AUKUS Collaboration Throughout the Capability Life Cycle

Recent RAND analysis of planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) reform in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) comes at a time when the critical significance of allied and partner relationships in deterring and responding to global security threats has become increasingly apparent. There is also a renewed emphasis on deepening U.S. technology cooperation with like-minded nations. Foremost among these efforts—and the most ambitious—is the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) trilateral security partnership. AUKUS aims not only to deliver new shared technologies that will enhance the military capabilities of the three partner nations but also to integrate their underlying defense sectors. Such technology cooperation and international defense-industrial integration could contribute to integrated deterrence through enhanced collaboration, innovation, interoperability, collective military capability, and industrial capacity.

Pursuing a strategy of integrated deterrence that relies on stronger, more-interoperable capabilities, greater technology cooperation, and deeper industrial ties has enormous implications for the PPBE-like processes within these countries. Australia, the UK, and the United States will need to align their national resource allocation processes with their international strategy and shared vision to achieve the goals exemplified by AUKUS. This paper addresses the implications of stronger allied cooperation for the reform of both DoD's PPBE processes and the comparative processes of U.S. allies and partners, particularly the members of the AUKUS security partnership.