AUKUS Prompts Research Security Concerns

Current Export Controls threaten the "seamless collaboration" envisioned by the AUKUS agreement, according to politicians and researchers alike.

Australian researchers fear enhanced Export controls prompted by the AUKUS pact will stifle communications, telling Science “It’s explicitly stated that researchers communication would be prohibited by any means – e-mails, papers, or speeches – to a person outside Australian borders without a Defense permit.”

The country’s 2012 Defence Trade Controls Act does away with most exemptions for basic research. “This definition is highly restrictive and is unlikely to extend to technology developed for commercial application,” notes  Corrs Chambers Westgarth in a client advisory. 

The Strengthened Export Controls Steering Group, led by Ian Chubb, Australia’s Chief Scientist,  will be Meeting March 25 to assess recent dual-use regulations.  

Canberra is to buy the U.S. Virginia-class military submarines, and along with Britain and Australia eventually producing and operating a new submarine class, the SSN-AUKUS.  The cost could easily approach $500 billion, according to Richard Denniss of The Australia Institute.

Australian defense minister Richard Marles highlighted the benefits of collaboration:  “Today, we have also taken steps to create a more seamless defense industrial base between our two countries," he said. "We need to be working closer together to enhance our military capability and to develop new technologies."

In an essay signed by five former US Ambassadors to Canberra, Jim Caruso of CSIS has called for the revision of Australia’s treatment under ITAR to permit this “seamless” integration. 

“AUKUS—the defense-technology sharing agreement signed last year by the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom—cannot achieve its ambitious goals of sharing and codeveloping critical and emerging technologies, from nuclear submarines to hypersonic missiles and autonomous systems, without revising ITAR, at least for Australia as the United States has previously done for Canada under the National Technology and Industrial Base,” writes Caruso.

“Unless the ITAR regime changes in relation to this project, this project won't succeed,” said Mark Watson, of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Washington, D.C., office. “Something has to change. And that’s probably easier said than done. It’s almost like you need an AUKUS express lane on ITAR.”  

The House Foreign Affairs Committee recently advanced a bill that would add scrutiny on the State Department, calling for it to coordinate with the Pentagon on a report detailing potential impediments to implementing AUKUS, including ITAR.  HR 1093 calls for “an assessment of recommended improvements to export control laws and regulations of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States that such countries should make to implement the AUKUS partnership.”

“Congress has a huge role to play when you’re talking about ITAR because some of the export controls are statutory, said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn) in a December interview with Breaking Defense.  “And Congress needs to change the statutes,”