Pentagon Considers Australia as Testing Ground for Hypersonic Missiles, Long-Range Weapons

The U.S. Department of Defense launches a sounding rocket from NASA's launch range at Wallops Flight Facility carrying hypersonic weapon experiments that will inform the development of the hypersonic class of weapons, on Wallops Island, Va., on Oct. 26, 2022. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

U.S. Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said on Aug. 8 that Australia could be a testing ground for U.S. hypersonic and other long-range precision weapons under the AUKUS trilateral defence alliance.

“Australia obviously has a tremendous amount of territory where testing is a little bit more doable, so I think that’s a unique thing, as an example, that the Australians bring to the table,” Ms. Wormuth told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“A challenge for us in the U.S. when it comes to hypersonics or even some of our things like the precision strike missile—which is not a hypersonic weapon but has very long ranges in some of its increments—is to find open spaces … where we can actually test these weapons. It’s a challenge.”

U.S. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth (L) and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville testify during a Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 10, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

This comes as two major missile production contractors in the U.S. report that they are ahead of schedule in the design and production of Ground-Based intercontinental ballistic missile interceptors.

This also follows internal divisions, both in the U.S. Congress and Australia’s federal Labor Party, over the AUKUS deal, despite prime minister Anthony Albanese remaining confident that the deal will go ahead.

So far, the AUKUS pact has been focused on supplying Australia with nuclear-powered submarines but is now increasingly focused on developing advanced capabilities such as long-range precision firing, artificial intelligence, and hypersonic weapons.

The trilateral AUKUS pact between Australia, the UK, and the U.S. was signed in 2021 in response to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) growing encroachment in the Indo-Pacific.

The CCP has criticised the AUKUS pact for undermining peace in the region—a statement the AUKUS alliance rejects.

AUKUS Deal Not Just About the Money, Says Wormuth

Ms. Wormuth said Australia’s contribution to AUKUS “doesn’t always have to be dollars,” and she expects Australia and the UK to pitch in and “have skin in this game—and they do.”

“The sense I got, certainly from talking to senior Australian officials, is they’re not doing this to make us happy, they’re not doing this just for fun,” she said.

“They’re doing this because they see it as in their own national interest in terms of being able to meet the different challenges that they see in this theatre.”

At the same time, Ms. Wormuth hopes that the U.S.’s alliances and nuclear arsenal will “discourage opportunistic aggression,” such as from the CCP.

“I think there is a recognition that when you look at the size of our military when you look at the size of the defence budget that the American taxpayer is willing to pay for, we … don’t plan to fight more than one major war at a time,” she said

Australia’s Ambassador to the U.S. Confident AUKUS Bill Will Go Ahead

Kevin Rudd, former Australian prime minister and now ambassador to the U.S., said he is confident the deal to supply Australia with nuclear submarines will go ahead despite opposition in Australia’s Labor Party and the U.S. Congress.

“[B]ased on the discussions I’ve had with the U.S. administration, based on the discussions which our own defence and naval teams have had with U.S. counterparts, we’re confident we’ll get there. Of course, the other part of the equation is the beginning of the construction of our facility at Osbourne in South Australia for the AUKUS class subs,” Mr. Rudd told the ABC’s RN Breakfast on Aug. 10.

“I was able to spend time with premier Malinauskas in South Australia on this the other day, as well as with the Australian naval infrastructure group and look at their plans for the development of what would be a massive facility in Adelaide—which will add to Australia’s overall defence self-reliance and resilience into the decades ahead.”

Former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the National Press Club in Canberra, Australia on March 9, 2021. (AAP Image/Mick Tsikas)

Mr. Rudd said that since being in the U.S. in his role as ambassador, he has visited one of the two major shipyards responsible for the production of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines—Newport News and Huntingdon at Virginia, U.S.

“These are massive facilities, but it is true that these facilities, both for U.S. needs and for Australian needs, will need to be expanded, which is why we intend to collaborate with the U.S. and further investment in the industrial base.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles said on July 28 that the U.S. Congress could be a complicated place, but the submarine deal was solid.

“We’re encouraged by how quickly it is going through,” Mr. Marles told ABC Radio on July 28.

“Fundamentally, we have reached an agreement with the Biden administration about how Australia requires the nuclear-powered submarine capability, and we’re proceeding along that path with pace.”

On July 27, around 30 Republican congressmen told U.S. President Joe Biden that providing the submarines to Australia under the AUKUS pact would “unacceptably weaken” the U.S. Navy fleet.

In July, Australia and the U.S. signed a pact that will see the Royal Australian Navy acquire at least three Virginia-class submarines from the U.S. starting in the 2030s.

The deal—presented as an amendment in the State Authorization Act of 2023—effectively fast-tracks the transfer of secret U.S. military hardware to Australia and the UK over the next five years, which sees the AUKUS members prioritised in line just behind Taiwan and Ukraine.

Additionally, the U.S. is expected to increase Australian port visits from this year, with the UK and U.S. submarines rotating through Australia from 2027.

This follows the arrival of a U.S. Virginia-class nuclear submarine on Aug. 4 at Perth’s HMAS Stirling port, coinciding with a routine patrol of the region as the United States reaffirms its commitment to the Indo-Pacific.

When asked why the U.S. is expanding its presence in the Indo-Pacific through actions such as building a military operations centre in Darwin, Mr. Rudd said such developments are normal evolution between allies.

“For the U.S., their interest, of course, is to ensure that they are engaged in the proper sustainment of their own forces here in the wider Indo-Pacific region, all anchored to the maintenance and strategic equilibrium in our wider region, so that we end up to be able to keep a free, open and sustainable Indo-Pacific region,” Mr. Rudd said.