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Mara Karlin, Assistant Secretary of Defense for strategies, plans, and capabilities, discussed the further implications of AUKUS with members of Congress — including its second pillar, which involves enhancing joint capabilities and interoperability.
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Speaking to members of Congress, Karlin unpacked the role AUKUS plays in supporting and enhancing the National Defense Strategy, along with how the Defense Department is seizing what Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III called the “generational opportunity” AUKUS presents, and why the US must work to expand defence cooperation with its closest allies and partners, particularly in the era of growing great power competition, which has been identified by the Congressional Research Service as the foremost challenge to the United States and its allies, including Australia.
Assistant Secretary Karlin explained, “The National Defense Strategy describes integrated deterrence as a holistic response to the strategies that our competitors are pursuing and directs the use of campaigning to gain military advantage. It calls on the Department of Defense to build enduring advantages across the defence ecosystem both in the United States and more broadly to include the growing overlapping between the US, Australian and UK defence ecosystems in particular, to shore up the foundations for integrated deterrence and campaigning.”
Karlin explained to US lawmakers that the strategy describes allies and partners as a “centre of gravity” for its implementation.
“What is needed now more than ever before is an approach that enhances our AUKUS partners’ conventional military capabilities, opens support to a more integrated defense industrial base, increases information sharing, and implements cooperative policies that reflect the concepts laid out in the national security strategy. What cannot be overstated is this: We cannot do this alone, and our AUKUS partners stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States, as they have for many decades,” Karlin explained.
The emphasis on developing new technologies, particularly under AUKUS Phase 2 figured centrally in Assistant Secretary Karlin’s engagement with US lawmakers.
“As President [Joe] Biden and Secretary Austin have said, AUKUS is a generational opportunity. Together with our AUKUS partners, we have identified several advanced capability opportunities in areas that range from artificial intelligence and quantum to hypersonics. Over time, the work we do will advance our own capabilities, as well as our partners’, and will enable us to address the challenges that we will collectively face,” Karlin added.
The AUKUS partnership, Karlin said, also provides an opportunity to streamline defence cooperation and to identify sticking points that make information or technology sharing a challenge.
Assistant Secretary Karlin added, “We need to widen the aperture, foster collaborative defense innovation, advance military interoperability with our allies and partners, and leverage our collective strengths as a force multiplier. AUKUS has provided a lens into not only what military capabilities our closest allies need, but also what barriers exist that hamper pursuit of our integrated national security strategy and how we need to adapt our approach to meet our national security objectives.”
Karlin told lawmakers, that the Biden administration plans to consult with Congress on legislative changes that will allow increased exemptions to licensing requirements for AUKUS partners and make easier the transfer of both unclassified and classified defence articles and services.
