DSEI: AUS/UK Treaty provides over-arching strategic framework | ADM September 2013

With the elevation to Treaty level of the Australia-UK bilateral defence and security relationship, fresh impetus has been given to the possibility of renewed collaboration in defence procurement between Australia and the UK.

Signed in Perth in January by Defence Minister Stephen Smith and his UK counterpart Philip Hammond, the Australia-UK Defence and Security Cooperation Treaty provides for the first time an overarching strategic framework for the many elements of the bilateral defence relationship.

Ministers attending the subsequent Australian-UK Ministerial Meeting (AUKMIN), also in Perth, highlighted what the AUKMIN communique described as the “exceptionally close relationship” between the two countries; one that was “founded on shared values and common strategic and economic interests”.

And that partnership is bolstered by wide-ranging diplomatic cooperation, the depth of which is demonstrated by Australia and the UK uniquely sharing their diplomatic reporting from a number of countries.

The new agreement awaits ratification by the parliaments of both countries; in Australia’s case a procedure unlikely to be completed before the end of the year due to the 7 September general election.

The treaty reinforces the importance of the UK/Australia/NZ/Singapore/Malaysia Five Power Defence Arrangement (FPDA) alongside the American, British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand Armies’ program (ABCA) and other multilateral security mechanisms.

It does not involve any dramatic change in bilateral working arrangements; rather the formalising and enhancement of existing cooperation. This ranges from the exchange of information and analysis on strategic defence and security issues to engagement on equipment and capability harmonisation, logistics, personnel exchanges, science and technology and defence reform.

With budget cuts in both countries driving a fresh focus on increased cooperation in defence procurement, attention is centring primarily on possible collaboration in the development of the UK’s Type 26 Global Combat ship as a replacement for the Royal Australian Navy’s (RAN’s) in-service fleet of eight Anzac class frigates.

Under Project Sea 5000, construction is expected to begin in the early 2020s of eight RAN Future Frigates. These will be significantly larger than the 3,600 tonne Anzacs and capable of independent and task group operations, with a strong emphasis on anti-submarine warfare.

During their time in Perth both defence ministers highlighted not only the “comparable deliberations” that faced the two countries, but also noted the potential benefits accruing from the economies of scale, primarily in through-life support, should Australia choose to combine its requirement for eight vessels with the complementary Royal Navy requirement for 13.

As pointed out by UK Secretary of Defence Philip Hammond: “We’ve designed the Type 26 from the outset with the idea that we would build the frigate both in the UK for our use, and through partnerships with other countries for their use.

“It’s designed as a platform that can be fitted with different combat systems for different types of operations around the world”.

In the event of such collaboration, the RAN ships would be built in Australia – “we need to keep technical capabilities and jobs in our own countries, and we need to ensure interoperability of our equipment, both between ourselves and with the US and other key allies,” Hammond stated.

Certainly the timing of Type 26 development slots in with Australian requirements; the first of class will enter service with the Royal Navy around 2021.

ADM understands that a number of visits at expert level have taken place in both directions since January, aimed at flushing out Future Frigate requirements and capabilities.

“One advantage for Australia is that the UK is further down the path of requirement definition, and this potentially reduces risk for Australia,” an informed source commented.

Shipbuilding opportunities

While Australia’s geography is often seen as driving unique capability requirements, Brigadier Will Taylor, UK Defence and Naval Advisor in Canberra, points out that with maritime operations ranging from the Arctic Sea to the Mediterranean, the Gulf and Caribbean to the South Atlantic, the Royal Navy’s requirements for the new frigate are not so different to those of the RAN.

“In fact, as the ministers noted in Perth there’s obvious convergence in terms of the capability requirements,” he noted.

Additional impetus is also being seen post-January in bilateral discussions on Australia’s Sea 1000 Future Submarine program, under which 12 larger, more capable Australian-constructed boats will begin replacing the present six-strong Collins class fleet, probably in the late 2020s.

Here the potential for cooperation is less clear-cut, given the presumption the Future Submarine will have a US combat system and deploy the US/Australian-developed Mk 47 Common Broadband Advanced Sonar System (CBASS) heavyweight torpedo.

“That said, there are very few natural partners that Australia can work with who can provide access to the kind of technology we would want to incorporate in a future submarine, and particularly partners who can provide access to the IP associated with that technology,” said a source close to the program.

“It’s fair to say there are lines of communication open between the Sea 1000 project and the UK and discussions are under way on how Australia can be supported in this enterprise by close friends.”

There’s also Australian interest in the UK Mine Countermeasures, Hydrographic and Patrol Craft Project (MHPC), with obvious synergies between this and Sea 1180, the $7.5 billion project for a modular multi-role Offshore Combat Vessel.

Such interest again revolves around offboard systems, particularly the minehunting and hydrographic capabilities, rather than platforms.

The new treaty is understood to have had its genesis in discussions between Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith and his then-UK counterpart Liam Fox at the time of the AUKMIN Sydney meeting in January 2011. The finalised text was agreed late last year ready for signature at the January 2013 talks.

While the agreement is generally seen as a way both of elevating the status of the relationship and of modernising it, the existing bilateral links have nevertheless been working smoothly at so many levels that they’ve largely been taken for granted.

This situation has been facilitated by the natural points of contact throughout the defence forces of both countries created by a strong exchange program.

Of Australia’s current senior Defence leadership, Chief of Defence Force General David Hurley served on exchange with the Irish Guards, Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Ray Griggs served on exchange aboard a RN patrol ship and attended the UK Higher Command and Staff Course, and Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison and Chief of Joint Operations Lieutenant-General Ash Power both served as instructors at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.

Currently about 50 UK military personnel and 10 UK Ministry of Defence civilians are on exchange in Australia. These range across all three services at ranks from Sergeant to Colonel and include staff posts in Joint Operations Command (JOC), Navy, Army and Fleet Headquarters, and attachments to amphibious and Special Forces.

Such exchanges are managed on a direct one-for-one basis – the UK position in JOC is matched with an Australian counterpart in the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters. Similarly, a UK Principal Warfare Officer (PWO) on exchange on an RAN ship will be matched by an Australian PWO filling an equivalent billet on an RN vessel.

A separate Loan Service category involves UK officers providing specialist advice and capability in a particular area. A UK loan service officer from the RN’s Type 45 destroyer program is currently working on the Air Warfare Destroyer project, and another UK loan officer is embedded with the Amphibious Task Group at Fleet Headquarters.

Air Power

Over recent decades the equipment sets of the RAF and RAAF have become increasingly divergent, with the Hawk trainer/lead-in fighter and early models of Hercules transports the only common platforms and a consequent reduction in type-driven liaison.

However, the two air forces still benefit from exchange positions flying UK Typhoons and Australian F/A-18 fighters, and the RAAF is providing “seedcorn” posts in AP-3Cs to keep airborne antisubmarine warfare drills alive while the UK debates its future role in this sector.

With both air forces now operating C-130J medium transports, C-17A Globemaster III strategic transports and Airbus A330 multirole tanker/transports in addition to the Hawk, the scope for consequent bilateral engagement has increased. Both services will also eventually deploy the Joint Strike Fighter, albeit in different variants. 

Cooperation on military capability harmonisation and equipment cooperation  –known as AUMICE – is managed at three-star level. Established in 2006 to replace a production and procurement agreement dating from the 1980s, AUMICE principally involves liaison officers assessing the potential for cooperation at the very early stages of a capability requirement or project development.

This arrangement has served both countries well during the past 12 years of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing the mechanism for the rapid exchange of technology and data, particularly in electronic warfare and counter-IED operations.

Close cooperation on theatre-related equipment developments and soldier combat systems is maintained between Diggerworks and its UK defence-industry counterpart, Niteworks.

A separate agreement for cooperative defence science and technology came into effect in 2005, replacing a previous undertaking.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in 2011 by the Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) and the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) grants access to each other’s science facilities and equipment.

This is an area where the time difference between the UK and Australia contributes to a virtual cycle that allows teams to work a 24-hour day, passing data securely between laboratories at each shift change.

Under a further MOU, DSTO coordinates joint research on science and innovation issues relating to national security and counter-terrorism with the Office for Security and Counter-terrorism within the UK Home Office.

Both Australian and UK officials stress the safeguards as well as the benefits involved in the exchange of classified and commercially-sensitive information.

“Obviously we have agreements in place on sharing classified information, but in some areas we’ll make government-to-government agreements for specific information,” BRIG Taylor explained to ADM.

“For example, if the Australian Capability Development Group (CDG) is examining a particular capability and they want to benchmark it against a similar capability, then they will ask us for benchmarking data.

“That’s a government-to-government agreement, there’s no commercial access to the data, the IP is protected, and the same is true for information that Australia passes to the UK. This allows us the potential to reduce time and risk in the procurement cycle.”

South Australia’s Woomera test range, initially established as a joint Australia-UK facility, continues to be utilised by the UK on both a commercial and cooperative basis. BAE Systems’ supersonic Taranis unmanned combat aircraft system (UCAS) advanced technology demonstrator will reportedly undergo trials at Woomera later this year.

Cyber Security

Liaison officers and a cyber-working group that meets annually bolster cooperation on cyber security between the Australian Signals Directorate and the UK’s Government Communications Headquarters.

The bilateral cyber partnership announced at the 2011 AUKMIN talks presumably now includes the trilateral UK-Australia-US initiative announced in May 2012 under which the three countries will “jointly request research proposals, conduct joint reviews and provide coordinated funding and support to pull-through of the resultant technologies.”

Other Australia-UK cooperation functions via multilateral agreements such as the wide-ranging Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) involving Australia, UK, US, Canada and NZ.

The same five nations are members of the ABCA armies program, whose objective is the effective integration of the five nations’ land forces in a joint environment. Joint participation in ABCA workshops at the US Army’s Centre of Army Lessons Learned, drawing on experiences in Afghanistan, is helping to shape new joint operational concepts.

Most importantly, cooperation in the collection, analysis and distribution of signals intelligence between the same five nations continues under the aegis of the 66-year-old UKUSA “Five Eyes” agreement, dubbed by Australian academic Desmond Ball as “the ties that bind”.

With the need to slash costs a mutual concern, senior-level cooperation between the UK Defence Transformation team and Australia’s Strategic Reform Group began shortly after AUKMIN 2011.

This has included officials being exchanged between the two groups for short periods with a specific remit to examine a particular area of transformation or efficiency in order to inform domestic programs.

Australia is understood to have been showing interest in the construct of the UK Joint Forces Command, an organisation borne out of the 2011 Levene defence review and designed and delivered from scratch in just nine months.

The new command takes ownership of nearly 30,000 military and civilian personnel in a bid to better manage and support joint services such as training and education, intelligence, cyber operations, medical and logistics together with specialist sectors such as survey and linguistics, some of which in Australia are part of the Vice Chief of Defence Force Group.

The signature in 2011 of a Strategic Policy Partnership between the Australian Department of Defence and the UK Ministry of Defence built on an increase in information-sharing at the strategic level initiated in 2008 by the establishment of regular senior- level military and civilian Policy Talks.

The 2011 partnership committed both bodies to “a close and candid dialogue” on key strategic issues of mutual interest and the exchange of strategic high-level documents – but with the right to redact elements from them.

Such discussions also necessarily involve close collaboration between the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, including exchanges of personnel in areas of mutual interest so all four departments are able to develop mutual policies.

These are generally refined at an annual strategic dialogue held at deputy secretary level.

According to Brigadier Taylor, there is an obvious and developing relationship between the policy body and AUKMIN which allows the policy body to review progress by departments in implementing decisions made in the ministerial talks.

This also provides senior officials with the opportunity to identify emerging issues to put forward for the AUKMIN agenda, helping to keep the talks current, focused and relevant.