White House says it has no plans to invite Canada to AUKUS, a concern for the Canadian military

There are no plans to invite Canada to a security pact between Australia, the UK and the United States focused on defense technology cooperation, said US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

The trilateral security pact, AUKUS, was concluded in 2021 and is seen as a way to counter China’s growing military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

While the current primary, or “pillar one” focus is to help Australia develop nuclear-powered submarines, it is “pillar two” focus includes collaboration on many technologies, including electronic warfare, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies.

The pact is currently so focused on the submarines that there are no specific plans to expand it further or include Canada, Kirby said to CTV’s question period on June 11. AUKUS currently includes the United States and the UK because they have experience with nuclear-powered submarines, he said.

“It’s not an alliance; it’s not some kind of club,’ he said, adding that people are looking at it the wrong way.

Nevertheless, the Commander of Canadian Joint Operations Command has expressed concern over Canada’s absence from the pact.

“Why aren’t we there?”

“The fact is that [nuclear submarine] technology has been around for a while, so sharing it isn’t a big deal,” said Vice Admiral Bob Auchterlonie. told The Canadian press in January.

“The problem is when you start talking about advanced technology in terms of the realm of artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum, all these things that really matter moving forward. Those are conversations we need to be involved in. And the question is: why are we not involved in this?”

Kirby said the United States is cooperating with Canada in other ways, such as through the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). “We work very well with the Canadian Forces,” he said. “We know that Canada is an Indo-Pacific power.”

But when asked if Canada could be included in AUKUS in the future, Kirby said, “I just have no say in that. … There are really no discussions or plans.”

While the first pillar is focused on nuclear-powered submarines, the AUKUS partners announced a global breakthrough in artificial intelligence in May.

“The work saw the first joint deployment of Australian, UK and US AI assets in a collaborative swarm to detect and track military targets in a representative environment in real time,” said a May 26 media report. Edition said. “Accelerating the development of these technologies will have a huge impact on the coalition’s military capability.”

Role of AUKUS in Countering CCP

A June 6 report from an Australian think tank highlights the importance of the two AUKUS initiatives in the fight against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

An analysis of 2 million scientific papers showed that Beijing has a major lead in military capabilities.

“In a number of technology areas, China’s lead is so great that no set of countries exceeds its share – highlighting the importance of the accelerating effect of increased collaboration between like-minded partners,” said the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

ASPI found that about 14 percent of high-impact authors in China had their training in AUKUS countries, with most (8.5 percent) in the United States.

Kirby said tensions with the Chinese military are rising in the Indo-Pacific, indicating a greater need for security, along with diplomatic communications.

On June 3 a Chinese warship came within 500 feet from hitting the American USS Chung-Hoon, which was en route with the Canadian ship HMCS Montreal in the Taiwan Strait.

Kirby said if incidents like this continue, aggression could lead to real conflict.

“There’s a lot of potential for people to get hurt and nobody wants it to spill over into that kind of confrontation.”

Cindy Li contributed to this report.