Australia’s plan to built French submarines is over. Australia will built nuclear powered submarines to become the only country to have no nuclear industry to do so.
France will be infuriated but there have been a lot of arguments over the contracts which will be cancelled.
Australia, the UK and US have formed a new security partnership named AUKUS
As a first initiative, AUKUS will build nuclear submarines for Australia’s fleet
The new partnership is designed to counter threats in the Indo-Pacific
It’s a good start in the pushback against obvious increasing Chinese assertions of power but alone it doesn’t go anywhere near far enough.
It certainly places China on the back foot regarding Australian trade because they can’t do much without harming themselves.
If for example they restrict purchases from Oz in any major way they will face restricted availability from elsewhere as well as giving other countries easier access to those products which would then decrease their dependence upon Chinese manufacturing.
It will be interesting to see what China does next.
"We’re opening a new chapter in our friendship, and the first task of this partnership will be to help Australia acquire a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, emphasising, of course, that the submarines in question will be powered by nuclear reactors — not armed with nuclear weapons,"
Nuclear powered not armed, is but the first stage imo, as if there’s no UK or US presence anyway.
Have to smile The French have lost out and not getting their own way for a change. We always have be more aligned with the USA and Australia anyway, so good for Australia giving the French a kick up the you know where
To make not-unreasonable comparisons with what China is doing, imagine if:
The UK banned Scotland from any form of devolution including any decision-making and jailed not only any politicians that didn’t toe the official UK line, but censored Scottish media and their internet and jailed all those that oppose the UK official stance (or in fact probably worse since many just disappear, never to be seen again).
The UK unilaterally announced sovereignty over the whole island of Ireland and prevented the UN and from accepting any representation from the RoI as well as threatening it militarily with provocative drills right on the borders.
The UK built a series of islands in the channel and north sea extending their territory despite using recognized international waters to do so and then compounded that by building military fortifications and runways on these artificial islands.
I could write so much more but I think that those alone make it quite obvious that China have been agressive for far too long.
It’s about time there was some real reaction to that Chinese agression which has been steadily increasing because nobody bothered to do anything real about it.
I agree. The Frogs have had this coming to them. They have been behaving appallingly to us, more so than any other EU country from what I’ve heard, and I believe that is because they are, and always have been, jealous of us in many respects.
The Australians have come to realise that France is not to be trusted. Who would ally themselves with someone who would work against you behind your back?
The European Union — which launched its own Indo-Pacific strategy on Thursday — said it was not consulted about the cancellation of the deal and understood France’s disappointment.
“It doesn’t weaken our relations with Australia,” the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.
“It’s a partner that we have in the region. I understand how disappointed the French government will be.”
Australian PM, Scotty from Marketing, said France remained an important partner in the Pacific, but he had to make decisions in the best interests of Australia’s national security.
Scotty also said the contract with Naval Group was reaching a final opportunity to cancel the deal.
Completely avoiding the ‘F-word’, I think Australia’s decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines is a very sensible one. Now that China is flexing its muscles in the south, Australia needs to ensure that China doesn’t flex them rather more than they are doing at present.
When it comes to naval vessels, there’s nothing like a few submarines to make a potential enemy think twice about poking just a little too far.
Rampant Jingoism and Froggy Bashing aside.
Australia wanted the French subs but they were nuclear.So at great expense and effort they changed the designs to diesel and electric to cater for Australia’s demands.Now they’ve decided on nuclear.It’s not surprising they are a bit miffed.
Morrison is not popular at the moment and a lot of people think this is all diversionary anyway.Something learnt from his hero Trump.
I am not sure but the French were taking a nuclear submarine and putting diesel engines in it which was costing a fortune, was behind schedule, a local content was a point of contention. The new subs will be built in Adelaide and use a US nuclear engine which will last the life of the submarine. The only problem is that they won’t be able to visit New Zealand but we can scare the shit out of Fiji with them.
The Australian defence budget is, I believe, very small compare to other countries, I think is it still only 2% of GDP this year after a massive increase from previous years, the USA spends 4% of GDP on defence.
