The Command-and-Control Problem AUKUS Isn't Solving

Week 5 | January 2026

AUKUS's Maritime Industrial Base Program is widely criticised as being "stuck" on submarine production despite substantial Australian funding contributions. Fair criticism. But another implementation gap receives less public attention: the command-and-control architecture for autonomous systems.

Ghost Shark has entered a Royal Australian Navy Program of Record with a roughly A$1.7 billion production contract and a dedicated factory in Sydney, moving from prototype to fleet in under three years. REMUS 620 builds on a long-proven AUV family and is designed for, and has demonstrated, submarine torpedo-tube launch and recovery in recent trials. Saildrone and Thales have completed 26 days of continuous anti-submarine warfare operations off California with uptime exceeding 96%, autonomously detecting and classifying undersea and surface threats and sending data ashore via Starlink and Iridium. Three different autonomous platforms, all operationally demonstrated and all heading toward deployment across AUKUS navies.

They do not yet natively talk to each other across AUKUS fleets.

 Anduril's Ghost Shark runs Lattice OS, an AI-enabled mission system designed to coordinate multiple crewed and uncrewed platforms in a resilient, interoperable web. HII's REMUS systems are managed through the Odyssey suite, being aligned with the US Navy's Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture rather than NATO standards. Saildrone's platforms connect via the Mission Portal, with satellite-enabled remote control and API access that third parties, such as Thales, have used to integrate ASW payloads and data flows.

These are not simply different brands running the same standard; they embody different architectural emphases and customer lineages. When AUKUS defence ministers emphasise "near-term warfighting objectives" in public statements, C2 interoperability is not yet consistently called out as a central line of effort. The partners are fielding platforms faster than they are solving how those platforms will operate as a unified, trilateral system.

Networked autonomous operations sound straightforward until you ask how a Royal Australian Navy submarine deploys a Ghost Shark that hands off surveillance data to a British REMUS, which then coordinates with an American Saildrone USV monitoring the same area. That scenario requires:

• Common datalink protocols for transmitting sensor data.

• A unified tasking architecture so human operators can assign missions across platforms.

• Shared situational awareness so autonomous systems know where allied assets are.

• Compatible encryption standards for secure communications.

• Standardised launch and recovery interfaces.

STANAG 4817—NATO's emerging standard for maritime unmanned systems interoperability—is supposed to underpin this. Rear Admiral James Parkin has described it as "how we will win the next war" and as sitting at the heart of the Royal Navy's StrikeNet digital backbone. Open sources show STANAG 4817 being exercised at events like REPMUS and CWIX to integrate data from multiple uncrewed surface and subsurface systems into common C2 tools, but focus more on trials than on fully fielded, fleet-wide adoption.

Public marketing for major AUKUS unmanned platforms rarely highlights explicit compliance with STANAG 4817; Ghost Shark materials lean on generic "interoperability with allies," while REMUS roadmaps emphasise conformance with US Navy standards and UMAA rather than NATO STANAGs. AUKUS-linked innovation challenges explicitly seek "near real-time communications between undersea vehicles" and "optimal asset allocation in dynamic environments," an implicit admission that robust cross-platform C2 remains unsolved in the near term.

Three root causes explain the divergence.

Different operational requirements driving different solutions. The US Navy needs platforms that can survive contested electromagnetic environments against peer adversaries, driving robust, often bespoke, communications and autonomy stacks. The Royal Navy prioritises submarine-deployable systems with tight size and weight constraints and integration into architectures like StrikeNet. The Royal Australian Navy focuses on persistent ISR across vast Indo-Pacific distances, pushing maximum endurance and long-range communications. These are not identical requirements. Different C2 architectures are the logical result.

Commercial versus military development timelines. Saildrone began as a commercial ocean-data company supporting entities like NOAA and other civilian customers before pivoting to defence applications. Anduril built Ghost Shark specifically for defence from day one, but leveraged commercial-style rapid development cycles. HII's REMUS family evolved from academic and commercial ROV heritage into military AUVs. When platforms are developed for different initial markets, their communications and control architectures diverge; retrofitting interoperability is always harder than designing it in.

Export control friction. Despite 2024 moves to streamline export controls for AUKUS partners, analysts and industry continue to highlight ITAR and related regimes as enduring constraints, particularly around sensitive hardware and software. Cryptographic devices and secure C2 stacks require NSA and national accreditation and remain tightly controlled regardless of AUKUS status. Architectures built around proprietary C2 systems that depend on high-grade cryptography run straight into technologies that cannot be freely shared, and multiple think-tank assessments describe export controls as among the most significant barriers to AUKUS Pillar II's success.

Ukraine's GUR and Navy units have used Magura V5 naval drones controlled via satellite links such as Starlink to strike Russian warships and infrastructure, moving from relatively crude explosive boats to more sophisticated, remotely operated multi-role platforms in under two years—a development cycle measured in months rather than the years AUKUS standards harmonization requires. Ukrainian practice demonstrates how quickly operational concepts can evolve when commercial satellite connectivity, open-source components, and rapid iteration are embraced.

China, meanwhile, has experimented with containerised missile launchers and modular combat systems on commercial hulls, as well as a growing ecosystem of autonomous and remotely operated maritime systems, signalling a willingness to treat almost any hull as a potential shooter or sensor node. Beijing is not waiting for Alliance-wide standards before deploying modular, good-enough solutions.

The operational question facing AUKUS is blunt: can allied forces integrate their autonomous systems faster than adversaries field theirs? On current trajectories, with STANAG 4817 still maturing and Pillar II still wrestling with export controls and proprietary architectures, the answer is not yet encouraging.

The Saildrone–Thales California trial shows what commercial-style integration can achieve when two willing partners choose to connect their systems. Twenty-six days of continuous, autonomous anti-submarine operations with uptime exceeding 96% and data flowing in real time via Starlink and Iridium to shore-based analysts have already been demonstrated and publicly reported. Thales Australia has explicitly framed this as delivering on AUKUS Pillar II undersea warfare needs and paving the way for greater naval interoperability between partners.

But that is integration between two systems from partners who chose to work together, not plug-and-play interoperability across the wider AUKUS autonomous fleet. Saildrone's Mission Portal can link to Navy systems via API, but each integration is a bespoke engineering project, not the product of a universal translator.

For procurement officers: Platform selection today effectively locks in a C2 architecture that may or may not integrate smoothly with allied systems. Do not assume interoperability exists just because vendors mention "STANAG compliance" or "ally-ready" in their brochures; press for specifics: which C2 system is being used, which open standards it supports, where it has been exercised with allied platforms, and the timeline for trilateral integration testing.

For defence companies: The C2 integration problem is now a primary bottleneck. Firms that can bridge Ghost Shark-class XL-AUVs, REMUS-family AUVs, and long-endurance USVs such as Saildrone through open, standardised interfaces and accredited crypto have an immediate market. From an AUKUS warfighter's perspective, Anduril, Saildrone, and HII should be converging on interoperable C2 patterns rather than competing purely on proprietary stovepipes.

For allied forces: Ongoing NATO and AUKUS exercises such as REPMUS, CWIX, and national sea trials are steadily maturing STANAG 4817-style C2, but turning prototypes and demos into routine, fleet-wide networked operations will likely take the rest of this decade. Until then, Ghost Sharks, REMUS AUVs, and Saildrone-type USVs will tend to operate as independent capabilities under national command rather than as a fully meshed trilateral swarm.

For commercial ocean materials operators: Defence is absorbing much of the upfront cost of building the C2 architectures that commercial ocean technology will eventually use. Kelp farm monitoring, regenerative materials logistics, aquaculture support, and integrated coastal resilience all require orchestrating heterogeneous USVs, AUVs, satellite data, and fixed sensors—exactly the kind of cross-domain problem Pillar II is trying to solve. As AUKUS slowly standardises C2 for unmanned systems, commercial operators will inherit mature toolchains and standards; watching who wins Pillar II-related innovation challenges is therefore a strategic signal for future civil ocean-tech infrastructure.

The technology to build high-end autonomous platforms is largely solved. The technology, policy, and governance structures required to integrate them across the forces of three nations—the core promise of AUKUS Pillar II—remain incomplete. Four years in, the partners can showcase impressive individual systems and have begun exercising common architectures, but they have not yet fielded a unified C2 capability for large-scale, distributed autonomous operations at the alliance level.

Autonomous platforms without unified, trusted command are not a force multiplier; they are just expensive boats operating independently. The harder problem—making them work together across allied forces—is where AUKUS will either deliver a genuine capability edge or fall behind adversaries willing to ship "good enough" solutions now.

Next Week: Deep dive into the unmanned maritime systems landscape. After Ghost Shark's A$1.7 billion production contract, which companies are best positioned to win the next AUKUS autonomous systems procurements? Who is actually delivering operational capability versus burning VC cash on prototypes? We map the competitive landscape and identify where the next major contracts are likely to land.

Since you have been, thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Mick