MAJ PETE NGUYEN: Hi. Good morning, everyone. This is Major Pete Nguyen. I'll be fulfilling today's backgrounder on AUKUS Pillar 2, Maritime Big Play and Exercise Autonomous Warrior 2024. Today's briefing will be on background and attributed to a senior defense official(s). And with that, we'll move into question and answer. We can do one question and a follow up and we'll start with USNI's Mallory Shelbourne, please.
Q: Hi. Thanks so much for doing this. I just wanted to ask a general question. So, during things like the Maritime Play, can you talk more about what partners like the UK and Australia bring to the table that maybe provides different perspective on how they're thinking about things like unmanned and autonomous technology compared to the US? Thank you.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: What we've discovered is that all three partners have a wide variety of capabilities. So, when we talked, for example, we came to Jarvis Bay for the Autonomous Warrior Maritime Big Play experimentation campaign, much of the gear that was brought to the party was from the partners. We did ship some from the US to do that.
They have a deep bench in terms of surface and underwater and airborne capabilities and it's — again, what we've been doing with this experimentation campaign is to ensure that when different gear shows up in the fight into theater, it can be included seamlessly to provide common operating pictures, and to common control systems, and to affect and to ensure effects, as and when we choose to have them, as a coalition.
MAJ NGUYEN: Thank you. We'll move to Breaking Defense, Justin Katz, please.
Q: Hi. Thanks. So, when you're talking about these different capabilities that were involved in the exercises, are we mainly talking about established capabilities that are already in play in the US Navy or the international navies? Or are we talking about industry bringing technology at the invitation of the governments?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: It's actually — this type of event is a lot of fun because from a technologist perspective, because this wasn't the case where we just relied on existing deployed capabilities. This was all industry. We had 30 different systems from the seabed to the stratosphere involved here. And the last day, yesterday, we spent walking around the different companies, large and small, who brought their gear to Australia to participate in this two- to three-week set of exercises.
And that gear itself had been vetted over the last year or so by the three countries in different settings and independently. So, when we got to do — again, we're not just talking about the things that are already deployed. These are things that, in some cases by some of the partners, have been made operational. But in general, it was — this works in all our preliminary tests. Let's make sure — let's see if it can all work together and what it takes to do so. And it was, again, if you do operational tests and experimentation to see what happened in the last few weeks is incredibly encouraging.
MAJ NGUYEN: Thank you. We'll move to Defense One, Patrick Tucker.
Q: Yeah, hi, thanks. Like everyone, I appreciate you guys doing this call. Would love to write about this exercise. Can you share some specifics though on what were some of the scenarios that you tested out? What was the — like some of the objectives? Were you trying to do a joint all-domain command and control thing where you shorten the cycle between target acquisition and target connection, because you're creating like a data network of a lot of autonomous systems?
I'm just trying to get a sense of — and also did you — through this experimentation, did you reach a new understanding about, oh, now we can deploy autonomous capabilities this way to achieve some sort of operational advantage? So, any specifics you can elaborate on in terms of what you actually did in the experiment and what you learned from it, and what was involved would be great.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: So, I'm going to look at (MAJ Nguyen) here. I think that after this call, there's a longer list that we should be able to share more details of all the things that happened. But certainly, all the testing experimentation was driven by specific scenarios. So, think of the need to use a mix of uncrewed and crewed assets to do very large area ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), for example, and to maintain a common operating picture.
If you have — then to your point, if you have gear that's then brought into from one of the partners is added to the mix, you don't want to have to say, oh, wait a minute, come back in three months or six months or a year and let's figure out how to add you in. A lot of what was done across the scenarios that were explored was looking at a common operating picture and common communications back to standards, yes.
But also, not stopping there because, certainly with autonomous systems, if you insist perhaps on having an old-style manner, somebody on the loop all the time, in ISR settings, then you won't achieve the operational advantage that you seek. So, it's the networking, it's the standards, it's the how to convey the essence of commander's intent. So, we need to survey this area or surveil this area for threats of this type, for example. So, we can get — I'm sure we can get the longer list of scenarios after the fact and rather than list it here. But you're absolutely right, this is how we pursued the activities.
Q: OK, and just a quick follow up, is there anything you can say in terms of helping us to understand or contrast the additional capability that all of this brings and the state change, if you know what I mean? So, if you had a naval maneuver that before using more conventional systems, you would try to execute maybe intelligence collection or something else and it would take this long and be this hard.
Now that we've incorporated these autonomous systems across industry, across different companies and even across national lines, we were able to bring down the time and difficulty of that maneuver by a factor of X, for example. Just something to kind of show that this was something that accelerated operations or made them more successful in contrast to the state of current operations.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: Let's see — there were some examples, again, driven by the vignettes, the operational examples that we used to frame these exercises, but yesterday's discussions indicated that things that would have taken perhaps months were taking place in terms of common operating pictures. And just as when the US system in other places where we're experimenting with autonomous systems, you start to see these operational advantages. But the way they need — the way you get to employ them on a routine basis requires the TTP (tactics, techniques, and procedures), requires that integration.
And one of the highlights for me of yesterday, it was distinguished visitors' day, senior visitors' day with the number of folks in uniform from the operational — with operational remits from the three countries who were present and asking the hardest questions, because the results were being shown and clear. So, from a technology perspective, very optimistic about adoption and the operational advantage that comes from doing so.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #2: Can I just add as a non-technical expert, what I saw with Maritime Big Play is not — these platforms and systems that we saw, not all of them are fielded yet. And what I saw and what I heard from the service members that I spoke with was how Maritime Big Play provided a venue that could help each of them understand how to better use these systems, how to integrate the systems, how to make sure that if they needed to deploy them in a coalition form, that they would be able to do so effectively with the team members that showed up.
And so, we demonstrated not only the system, which will help us understand, but also how we would employ those systems to the specific TTPs that will help us do that more effectively, that will accelerate our adoption. And then further, it helped us understand how we would do it together through connecting and communicating and command and controlling the devices. So, it was kind of a multi-layered learning experience.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: Just one more aspect. Part of the, just for me, the Big Play demonstrated an AUKUS advantage, because we were with — that is the nature of doing this as a coalition activity of advanced tech, advanced but now proven tech, working not seamlessly but really well, other systems in the three countries, the tech bases in the three countries as well as the operators from the three countries.
That's something that's hard — it's now shared information and AUKUS made that possible. And in order for the coalition to show up in a fight with uncrewed systems, there's now demonstrated a proof of concept of how to make that happen and it's doable, it's actually within reach.
Q: OK, thank you very much. (MAJ Nguyen), if you could get us whatever list of scenarios, I would love that. Thank you so much.
MAJ NGUYEN: Yeah, sure thing. We have nine minutes and three more question askers. Let's go to Bloomberg's Tony Capaccio, please.
Q: Yeah, a quick one. What role is the P-8 — are the P-8 AI experiments playing in this current exercise you're talking about? Those are those command and control in the sky and they're sharing sonobuoy information. Are they playing in this at all and is that quarterback for the submarines launching uncrewed?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: So, a couple of things that for this — for the Maritime Big Play in 2024, we didn't have the submarine activity that you described launching and recovering uncrewed systems. That's already been made to work. The work with the P-8s and sonobuoys is also working. So, these were other technologies, but you're actually really on point here because when we look at large area coverage using the uncrewed systems.
That's where dropping sonobuoys, putting out some of the uncrewed surface vessels that harvest energy or a wind driven or wave powered with a variety of very interesting sensors on board. This is where we've now got a lot of really interesting pieces. So, as we move into Maritime Big Play in 2025 and 2026, and that planning is now underway, we have a lot of ambition now we've done this crawl phase. This is — if you've done operational test and experimentation, you'll understand what it takes to do one of these things.
And it worked really well. Because of the partners in the three countries making it happen, now we can look to next year, and we are, and what it will take to do that. And that's where, right, the P-8s, the other assets come into play to get massive area coverage and do all kinds of [audio gap] things.
Q: So, the P-8s will be incorporated next year into your uncrewed systems that exercises kind of as a quarterback in the sky.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: But we don't know yet. Again, that's the planning — literally the planning for the next two cycles, 2025 and 2026, just started. But because of the successes separately with the sonobuoys and the P-8s, I personally would hope and expect that will be the case.
MAJ NGUYEN: Brandi Vincent with DefenseScoop.
Q: Hi. Thanks again for doing this. Were any of the autonomous assets or combat capabilities identified by the US, Aussies or Brit participants in these Maritime Big Play events that make sense for more rapid fielding to support real time military operations in the near term?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: Some of them already are.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #2: I think when — part of doing the Maritime Big Play is to see the realm of what's available and to make those kinds of decisions. But at this point, we haven't even completed the exercise. So, no decisions have been taken to acquire or rapidly accelerate any systems.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: In the three systems, but there are some systems, unmanned — uncrewed surface vessels in Australia that have been put out on the ocean. And some of the things that we saw during this experimentation campaign was data coming back from those systems in real time to maintain a common operating picture. So, it's a mix, and everybody's leaning in.
Q: OK, that's helpful. Can you — just quick follow ups on that. Can you please provide any like either of those capabilities you just mentioned? Are any of the American provided by brand and type that have been demonstrated at the event? And then separately, SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #2, you had mentioned that in future events, Japan is going to play a much larger role. Can you please expand a bit on that and sort of what you're envisioning there?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: On the systems, we'll absolutely — would defer to (MAJ Nguyen), but we'll be able to get you that information of the systems that were tested and tried. Again, a mixture of platforms, a mixture of sensors, a mixture of networking and communication systems, mostly from small businesses across the three countries.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #2: And then on Japan, we had them come as observers to this exercise. And among our four nations, there was clarity that we look forward to expanding and deepening our cooperation going forward. As SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1 noted, the planning for the next exercise is underway. So, the full details of what their participation will be in the future hasn't yet been determined, but I think that they will move from being an observer to being a participant in the activity.
And what a participant means could be bringing Japanese systems in platforms, participating in that command-and-control architecture. There's a wide range of opportunities and we're really eager to explore those.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: Certainly, Japan has a deep industrial base in autonomy and robotic systems. So, we're looking forward to, again, as part of the planning for the next two cycles.
MAJ NGUYEN: Thank you very much, and we'll give one last question to Andrew Greene with ABC.
Q: Thank you. My question is essentially Brandi's question about the Japanese Self-Defense force. Can you clarify whether it was members of their special forces taking part in Jervis Bay? And is this essentially the first sign of an expansion of Pillar 2 in terms of membership?
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #1: In terms of folk who showed up from Japan government officials as observers, it was primarily from the technical — our equivalent, the technical folk. Technical organizations there refers to Japan to provide the actual list of organizations. It was a — yeah, it worked out very, very well to have them in that role. Great comments.
SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL #2: I'd just highlight that this is an opportunity for our innovation communities and our operational communities to connect in an experimentation environment that enables us to understand from the community that is looking at the cutting edge technologies and then the operational community that has key operational problems, operational challenges that they're working to address — to bring them together in an environment, a combined environment to experiment and think through how we can undertake activities that promote security and stability in the regions.
How do we ensure that we have capable forces, combined forces who can work effectively together with the most effective systems. And Japan offers a unique opportunity as one of our key partners in the region to add to that capability mix. So, that's what we're looking for, for Japan to be part of that experimentation going forward, but also part of the collaboration.
MAJ NGUYEN: All right, everybody, thank you for calling in today. Really appreciate everyone's time. I'm tracking that I owe the callers here some additional information and releases. And that concludes today's briefing. Thank you so much.