{"id":36353,"date":"2017-12-14T11:23:34","date_gmt":"2017-12-14T00:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=36353"},"modified":"2017-12-14T11:23:34","modified_gmt":"2017-12-14T00:23:34","slug":"us-third-offset-part-2-opportunities-for-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-third-offset-part-2-opportunities-for-australia\/","title":{"rendered":"US third offset (part 2): opportunities for Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

As I outlined in part 1<\/a>, America and, by extension, Australia are losing their military-technological edge in the Indo-Pacific. A new type of great-power competition is emerging throughout the region\u2014one that involves a race to develop strategic technologies and integrate them into military forces.<\/p>\n

But there are policies and innovative initiatives that Australia can pursue to help balance that trend. One path is to take further advantage of our close defence relationship with the US while it pursues its \u2018third offset\u2019 strategy.<\/p>\n

For Australia to get the full benefit from this still-developing initiative\u2014in both the short and long term\u2014the engagement should be broad. We should be looking for ways not only to maximise our limited resources in defence science and innovation, but also to improve coordination in research and development with the US and other partners. And we should also be seeking to participate in and learn from the wargaming and simulations that the US will use to help shape third offset operational concepts.<\/p>\n

New developments in legal statutes in the US, such as Australia\u2019s recent promotion to the national technology and industrial base (NTIB), may provide the basis for deeper linkages and coordination on specific third offset programs. The NTIB is the US legal framework<\/a> that defines the \u2018persons and organizations that are engaged in research, development, production, integration, services or information technology activities\u2019 in the UK, Canada and, as of this year, the UK and Australia. It effectively embeds Australia\u2019s defence industrial base within the Pentagon\u2019s legal structures and purview.<\/p>\n

The NTIB provides for a range of potential activities. For instance, through the NTIB, Australia\u2019s defence industry is now included in the Pentagon\u2019s annual assessments of the US defence industrial base and its capabilities, which are factored<\/a> into the US national defence strategy. A recent study<\/a> from the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Canada\u2019s inclusion in the NTIB highlighted the framework\u2019s promotional and legal role in facilitating defence integration and coordination between Ottawa and Washington, particularly among small and medium enterprises.<\/p>\n

While a similar in-depth study is needed to understand the nuances of the Australia\u2013US defence industrial relationship, the CSIS report found that product-related contracts dominated the Pentagon\u2019s spending in the Canadian market, compared to science and technology research and late-stage development work. Given the similarities between the Canadian and Australian markets, it\u2019s worth exploring whether Australia is also underutilised for R&D-related work for the Pentagon and, if so, what policy settings can be changed to improve the situation. The report offers some practical recommendations that could easily be applied to the Australia\u2013US relationship and our efforts to engage with the third offset, including aligning our defence innovation and science initiatives and prioritising specific technologies that are relevant to the strategy.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s inclusion in the NTIB could also lead to new forms of defence technology funding and coordination. For example, Australia would make a good trial location for the first international Defense Innovation Unit Experimental<\/a> (DIUx), an organisation set up by former US defence secretary Ash Carter as an outreach and funding office to Silicon Valley. DIUx provides a pathway for small emerging technology start-ups to engage with Pentagon procurement. It\u2019s also an investment vehicle for the government in critical technologies. While DIUx has only recently expanded outside of Silicon Valley, the existence of US\u2013Australia defence export agreements and extensive defence industry cooperation, and now Canberra\u2019s membership of the NTIB, make Australia an appealing international location on legal, technological and national security grounds.<\/p>\n

Despite Canberra\u2019s attention to defence R&D in the 2016 defence white paper, which has created bodies such as the Next Generation Technology Fund, funding models like DIUx or DARPA are still largely absent<\/a> in Australia. A DIUx office in Australia\u2014co-funded or co-operated by the US and Australia\u2014could fill a gap in our own defence industry, providing easier access for Australian companies to Pentagon procurement and funding. At the least, Canberra should be exploring the possibility of seconding Australian personnel to DIUx or similar offices in the US, to build experience that could underpin the creation of a similar Australian organisation.<\/p>\n

Finally, Australia should be focusing its engagement with the third offset on the wargaming and simulations that will eventually form its operational concepts. Aside from technological developments, those activities are arguably the most important for allies that want to understand the direction of the strategy and the role they may be expected to play. Much of this development is occurring in joint-warfare centres<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n

As additional third offset capabilities are introduced to the US military, Australia should be actively involved in trialling them through joint operations with allied forces. Even parallel wargaming programs in other allied countries might create a \u2018competitive marketplace of ideas<\/a>\u2019 on new operational concepts and strategies. A surge in American wargaming resources provides an opportunity for Australia to gain insights into the direction of US thinking on the third offset, informing our own defence planning and strategic outlook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I outlined in part 1, America and, by extension, Australia are losing their military-technological edge in the Indo-Pacific. A new type of great-power competition is emerging throughout the region\u2014one that involves a race to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":554,"featured_media":36358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2047,51,126,463],"class_list":["post-36353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia-us-relations","tag-defence-cooperation","tag-defence-industry","tag-scientific-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nUS third offset (part 2): opportunities for Australia | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-third-offset-part-2-opportunities-for-australia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US third offset (part 2): opportunities for Australia | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I outlined in part 1, America and, by extension, Australia are losing their military-technological edge in the Indo-Pacific. 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