Here's the latest on l'affaire submarine:
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Sunday it had “deep and grave” concerns about the diesel-powered submarines it planned to buy from France — and that Paris knew this well before Canberra abruptly cancelled that deal in favor of sharing nuclear submarine technology with the United States and Britain.
Maybe so. But something that's gotten oddly little attention is that the French submarine fleet is entirely nuclear powered. The Australian project was indeed going poorly, but that was largely because the Aussies wanted diesel-powered subs and converting the French Attack-class boats to diesel engines turned out to be more fraught than anyone had predicted. If nuclear propulsion and a faster schedule had really been at the bottom of Australian concerns there was a pretty easy solution at hand: ditch the reconfiguration and buy off-the-shelf nuke-powered Attack-class subs.
It's true that US Virginia-class subs are technologically more advanced than anything France can offer, but not by enough to really be the driver of the Australian decision. This is why France is so put off by the abrupt switch: they know perfectly well that problems with construction weren't a big factor. The whole thing is largely symbolic, demonstrating that the US, UK, and Australia want to form a close alliance in the western Pacific that very publicly excludes France. Especially since it came without warning, it's hard to think of anything that could have been more insulting.
All three AUKUS members were surely well aware of this. So either they decided the strategic benefits were worth the cost or else they actively wanted to insult the French. But which was it?
Maybe the insulted us first in a really mean way?
https://sites.uwm.edu/mitchebc/monty-python-and-the-holy-grail-wooden-rabbit/
Could....not.....resist.
they...darn.
🙂
And from the Simpsons:
Hank Scorpio:
By the way, Homer, what's your least favorite country? Italy or France?
Homer:
France.
[Scorpio adjusts a giant laser cannon pointing towards the sky]
Hank Scorpio:
Heh heh heh. Nobody ever says Italy...
The decision was made by the Aussies. The US is just selling stuff. It has little else left to contribute to a positive trade balance than military hardware.
I don't think this is true. The focus on containing China is part of Biden's foreign policy (foreshadowed by Obama's "pivot" to Asia which never really got off the ground).
Why they would want to exclude France while keeping the UK in is anybody's guess. France is certainty not "behind" in technology. They have been running a huge fleet of nuclear power plants without having incidents like Three Mile Island or Fukushima. Their carbon footprint per person is far below the US's (or Germany's or the UK's for that matter). They have a world class fast train system, decent or better public transit in all its large and mid size cities and a competitive, independent defense industry. Last but no least: Their food is so good we don't even dare dream of anything comparable in the US.
If California would like fast trains (a good idea, Kevin!) we should buy French trains off the shelf, we should get French engineers to advise on planning and we should construct the tracks according to French specs. That way we could probably afford it.
Have you ever flown throught Charles de Gaulle? The French do good cusine. Aiports? Not so much.
I have. And you are right; it is a mess (though if you take the TGV right out of CDG it is actually quite easy). Is it any worse than JFK or Heathrow? I don't think so.
Arriving in CDG is much better experience than JFK if you're coming from abroad. Plus much better train service at CDG--both TGV and Paris subway right there in the terminal.
The US is just selling stuff. It has little else left to contribute to a positive trade balance than military hardware.
Stop writing such dumb shit. The US exports a couple trillion dollars worth of goods and services annually. Only a tiny percentage is military hardware.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/219691/value-of-international-us-exports-of-goods-and-services-since-2000/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/248521/us-arms-exports/
Maybe if a young Juliette Binoche hadn't rejected a part in a Crocodile Dundee film set to take place in Paris we wouldn't see the Aussie Defense Ministry spurning the French sub builders now...
And Britain has a Prime Minister who doesn't think beyond his next meal, which he assumes someone else will buy (remind you of anyone?). Pissing off the Froggies will go down nicely with his Brexit pals and it's days — months — years, really — eons in Boris-time — before the next election. As a former Brit, even though I carry no brief for nukes of any kind, I say it is to weep. If administration results in a united Ireland, and independent Scotland and Wales, well, that might be a silver lining if it leads the English to reconsider their superiority complex.
As a Englishman who (alas) can trace their ancestry back through entirely English roots for quite a long way, I entirely agree with you on this.
Anything that could puncture 'English' superiority is long overdue; unfortunately the evidence of history shows that we are exceptional at finding reasons why anything wrong is due to someone else.
I understand a lot about how this came about, and I also have a certain amount of optimism that it will rebalance itself quickly. But living through that process is going to be incredibly painful.
My question that may or may not be related is with all the countries that are having tensions with China, why is it limited to only three countries, and why are the rest excluding France being so quiet about being left out? Granted they may not want to be publicly involved in the current media circus for the lack of public statements but there's something about not building a broader group that feels odd to me.
That said I think a nonzero part of this is how short staffed the administration is part of this mess.
Since I haven't followed this closely since friday, I found this other bit that's got covered after and is getting less coverage
https://www.reuters.com/world/australia-agrees-increased-us-air-deployments-australia-2021-09-16/
Maybe it's the "boots on the ground" of US forces component that helps explain the narrow focus. The Aus continent is more flexible to use than Fr and others territorial islands.
Well, China is really pushing forward "ground diplomacy" in a way the US and other high tech countries don't understand (IMHO). They have a LOT of military and civil construction engineers who still know how to use relatively (to us) low tech building techniques to create major construction projects. They provide advice and equipment better designed for getting projects done in third world countries, and advisors that built China out of that state - and are more than qualified on directed BFMI (Brute Force and Massive Ignorance) projects.
Now, they don't do a lot of the big projects cheap (free with a loan - don't worry) - and some countries are already starting to worry about the terms they've signed on for. So not clear how it turns out - but a New Marshall plan might be better that more military equipment. Not that many people in the US/UK/AUS would be able to carry that out.
And, why was Canada excluded from this pact?
Because 7.2 million Canadians speak French as their first language?
Canada has been offered nuclear subs and turned then down in the past. They didn't want to spend the $$$$ required to buy the subs.
And they are right. I don't think nuclear subs do anything useful for the French either; they ought to get used to the idea that they are no longer a world power; so ought the Brits for that matter. This UK/US/AUS alliance will end up costing both of the junior partners more than the US--not in dollars necessarily but in benefits per dollar spent.
Same was true for NATO: Yes, they did not pay "their full share" of military cost. But they had to shoulder more risk because a hot war between the US and USSR would have taken place in Western Europe (and in the Eastern European USSR-satellite states), not in the US and not in Russia either. Had such a war ever started Germany would have ended up devastated, not New Jersey--at least in a first round.
they had to shoulder more risk because a hot war between the US and USSR would have taken place in Western Europe (and in the Eastern European USSR-satellite states), not in the US and not in Russia either.
You do realize Moscow has had the capacity to hit the continental US with nuclear weapons since the late 1950s. Right?
The whole point of the West's strategy during the Cold War was to prevent a shooting war with the USSR from starting in the first place. Once it has started, you've already lost.*
I hope to God that's the strategy we're operating under now, too, with respect to China, although I hear lots of loose talk about sending in the 82nd Airborne to Taiwan. So who knows?
* I mean, sure, the probability that two nuclear armed superpowers could get into an existential war and refrain from using their most potent weapons is higher than zero, I suppose. But probably not much higher.
The US military opposed Canada having nuclear subs because they thought Canada was going to use them to assert sovereignty over the Canadian Arctic, specifically the Northwest Passage. Ronald Reagan, of all people, sided with Canada, pointing out how silly the opposition was (to be fair, some Canadian nationalists were making pretty wild statements about this).
Anyway, Reagan's OK came in 1988, around about the time the Soviet Union started to collapse, and Canada first held off on the deal, and then torpedoed it (ha ha) due to cost of facing off to a non-existent Cold War enemy.
Were the French willing to offer Australia nuclear subs? I find it hard to believe that the French offered Australia nuclear subs and that Australia insisted on diesel. A lot of countries, the US and France included, limit the distribution of nuclear power systems. My guess is that Australia asked for nuclear. No one was offering it, so Australia contracted with the French for diesel.
From what I've heard, the contract dispute involved Australia expecting a certain amount of the subcontracting work to go to Australian companies, but the French deciding to do things in France instead. I assume France had some bargaining position and a compromise they were willing to accept, but wanted to let the dispute run its course. When the US and UK offered nuclear power with the dispute still open, the Australians jumped at it.
Why did the US tick off the French? That's simple. It's about China. The US, Australia and others including India, Japan and Vietnam have been concerned about China's claims and actions in the area. They've been quite open about it and quite open about joining in some way to counteract China. France is what they call collateral damage.
Reports are that the Australians did indeed ask for diesel subs. Why? Probably to save money as diesel subs would be fine for operation in local waters. Also, because Australia has up to now been considered a "nuclear free" zone based on ordinances passed by local Australian governments, including Sydney and Brisbane.
My understanding is substantially the same as that of James Shearer. The Australians wanted nuclear subs but recognized that was a bridge too far politically so instead sought to buy diesel subs that could eventually be converted to nuclear. That was apparently the great advantage of these French subs and also these domestic political maneuverings were partly responsible for the cost overruns and delays.
https://www.afr.com/companies/manufacturing/coalition-plans-nuclearpowered-submarine-fleet-over-long-term-20160429-goieal
Yeah, I got that one wrong. The Australians explicitly wanted diesel subs.
"... I find it hard to believe that the French offered Australia nuclear subs and that Australia insisted on diesel. .."
Reportedly that is what happened. A factor is the nuclear subs would have been built in France and Australia wanted the subs built in Australia. There is also substantial anti-nuclear feeling in Australia (although not as much as in New Zealand).
wrong. The French industry would have got only 8bn out of the 50bn. Most of the $ would have been spent in Australia and in US electronics.
Why does Australia even need subs? The money was burning a hole in their pocket???
The population of Australia is about 25 million and California is about 40 million. Why doesn't California need nukes???
Was it just a foreign policy penis enlargement???
From what I've read, yes it was an enlargement - Australia has changed their posture from inviting Chinese investments in the country to China being an adversary and wanting closer ties to the United States.
I'm still not clear on the whys of insulting France.
Sounds like simple falling out on the contract - it was already over budget - also the subs will need crews and training which the US would provide.
Apparently they don't even have half the crews they need to run half the subs they already have.
Biden of you look back to Obama years made some truly headscratching foreign policy suggestions. I think for all his vaunted FP experience he's just not very deft at it.
Given how things worked out in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere I'd say we Americans aren't very deft at foreign interventions.
Libya was the European's fault not ours.
Also there is more to foreign policy than interventions so I'm not sure the point you're trying to make.
I haven't looked into this topic much at all. But I have a question. Maybe someone can offer an answer. It's a multi-part question, that sort of piggy -backs on a question posed earlier in this thread.
Given the general worldwide concern about China's military aggressiveness in the southeast Asian region, and the mixed responses to the Belt and Road thing, why is the "alliance" limited to Australia, UK, US and India?
Given the growth and modernization of the Chinese economy over several decades, do too many countries look at China as a huge potential market to which they can export products?
Because the US nixed the TPP? And now, we have to start all over from scratch, rebuilding alliances that the former guy, the two-time LOSER, shat all over?
Thanks again, Bernie!
Never forget: Bernie & Richard Trumpka, supposed heroes of the Left, thank God for Donald Trump that he ended the TransPacific Protocol.
I know we shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but Dick Trumpka was a repulsive, reactionary, Lester Maddox Democrat -- just like every union guy who voted GQP starting from around about 1972. & for that I say: PATCO got what was coming to them.
GOOD. The copyright regime was a hideous thing and it was worth it.
Putting together a comprehensive alliance in East Asia is fiendishly difficult. While almost all of the countries there are worried about the Chinese, they aren't necessarily all that friendly with each other.
There is still a lot of bad blood between most of those countries and Japan, lingering from the latter's, at best, grudging acceptance of responsibility for atrocities. This is especially true of South Korea, but applies elsewhere as well.
There is worry among some of the southeast Asian countries about Indian attempts to expand control of the Indian Ocean. China is not the only encroaching power in the area. There are other rivalries within southeast Asia as well.
On top of all of that, the most obvious target of Chinese aggression, Taiwan, has a very ambiguous international status. Different countries in the region take different approaches to their dealings with Taiwan, and have different levels of willingness to include the Taiwanese in any discussions.
Yes, these are all good reasons why sabotaging American participation in the TPP was a terrible idea. Instead, we're left cobbling together different combinations of Indian and western Pacific countries to cover pieces of the puzzle.
Different countries in the region take different approaches to their dealings with Taiwan, and have different levels of willingness to include the Taiwanese in any discussions.
And different countries have very different approaches as to how willing they are to get in an actual shooting war with a nuclear-armed superpower over a long-simmering dispute that some view as the unfinished business of a century-old civil war.
Yes, these are all good reasons why sabotaging American participation in the TPP was a terrible idea.
Both hard left and hard right are to blame for this. And Hillary R. Clinton, too, to be honest (in my mind the single biggest black mark on her CV). I have zero idea if this is remotely feasible, but China's application a few days ago to join neo-TPP would, I hope, concentrate bipartisan minds in Congress: I can't help but hope it might be possible yet to A) prevent Beijing from joining (and inevitably dominating) that organization and B) see the USA itself finally join.
Taiwan, Phillipines and Vietnam are also moving toward the US. Even that piece of filth Duterte. The Quad includes Japan outright, though the self defense restrictions may prevent nuclear sub acquisition.
There are two interrelated reasons. First, the US has been promoting a policy vis-a-vis China that revolves around building a coalition of interests to counterbalance Chinese pressure. France has been making it clear that Europe should not follow the US lead on this. Australia, after a number of years of extremely heavy handed Chinese pressure are announcing to the world that they are moving away from the French position and are solidly in the us camp.
As for why no one told the French until the deal was done, that one seems obvious to me. It appears the US/UK/A believed if the French found out they would have leaked word to the Chinese, who in turn would have exerted tremendous pressure to scuttle the deal.
Thanks!
The US took strong exception to the acronym FAUKUS. That is the real reason.
+1
Just a hunch, but the lack of regard for the French was probably born of a "what can they do about it anyway" sentiment. And it's true, there's not much they can do aside from pushing for more European defense integration which the US wants anyway.
As for strategic alliances, France-Australia doesn't make much sense from an Australian point of view (from a French one, it does) in a situation of rising tensions with China. France has possessions in Oceania but they're not big enough to fight a major war over.
All that being said, France deservers better treatment than it got.
Is it that the Australian administration is manifestly hamhanded and the US simply didn't even think about it?
This is the Occam's razor explanation. Also maybe exacerbated by US confusion over exactly which desk is responsible for reviewing our positions on it-- whose territory is this one, NATO/Europe/France or ANZAC/Pacific? And is there anyone on the Pacific desk at State yet anyway? And can the NSC come up with a response before the Australians announce it?
It's important to understand that from the Australian perspective, this is primarily about a fundamental shift in foreign policy. The submarines are incidental. For years, our governments have argued that we didn't have to choose between America and China. Now Morrison has emphatically dumped that idea and announced we're all the way with the USA. Our defense and foreign policies will now be so inextricably integrated with America's that our autonomy has effectively ended. IMHO it would be an insane initiative at any time, but when memories of a maniac in the White House are so recent, it's incomprehensible. Morrison is voluntarily leading Australia into a situation where it can be blackmailed and/or ignored in the same way Trump dealt with South Korea and Japan.
I don't pretend to understand all the machinations in the Morrison government, but it's very likely he decided he had to present us with a fait accompli. Signalling that he was contemplating such an abrupt change in longstanding foreign policy would have generated a powerful reaction which would probably have prevented it happening.
Like withdrawing from Afghanistan-- just do it, don't give the entrenched interests time to organize . . .
I don't pretend to understand all the machinations in the Morrison government
Do you happen to know if this deal must be approved by Australia's parliament? (And, if so, is there any doubt as to the outcome of such a vote?)
Well now we all know the military's view of the French military done't we?
They only know retreat? yeah that got old fast.
The French are not bad but they do not have the extensive building experience with Nuke boats that the U.S. has.
In the grand scheme of things this is interesting not from the standpoint of POWER but from the standpoint of stealth. Our nuclear boats are far quieter than diesel boats or nuke boats from other countries.
Have the Aussies been spied on by Chinese subs? It's an interesting twist to this story.
I have now given this some thought, done some reading, looked at it from various angles. The simplest answer seems also to be the best: if I were a betting man, the percentage bet has to be that someone got paid off.
A long while back I heard an analyst talk about Microsoft versus all the other computer technology companies. This was after they had first been late to adopt network technology and then suddenly "got it" while the front runners decided to put on lead weighted shoes. His comment was:
It's pretty easy to see why this alliance excludes the French: the French have fundamentally different interests in this area than the US, the UK, and Australia.
A lot has been said about the French having possessions in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It's true; they do. But look at where they are. Their Indian Ocean possessions are all along the African coast and in the deep southern portion near Antarctica. Their Pacific possessions are all well to the east of Australia. As such, the French aren't particularly concerned about Chinese encroachment, and their foreign policy has been much less focused on China as an aggressor to be deterred.
The UK, on the other hand, still thinks of itself as having interests in Hong Kong and Malaysia. (I'm not sufficiently versed in the current situation to know whether they ought to feel engaged with Malaysia, but they do.) Australia has obviously been the target of Chinese bullying. And the US has interests there.
If you're trying to put together an alliance to contain China, there is zero reason to want the French involved.
Australia contracted with the French company Naval Group to design and build twelve submarines. As of Sept. 30, 2019, Australia had spend $835 million Australian dollar on the design of the new submarine. That includes $149 million paid to Lockheed Martin Australia to integrate an AN/BYG-1 combat system.
I don't actually know what an AN/BYG-1 combat system is, but we can assume that it's something that Naval Group doesn't offer on its “off-the-shelf” submarine designs, and which was important enough to the Australian military that they were willing to pay more than $149 million for it.
Kevin Drum notes that after cancelling its contract with Naval Group, Australia could have turned around and ordered “off-the-shelf” nuclear powered submarines from the same company that it had just cancelled its contract with. But Naval Group won the contract initially based on the notion that they could custom design a submarine with the features that Australia wanted. Once you start talking about “off-the-shelf” designs, the American submarines win because they include AN/BYG-1 combat systems and the Naval Group off-the-shelf offerings don't.
The Prime Minister understandably had “deep and grave” concerns about the diesel-powered submarines. The problem with French submarines is that every fifth one cinq.
And no one can think of a quatre-vention.
All three AUKUS members were surely well aware of this. So either they decided the strategic benefits were worth the cost or else they actively wanted to insult the French.
Definitely the former. That part of the world has become a rough neighborhood thanks to Xi Jinping's ego, and you want the best kit available.
It's still a head-scratcher as to why the whole thing couldn't be handled more deftly, though. Couldn't France have joined AUKUS instead of being left out in the cold, with perhaps a compensating contract or two as a (partial) make good?
I'm starting to suspect much of this is a kabuki dance: domestic politics are paramount in any Western democracy, and Macron's government—once it was clear no face-saving accommodation* could be arranged—had to engage in a very public excoriation of the perfidious English-speakers to show voters it's defending l'honneur national. And a large number of French jobs are on the line, after all. And indeed an election is approaching.
*I don't know the first thing about military procurement, but big deals have to be approved by Congress, don't they? And in any event neither the US nor any Western power is in the habit of handing out large contracts to foreign firms when a domestic vendor is available (even if it makes sense on the merits, lawmakers won't stand for it). So, it probably was unavoidable that, once Canberra decided it wanted US technology, French industry was going to take a net hit to the tune of tens of billions.
This almost certainly it, the election,
along with kennethalmquist above.
1/ the French are pissed not only because of the submarines but also because the announcement came exactly the same day that the EU presentation of their Indo-Pacific policy. Speak of a slap in the face.
2/ Could it be that we are witnessing the impact of the depleting of competent diplomats by the Trump administration. The US administration has no clue what going on in foreign countries.
The French Foreign Minister also called the UK “fifth wheel on the wagon” regarding the deal, while another French diplomat said of the UK “When the food is bad, you complain to the chef, not the dishwasher”. Yikes.
The problem with the US-Oz nuke deal is proliferation. That should be an international concern. It has a middling chance of be an Australian political block on the deal
This whole 'humiliation of France' thing would have been a lot less public if France hadn't thrown a very loud days-long tantrum over it.