Former DOD Official Says AUKUS Has 'Promise,' but Guardrails Needed

A former senior Pentagon official last week said he’s hopeful the Australia-U.K.-U.S. (AUKUS) partnership will lead to more defense industry collaboration, but he also suggested the three countries need to be careful about loosening trade restrictions too much.

Brett Lambert, the Defense Department’s former deputy assistant secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy, said “there is promise in the path AUKUS has charted.” But he said countries that “participate in a truly allied defense industrial base must abide by a set of best practices and procedures,” including mechanisms to protect intellectual property and other sensitive data.

“This is a distinction that does not get enough attention, in my view, likely because it's just hard,” Lambert, now managing director of The Densmore Group, a consulting firm, said during an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. Sensitive military items shared with allies “must have significantly different rules of the road than purely commercial offerings,” he said.