart noted: “We need to the capacity to store, maintain, and perform upgrades on guided weapons in Australia using an Australian workforce. And that is a prerequisite to the capacity to then be able to either provide component manufacture or assembly or actually to manufacture guided weapons and explosive ordnance in the country.” We did not discuss the role of the Australian Army in the neighborhood although we did discuss that in an earlier visit. This is how he put during the 2022 discussion: He argued that “we are a convening power. What is our strategy? “Fundamentally it comes down to working with the alliance we have with the United States and other like-minded states, to promote shared interests. And in those contexts, we are focused on being a net contributor to alliance security as well as our own. “And we are addressing how we work together to build the interior lines of defense in the region – to use land – parlance in the Indo-Pacific.” How do you further enhance and develop such an approach? According to Lt. General Stuart: “You take the architecture that already exists through the multilateral activities we do with Indonesia on activities like Garuda Shield, Balikatan with the Philippines, Cobra Gold in Thailand, Talisman Saber in Australia. You build those out as multilateral activities, and connect them in a way that strengthens international partnerships while enabling a persistent multilateral presence.

Challenges Facing Australian Deterrence and Defence Second Line of Defense Page 37 “And that persistent presence and multilateral interaction has a range of key strategic aspects. First, we get to know the environment and how to operate within it. We get placement and access where our multilateral forces need it. We can leverage the relationships, and importantly we provide an alternative to what the authoritarian states are offering as a future for our partners in the region. “If we need to respond militarily in the region, we already have a grid and network established. We will have communications networks in place and have exercised mission command. And we have already worked through multilateral formations, so that you have a working C2 model, with all the authorities, in place and an understanding of how you plan, how national authorities affect your planning, how you force project, how you do logistics, and who’s going to contribute what to which part of any potential fight.” But he argued that “we are not fit to purpose today to be able to do what we need to do in this strategic space.” LTGEN Stuart, the Australian Army has a key role to play in the way ahead for the direct defense of Australia and the role of the ADF and the Australian nation in the region. Doing so will take imagination, resources and commitment – qualities which are always in short supply, at least in my view,