U.S. moves to enhance military tech partnerships with Japan, Australia

DARWIN, Australia — Defense leaders from the U.S., Australia and Japan unveiled new plans on Sunday to more deliberately link their militaries and weapons systems, jointly adopt autonomous and other advanced technologies, and increasingly consult each other about existing and emerging security issues in the Indo-Pacific region.

America’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, and Japanese Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen detailed their latest cooperation agenda in a press briefing immediately following the fourteenth Trilateral Defense Ministers’ Meeting (TDMM) Nov. 17, where they’d solidified these aims.

“We’re excited to build advanced capabilities with Japan and Australia,” Austin told reporters there.

“We’re moving forward with our trilateral research, development, test and evaluation projects arrangement focusing on composite aerospace materials and autonomous systems. In the same vein, we’re deepening our discussions on cooperative combat aircraft and autonomy, and we’re also discussing opportunities to boost cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar 2,” he said.

Broadly, the senior officials vowed to enhance their nations’ defense cooperation pursuits across four focus areas: expanding trilateral operational cooperation; building advanced capabilities together; planning together; and demonstrating presence in the region.

Among a range of fresh announcements, they confirmed new goals to cooperate on establishing a networked air-and-missile defense architecture designed to counter threats intensifying across the Indo-Pacific, and agreed to deepen collaboration with regard to trilateral training, exercises and exchanges.

They also launched a new plan for “Trilateral Defense Consultations” to more concretely align policy and operational objectives between America’s military services, the Japan Self Defense Forces, and the Australian Defence Force.

“There actually has been a real history and record of us working closely together. But what we are announcing today gives expression to the fact that — as three countries — we now seek to do this in a more and increasingly coordinated way. And that will be a benefit to our capability. We believe it will be the benefit to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific, and we believe it will make a significant contribution to the global rules-based order,” Marles said.

The trilateral partners also expressed concerns about intensifying, destabilizing actions being carried out by adversaries in the region — including what they called “dangerous conduct” and coercion that they attribute to China.

“The security environment is very severe right now, and very complex. We need to cooperate closely, from peacetime to contingency,” Nakatani said.

In terms of new plans for joint technology acceleration in the near term, Austin noted that through the AUKUS alliance, the U.S., U.K. and Australia are working together on Pillar 2 tech to “provide real capability to the warfighter as quickly as we possibly can.”

“We expect that Japan will join AUKUS Pillar 2 at some point in the not-too-distant future to work on specific projects that have yet to be named,” the defense secretary said.

“But again, there are just so many things that we can work together on and are working together on — whether it’s you know quantum capability, whether it’s [collaborative combat aircraft or CCA], or what you would describe as man-unmanned teaming aircraft, and just a number of other things that include long-range strike, and so many other things that I believe our work is going to kind of pay significant dividends to the warfighter here going forward,” Austin told DefenseScoop.

Ahead of the trilateral meeting, the defense leaders participated in a troop engagement with Australian soldiers and U.S. Marines rotationally based in Darwin — and were shown tanks, drones and other assets they are developing and deploying.

At one point, Australian Army Sgt. Jake Fauser briefed the officials on some uncrewed aerial systems and radar capabilities being leveraged for detection and reconnaissance operations. He notably answered follow-up questions from Austin regarding the range and reach of the various assets.

On the sidelines of the event, Fauser told DefenseScoop about some of the drones on display.

“For our close-range reconnaissance we have the Black Hornet, which can move between that sort of zero-to-two-kilometer radius. In our intermediate we have our Parrot drone, which [operators can move up to four kilometers] — and then we have our Wasp capability that can punch from out to five [kilometers]. And we’re in the process of getting the Puma being a new long-range drone which can increase our capability out to 40 kilometers,” Fauser said.

In his view as a soldier, deepening partnerships in this way is boosting Australia’s national stability and security.

“It has been an excellent experience. Last year, my platoon was attached to an American combat team. Being able to experience the different ways that the Australian Army does things with the U.S. Marine Corps and learning off each other, being able to learn off each other, and then we’d be able to cover each other’s gaps in a future conflict, if the need is there,” Fauser told DefenseScoop.