It's by Hugh White the former deputy-secretary of the Australian Department of Defence.
Historically, that's turned out pretty well for them, as countries in that position can attract favorable terms from both major powers, who want to court them as allies.
Who knows if the government of Australia is thinking in these terms, but I'd be incredibly interested in what concessions and non-public promises Australia got behind the scenes for this.
And in terms of future international relationships, it does demonstrate to China that Australia isn't willing to make alliances solely on the basis of economic pressure. It will be curious if (in the medium to long term) China holds a grudge, or tries to reattract Australia with incentives.
The US agreeing that Australia can have nuclear submarines powered by weapons-grade uranium is a huge concession in itself. The US has been insisting that only nuclear weapons states be allowed to possess weapons-grade uranium. They are making an exception to that for Australia. Nuclear submarines powered by weapons-grade uranium do not require refuelling during their operational life; those powered by reactor-grade uranium do.
And, the US has been trying to block South Korea from building a nuclear submarine at all, even one powered by reactor-grade uranium only. Most international suppliers of enriched uranium (even only reactor-grade) sell it on the condition that it is not used for military purposes. In theory, South Korea could try to enrich it themselves (like Brazil and Argentina are doing for their own nuclear submarine programs), but in practice South Korea fears the international controversy that may cause, and the risk it may offend the US. South Korea has been asking the US to supply reactor-grade fuel for naval use, but thus far the US refuses. So even allowing Australia to have nuclear submarines at all, when it blocks other allies from doing so, is also a big concession.
So this is more than China pushing around another random country. They'd have to cut off their own ear to spite Australia.
Australia is weird.
Russia and China can’t deploy troops in their own country. The U.S. military can land 10’s of thousands of troops, with a support supply line any where in the world on less than 24 hours notice, along with all the firepower that comes with those troops.
To “win” in Afghanistan would require slaughtering about half the population of the country, something the U.S. military could easily do, but it would make the U.S. into an international pariah, and that would be bad for business.
If the U.S. sovereignty was actually threatened all but the nuclear weapons would be unleashed, including all the top secret weapons that have been developed since the Gulf War, it would probably seem like Star Wars.
I served in the Marines and we were well aware people, especially those with combat experience, were leaving hand over fist. Amos was commandant during my time, and this article tells some of the story about what happened: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/the-marines-corps-needs-to-c...
Experience at losing embarrassingly. (To guerrillas it created, no less!)
> The U.S. military can land 10’s of thousands of troops, with a support supply line any where in the world on less than 24 hours notice, along with all the firepower that comes with those troops.
You'd think that, wouldn't you? But it's a paper tiger: post-Vietnam, the US takes great (but quiet) care to ensure that the big song and dance is only deployed on some dirt-poor hellhole with no capable conventional fighting force to withstand the first few episodes of an erect Wolf Blitzer watching B1's firebomb civilians. After a little while, it either leaves in "triumph" (Panama, Grenada, Gulf War I) or it stays and gets bent over the barrel by the insurgencies that inevitably form from the remnants of the regime it invaded (Afghanistan, Gulf War II). It's only good at shooting fish in a barrel and making it look like Michael Bay movie. But after falling on its face so hilariously in Vietnam it knows it can't handle much more than that.
> To “win” in Afghanistan would require slaughtering about half the population of the country, something the U.S. military could easily do
You know I almost agree with you, but it's plain that when the US military sets its mind to something, failing miserably at that thing can't be far behind. (Unless that something is using our Nintendo pilots to remote-control-incinerate a high school graduation. So you may be right after all.)
> but it would make the U.S. into an international pariah
More than it already is, somehow?
> If the U.S. sovereignty was actually threatened all but the nuclear weapons would be unleashed, including all the top secret weapons that have been developed since the Gulf War, it would probably seem like Star Wars.
A cursory glance at the average BMI of our professional fighting forces leads me to suspect that the only similarity to Star Wars in such a scenario would be to scenes involving Jabba the Hutt.
Fast forward a few years and the Australian Government had announced one of the driving factors of this deal is nuclear power rather than diesel electric. We’re also building [reportedly] even less of the Submarine locally now. Not to mention the delivery delays this will cause & our lack of servicing capability.
Even as an Australian I can see how this would really annoy France.
But this is just my very limited European view of the news, and news is something that I restrict myself on.
Among governments though? That's rich. They treat their own citizens worse than this. They're happy to move industry and jobs offshore, change policies and legislation at a moments notice.
Follow the money. Christopher Pyne brokered this $50Bn deal to get re-elected (some boatbuilding would happen in SA) which blew out to $90Bn and rising.
Pyne immediately retired (got his pollie-perks-for-life golden ticket stamped) and then immediately became "employed" as a consult with the people profiting massively from this twisted deal against the public interest.
Pyne followed the same slimy playbook as Andrew Robb (4) who sneakily slipped the 99-year Darwin Port dodgy deal across the line, and then he got a free $880k "job" with them the day he left parliament shortly thereafter.
Borderline treasonous behavior is rife with our political elite (both sides stink badly)
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/04/would-you-employ-ch...
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/07/pyne-poisons-ey/
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2020/01/audit-office-torped...
(4) https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/06/chinese-sell-andrew...
I wish there was a reliable place you could go for objective analysis in cases like this, but I'll have to settle for simple confusion for now I guess.
The world has changed a lot and if the government of the day feels it needs to alter a $90 billion purchase (which was initially $40 billion by the way before cost overruns) to better protect their citizens then it is their right as elected officials.
Also don't focus on the PR sideshow of the submarines, this is about the alliance itself.
There are only a couple ways to lose a battle, but countless ways to lose a war.
It wasn’t solely a military problem but both chose a primarily military solution (as did the British before them).
How does your point support the original claim? You and I are in agreement that fighting alone can't solve the problem of Afghanistan, but I don't see how that bears any relationship to judging the fighting.
I’ll leave my comments unedited unless you’d like them gone.
Regardless I feel it's incredibly badly handled especially given trade situation with China. Australia is pivoting more towards other markets like EU (negotiations happening currently) and I can't imagine France is going to be too agreeable to this.
Contrary to what many people say, modern diesel submarines are actually stealthier than nuclear ones, because they are smaller (this would not apply to a modified nuclear attack sub, of course). In 2007 a Chinese diesel sub surfaced near the USS Kitty Hawk carrier, having apparently been undetected in the middle of a US exercise. They do have less endurance, but that is only an issue if Australia expects them to patrol far beyond its borders.
Apparently 6 months ago Biden started a secret dialogue with the Australians, offering nuclear propulsion tech to counter China. The US only ever did that with the UK, not even with Canada. The Australians' relationship with China has been deteriorating markedly, even though it is their largest market. Conversely the Chinese banned most Australian imports but not iron ore, because they don't have (yet) an alternative supply to feed their steel industry, although Guinea (in Africa) is a potential candidate. Keep in mind Australia is largely a resource extraction economy, despite being an advanced industrialized nation.
The Australians don't have any nuclear tech, not even a civilian nuclear power program, so any nuclear subs would need to be fueled and serviced by the US or the UK, which means Australia is effectively ceding part of its sovereignty (just as the British did, because their Trident nuclear missiles are 100% US-made). This is a significant development as up to now the Australians wanted to preserve their autonomy.
What are the French upset about?
1) The loss of a AU$ 90B contract, which means probably a €30B hole in France's naval R&D that will need to be plugged somehow. For a middling country like France, that is a lot of money.
2) France has a significant presence in the Pacific, unlike every other European nation, even the UK. 2M French citizen live there, and 7000 military personnel. France also has the largest maritime Exclusive Economic Zone in the world thanks to its possessions in the Pacific, but there are separatist movements in New Caledonia and Tahiti. The French-Australian deal was also part of a strategic cooperation deal with Australia, as the French are just as concerned about Chinese incursions in the Pacific as the Australians, and it has the benefit of being a deal with a peer, not as the junior partner of the US superpower (although of course Australia is the superpower of the Southern Pacific, but that means little compared to the US or China). This strategy is all in tatters now.
3) The French were blindsided, learning of the AU-UK-US deal from the press release, in the most humiliating way possible
4) They were not invited to participate in this AUKUS military alliance.
The consequences are severe and the US completely underestimated that. In 1966 the US commander of NATO refused to answer President de Gaulle's question of whether US nuclear weapons were stationed in France, and in retaliation France withdrew from NATO unified command (and NATO SHAPE headquarters in Paris and Rocquencourt near Versailles had to be moved to Belgium), and expelled US troops stationed in France.
France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and to Australia for consultations, which is just one step short of cutting diplomatic relations. To do so with the US is simply extraordinary, it's only happened once before, during the French revolution.
President Biden rightfully criticized Donald Trump for attempting to contain China while burning bridges with all its allies at the same time by waging sanctions against all of them, but this is a blunder of the same magnitude. France was the more China-skeptic of the major European powers, whereas Germany basically cares only about its exports and appeases China, and the UK was trying to have it both ways by becoming the chief Chinese investment partner in Europe. With this stunt, the US gets Australia to abandon its former policy of independence from the US, but basically sets back its efforts to mobilize Europe against the Chinese by at least 5 years,
I think the US is pretty reasonably concluding that France, and Europe overall, are not going to 'mobilize' against China regardless. We are not even two years from the EU & China signing their Comprehensive Agreement on Investment treaty in late 2020, which was heavily pushed by both France and Germany. It was a pretty stunning poke in the eye to America. The treaty is now apparently on ice, but I think the US clearly sees that Europe sans Britain is not going to be part of an anti-China alliance. So why bother appeasing the Europeans? What do we get out of it?
Correct - by ommission.
After the UK, the USA, China, and France all squirmed out of their various signed, macho commitments to the Ukraine [1], I doubt anyone is turning up on match-day in Taiwan.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
If I'm to be bet on this: the USA will put TMSC onto cargo ships (including the staff) and take it back to to the USA long before they get involved in a drawn out shooting war.
And, when that happens, Taiwan is - as you so brutaly pointed out - in the same boat as Ukraine.
I'm not a foreign policy expert or historian but isn't there a rather recent change in foreign relations of Australia, meaning their strategic needs have changed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%E2%80%93China_relati...
Or maybe it's just posturing.