France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal | Hacker News Reader

France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

npr.org

132 pointsrastafang280 comments

It is super laughable because the nuclear powered version that they are building for themselves was a fixed bid contract for something like 10 billion for 8 subs.. and the Australian contract keeps going up and up something like 35 billion for ten subs. The diesel sub for Australia is based on the nuclear sub that they signed the fixed bid contract for. Anybody with half brain can tell they are making up the lost of fixed bid contract by charging the Australia more.. and then they act surprised when Australia pulls out when they can get nuclear subs for cheaper. When nuclear subs usually cost 2.5* the cost. These people do great reporting on all of this. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone

French contract took 4 years to be negotiated, the US one less than 6 months, in total secret with no public check… expect big surprises at the end, US weapons program are not known to never overrun their costs

For sure all that is right as well. But if I was in the Australian shoes this is just to good of deal from US and UK to turn down.

The cost on the French contract had already gone up by tens of billions of dollars, and nothing had been delivered.

UK frigate program for Australia navy is having the same issues: https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/getting-real-about-the-sch...

Of course, 'negotiation' concludes faster when it's one way.

The most recent submarine program (Virginia class) was effectively on-budget.

Probably due to its predecessor, the Seawolf, from which it was derived ended up being wildly cost ineffective.

That is not correct.

Seawolf was cancelled and only three units were built, causing R&D costs to be spread across those three units, raising unit price.

It was cancelled because it was expensive, but it was ordered during the end of the cold war and was radically more capable than the class it was meant to replace. This cost was acceptable at time of order, but then subject to budget cuts after the USSR collapsed. This raised the per-unit cost, but lowered the overall cost.

The eventual replacement (Virginia) ended up being more evolutionary from the previous class (not from Seawolf) than revolutionary, but much cheaper.

Do you have a source for this? The Virginia shares many more features with the Seawolf that the LA class. The Virginia is basically a scaled down Seawolf hull with a different weapons arrangement.

Look at the USS San Juan and later hulls.

My source is having been on all three classes of submarine.

Concur. Unlikely to find prompt jumps in design that weren't previously field tested. Technologies pioneered by Seawolf class were rolled into the VA class, but ultimately decades of building 688s was more valuable than 3 Seawolfs (seawolves?)

How trustworthy is The War Zone? It seems to be largely focussed on US defence tech industry, so I expect fairly biased reporting on this topic. Is there a better source?

It is 100% biased to USA sources. But they have interesting information on how the US defence tech industry works and goes more in depth than most places. It is a very fair point. I like how they actually talk about the technology and all that. Thanks for reminding me to keep in mind the source!

Thanks for clarifying! This was not meant to be an attack, but with analysis pieces on these matters I am always hesitant with respect to the source.

None taken it all. It got me thinking about what I learned in high school about what you said about sources. It is really is appreciated.

There is some pro-US military bias in their analysis and editorial content. But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.

> But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.

How do you know that?

They have a POV, but I wouldn't call it a US bias. They're pretty quick to criticize. (It's one of my few regular reads besides HN.)

They always post their sources, and then explain any speculation from there. Usually the speculation is more accusative of the US military than anything else, but Russia, China etc also get covered.

Now, many of the "sources" are US military or other US government FOIA requests or similar, as well as some vets sharing technical details of what their deployment was like, etc.

(I actually think they have more trouble with bias in proximity to US domestic politics than they do any US bias.)

Any US "bias" isn't really a skew of reality, so much as the US military is pretty much the topic the focus on covering.

They get giddy about some historical stories, but it's usually more about the tech than the allegiance.

Is hacker news biased for having a large number of articles about, or from the POV of, tech/startup/otherwise-HN crow? (excluding comments) Or is it just what the site is about?

All reporting is biased. You shouldn't try to find unbiased reporting - you'll never succeed, except at fooling yourself - instead you should identify the biases of the things you read and read sources with a variety of biases.

Actually, as mentioned multiple times in the past couple of days by former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud, diesel was an Australia demand, which required France to modify its subs (all nuclear powered) and added complexity to the project. According to the former Ambassador, it would have been much easier and cheaper for France to supply Australia with nuclear subs.

Then why is it the US's fault Australia changed its mind?

These nuclear subs run on highly enriched uranium. There is serious NPT issue involved that only the US has the power to ignore.

Power plants run on about 5% enriched, subs on 50%, weapons on 90%. Any country that can sell you a nuclear sub can also sell you the fuel, non-proliferation doesn’t come into it.

US and UK subs run at 93-97%. Other countries use 20-50%.

> There is serious NPT issue involved that only the US has the power to ignore.

Incorrect, the UK has already shat all over the NPT.

The recent Trident plans will raise the UK's weapons from 180 to 260 warheads (> 40% increase).

Which is in complete violation of article VI.

The NPT is for the rest of us.

The US probably pressured Australia. At this point, one can assume that Australia is just a bunch of land where some people live on it while being monitored electronically.

Well I suspect the demand was at least partially due to budget, as opposed to philosophical or technological reasons for diesel over nuclear.

Separately, I've got to think turnkey access to the tomahawk missiles has almost got to play a bigger role in this than the sub itself, other than being capable of carrying said missiles.

It was technical, of sorts. The initial demand for diesel refit was because Australia has no home nuclear capability and wanted to be able to do some of the maintenance locally. Otherwise they spend half their time in the northern hemisphere.

This may be a precursor to increased US naval presence/base in Australia.

>Australia has no home nuclear capability and wanted to be able to do some of the maintenance locally.

That's premised on whether France would have been willing to sell that capability to AUS, and for what price, vs the price (economic and military) of French nuclear maintenance, vs buying diesel.

That equation is easily changed by a competing US/UK offer, be it technology sharing/ training for AUS to gain dinners nuclear maintenance capabilities, or that by being more politically aligned with the US/UK, relying on a foreign country for maintenance isn't as much of a military risk.

>This may be a precursor to increased US naval presence/base in Australia.

I suspect the opposite. What does the US gain by naval presence in Australia (vs Guam or Okinawa or Philippines, etc) besides an additional layer of rapid response in the region? AUS & US already partner in most things that would make a larger military presence in AUS beneficial.

Whereas equipping AUS provides a potential partner for any international rapid response needed in the region. And I think for most incidents that would merit a US/UK rapid response in the region (ie China), AUS would have an equal or greater interest in responding to it.

The other advantage is logistical- if the US and UK deal involves sharing industrial capabilities with AUS, it gains the US and UK likely use of those AUS capabilities and facilities in the event of conflict, instead of having to return to the US/UK.

AUS gains technological and economic benefits, while US and UK get backup maintenance and repair facilities on the other side of the world, without having to pay for a base or for a contractor's presence. (Maybe you'd consider this increased US naval presence.)

New Zealand does not allow nuclear-powered vessels in its waters [1][2], maybe this contributed to the initial diesel requirement.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_nuclear-free_zone

[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/nz-says-australias-new-n...

When you look deeper, the true entire purpose of this deal was not to build subs. It was to "create 3000 jobs" and save one politician (Christopher Pyne) who did win the next vote, then "retired" shortly thereafter and went to "work" as a highly paid lobbyist for EY (who he brokered this twisted dodgy deal with in the first place, when he was a politician).

This is borderline corrupt behaviour IMHO (and many others HO's too). There are "guidelines" for the political class, but nobody ever enforces anything even when the corruption is so blatant.

Don't even get me started on Barnaby Joyce and Angus Taylor funnelling tens of millions of taxpayer funds paying for fresh water runoff that was never realistically ever going to be worth anything to anybody. [2]

It was sent to Angus' Cayman Islands company that he founded, then he claimed he did not benefit personally (yeah right).

Also see Christian Porter and his "blind trust" suddenly donating a million bucks into his failed defamation rape case against the ABC. [3] [4] He says he has no idea where the money came from. Yeah right.

For more about Christopher Pyne, and how confected this French Frankenstein sub deal was, read the first 3 links I posted elsewhere earlier [1]

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28580443

[2] https://www.michaelwest.com.au/barnaby-joyce-80m-valuation-d...

[3] https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/blind-trust-gift-...

[4] https://chaser.com.au/national/prime-minister-who-said-we-ca...

Australian submarine situation has been a shit-show for 40 years. Glad its all over.

If Labor wins the next election, it's quite probable that they pull the plug on this deal.

they appear to be right behind it right now.

The War Zone looks interesting, but I find the combination of detailed military asset reporting from a website otherwise devoted to automotive news and car reviews odd.

The upset is not just about the loss of a commercial deal, I'm sure there will be some contractual compensations.

The issue is about the manner in which the deal was announced. Newspapers describe the urgent calls from the AU officials to their French counterparts hours before the very public announcement by the US, UK and AU.

Diplomatically, that's a pretty callous thing to do to a partner. The ballooning costs may have been a factor in the decision, but it's more likely that the move is purely geopolitical. In these matters, there is also no guarantee that the deal with the US will end up cheaper at all.

The more important subtext here is the damage done to the US' image and trustworthiness as it's willing to do backroom deals to serve its interests by disregarding friends and allies. Not the end of the world, but not a very smart move either if you want to be trusted.

As a French, this is very much the feeling here. We do not talk much about the financial impact (though Naval Group is obviously not happy) but indeed rather the way it was announced.

As for the trust part, I would say that this is more being naive, which is always a surprise to me.

We dealt with the British during Brexit and the overall feeling is that we lost the deal (fishing, British disregard of the deal, Irelands as an open entry point, ...). This is probably just a gut feeling, but we tend as a nation to wake up the hard way - surprised that others are not friendly.

It is time to acknowledge that we are a small fish compared to the US, China and we need to find a way to deal with that, and not still live in the idea that the world is looking at is.

You need to unify with Germany and other countries with the EU, this will give you the required clout against the other blocs of the world. As a Brit, Brexit was the day the world fell apart.

It works for many other aspects, but not the military: there is no EU army.

I'm pretty sure they will have to, this AFUKUS thing has forced their hand.

Actually Europe is super important as a force of balance. There is nothing more coveted by the Chinese than European friendship.

One should note that diplomatic dealings are not going to be reported in the press. What gets reported in the press is what is announced and/or what is leaked (on purpose).

We comment on what we think is diplomatically callous without actually knowing if/when France was informed. I think that France's best option, domestically, is to act surprised in order to save face. What should they do otherwise, after losing such a huge deal in a lucrative region? Honest question. What would you recommend France do in response, even if they realized there were substantial issues months ago and a real risk of losing the contract?

There is a lot of speculation without anyone here likely knowing what the truth is.

I heard (from The Drive https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/42390/australian-navy-...) the French deal had gone up to $70 billion. Why is this fact not presented more obviously? France seems to have been soaking Australia for an inferior, non-nuclear submarine fleet. Why is it surprising or even controversial that they cancelled the deal? I realize France is doing a full time PR push, here, but it seems to come down to a pretty terrible deal that Australia doesn’t want any more. Seriously, $70 billion for 12 diesel subs??

I wonder what French think now about their cancelling of the Mistral deal with Russia [0] under American pressure [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral-class_amphibious_assau...

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-russia-mistral-idU...

Well... I feel we got screwed twice !

Does a NATO county selling weapons to a NATO strategic adversary not seem mildly questionable on its own?

They're just not thinking big enough, the US has been creating its own strategic adversaries by selling weapons to terrorists and regretting it 20 years later for decades

These ships are not a real problem. The credible part of Russian navy is nuclear submarines. Russian surface navy is not, and won't be a threat to Nato, with or without them.

There isn't really a country theatened by Russia where sea is a relevant theater - it's always a land border

Pales in comparison with amount of US weapons left in middle east, supplied to Saudi, etc. The diffetence is Russia has some standards, they don't do things like 9/11.

The Euro strategy is to make themselves vassals of Russia to appear less threatening. Look at how Germany walked away from nuclear and made themselves dependent on Russian natural gas.

Apparently Germany sees Russia a smaller threat than the possibility of a nuclear incident at its aging nuclear plants.

"NATO strategic adversary"

That's not what NATO had been telling Russia when expanding into Eastern European and ex-USSR countries.

trying to sell weapons to Russia, an aggressive total dictatorship, you deserved that one

> trying to sell weapons to Russia, an aggressive total dictatorship, you deserved that one

Well USA is selling or has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia, a known democracy respecting human rights/s

Weapons used to massacre children in Yemen, I mean let's not claim USA is a paragon of virtue either, when it comes to the business of war.

To be fair France did it too. Looking at arms deal from rich democracies is a sure way to become really cynical.

> To be fair France did it too. Looking at arms deal from rich democracies is a sure way to become really cynical.

Whatever, France shouldn't have caved when USA asked them to violate their business contract with Russia and not deliver the ship. USA couldn't care less when they do the exact same thing. Now France looks a fool.

I'm not American, that was also wrong

Same as with everything involving US foreign policy in the last 20 years.

"Never go into a well with american rope."

A complete and shameful shit show. This wasn't even a warship. Yes, it made the French look like fools and untrustworthy and they had to dump that ship to another nation for a huge discount. A complete failure.

Merci Hollande! /s

USA is nobody"s ally when it's about business. USA only has interests.

> This wasn't even a warship.

It's an helicopter carrier with advanced air space control and telecommunication capacities. That's definitely a warship.

> It's an helicopter carrier with advanced air space control and telecommunication capacities. That's definitely a warship.

That ship had no offense capabilities.

France was providing the hull. Electronics etc was all Russian. So technically France product was not a warship.

One can have various views on Hollande, but this one was the evidence that we are vassals to the US.

I did not like him much, he had ups and downs but he ridiculized France in that one.

I do not know what other presidents would have done, though. They announce a lot, and usually do not deliver much in average (nothing special with France here, usual politics)

My observation:

1- US probably predicts that China is gonna breakthrough the first island chain in the next 10 years.

2- France needs to reconsider her Indo-Pacific stratrgy because Aussi explicitly shows that it's going all in with US instead of trying to follow some sort of independent strategy.

3- Win for whoever in EU who supports self defense and a more consolidated Europe.

4- First time a non nuclear country (Aussi has very limited exp with nuclear power) manages to obtain nuclear subs from nuclear countries.

Point #4. Distinction we need to make is that Australia will obtain Nuclear-powered subs, not nuclear weapons. I haven’t seen what “Nuclear Sub” entails with regards to this contract anywhere so please correct me if I am wrong. It’s not breaking the non-proliferation treaty.

It entails in the case of US subs 95% enrichment uranium.

Is making rad bombs trivial? Can you just dump nuclear fuel out of the sub and stick it in a gun-type bomb with no prior experience?

Pretty much, yes. Enrichment is the hard part and US subs have fuel enriched enough for a gun type nuke.

I wonder if the subs have enough quantity of fuel to make a respectable explosion. Like if they need to ditch 8 subs to make a bomb, it is pretty low risk if I were China.

If you run the number, you'll find that a sub is going to have at least a half a ton of highly enriched uranium, perhaps even more than a ton.

You wouldn't even need to ditch a single sub to make multiple warheads, certainly not if you use an implosion design as any country can pretty easily do nowadays.

From what I understand, your basic nuclear weapon (WWII tech) isn’t technically difficult to build because the principles are well known. The uranium is the difficult part.

Sure you could extract the fuel rods, but how many weapons will you get out of it? Is having a handful of low yield bombs worth the international sanctions?

I think you’re better off having strategic strike capability with cruise missiles from submarines. They are a lot more flexible and you can have a lot of them without the other nations getting too upset.

These submarines have 95% enrichment fuel. You only need ~10kg to make a high yield weapon with the right design.

You're going to get multiple weapons with the fuel stored in a single submarine.

Cruise missiles are vulnerable. They can be intercepted and shot down, and they give your position away. Low reward, high risk. Nuclear deterrence can certainly be worth it.

I doubt they will use 95% uranium. [This guy](https://theconversation.com/how-do-nuclear-powered-submarine...) says it is about 50%. Still that is the level Iran is being sanctioned at.

The US uses 93-97% uranium as a matter of public record.

Other countries use more weakly enriched uranium, the US and UK are the exception, so I understand the error in the article above.

See this better source ; https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2019/06/naval-reactors-leu/

I wasn't questioning your numbers but thanks for the reference. I think they are being purposedly vague about this. Transferring weapons grade uranium would be a real threat to the NPT.

Well, it's pretty clear, the US is going to provide weapons grade uranium to Australia. Yes it's highly sensitive under the NPT, but the US doesn't care at all.

If the uranium had lower enrichment, it wouldn't be able to last 25 years, so it's certain that this is weapons grade.

Yes it's nuclear powered but the argument stands.

> The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbids signatories who don’t already have a bomb from making one. It also says they must put sensitive nuclear material, like enriched uranium, under international safeguards, monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a watchdog. But the rules have a submarine-shaped loophole. States are allowed to remove nuclear material from safeguards if they are for “a non-proscribed military activity”, such as submarine propulsion. No non-nuclear-armed state has ever tested that loophole—until now.

Source: https://www.economist.com/international/2021/09/17/what-does...

So it seems that it is technically not violating NPT.

>1- US probably predicts that China is gonna breakthrough the first island chain in the next 10 years.

I think the nuke boats / unicorn tech transfer is sweetner for AU hosting more US assets. Starting ASAP. Just announced more US bombers will be stationed down under. With bombers come ABM, and with ABM, might as well as throw in IRBMs. IMO, it's foot in door for improve US positioning in AU, who has already sunk cost too much into US orbit that the only thing left is to double down. PineGap, Geraldton, Exmouth communication hubs, US is absurdly dependent on AU facilities for Indo-Pac operations. Aforementioned facilities will be targeted by PRC if US containment efforts become kinetic. Ditto with IRBMs, every other country in region has rejected to host because sigifnicant US assets paints target for PRC, but AU is on the hitlist due to existing assets by default.

E: To complete thought, these subs are distraction until they leave the drydock. Chance of smooth aquisition process is 0. At least 8, i.e. only 2-3 deployable at a time. Realistically won't be ready by 2050s if ever since AU has no indigenous nuke industry and struggled with the Collins sub construction. PRC shipyards is primed to launch 2 SSNs per year once design finalized. 6:1 disparity in hulls + host of unmanned systems. A few nuke subs won't shift strategic landscape that much in 30-40 years, but immediate US basing will.

But Australia is 5000 miles away from China, only slightly less than Hawaii. Sure Australia is lower cost with vast land but don't see how that is immediate game changer.

Bases in West Australia where US assets will be deployed are 1/2 distance from to maritime choke points vs Hawaii. Opens up more options.

Will they try to choke Australia exports to China? Joke aside still don't see a lot of value add over Singapore in terms of blockade.

Unless we are talking about posturing?

Sinagpore and ASEAN signalled neutrality, US tried to get them to host IRBM that can reach within SCS within 1st island chain., No takers. QUAD drama means no military alliance, especially India. Leaves JP, US, AU. JP too close to PRC to be relied on if things turn hot. Leaves just US, AU. Add UK who has spare capacity for SSN with US tech. It's pretty much the only option left. The TLDR is there aren't any credible partners who will commit to PRC containment in region except AU whose far enough that protection can be guaranteed by US. Not in terms of security commitment, but just reality. US simply not in position to challenge PRC within SCS especially in 30 years. It's economic suicide pact for everyone else if regional war over TW breaks out. EU Indo-Pac policy also diluted. Arguably UK isn't fully on board but needs the business.

AU is just whose left. It's solid position near relevant 1st island chain SLOC choke points, but also signals how weak US posture in region actually is after lobbying under Trump + Biden. US sharing SSN secrets and pissing off France + timing of EU indo-pac strategy announcement should really raise eye brows. But again, west AU is solid location for now.

The area in question is the south china sea, and further areas from China.

Probably related to the defense of entire chain of US reliant countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam as well as Australia.

Ultimately, it has to do with commerce as power influences commercial interests as well.

That sounds super vague. Taiwan is economically integrated with China, so are South Korea and to a lesser extent, Japan. Vietnam is dependent on Chinese imports and they share a land border. Most of Australia exports go to China. At peace time this is just posturing. In time of war no one ever doubted Australia would be on the side of the US.

I don't understand why France sticks with the USA/UK at this point as they treated as bull-crap. I am sure they could strike a good deal with the Chinese and be better off: like leasing land in the Caribbean Sea or making a joint venture in some weapon. France don't really care about the China Sea in the end.

They should be as "pragmatical" as the Aussie !.

US is able to output harm while China doesn't have that ability.

Seeing how the Afghanistan war ended I don't think so. The last time the USA properly won a war was when they nuked cities and civilians, whereas China and Russia never went this far. Now given that USA is definitely the more belligerent of the 3, it might happen again.

Untrue, USA won the Gulf War.

David against Goliath? IRL, Goliath wins.

Could you rephrase your question?

The parent was suggesting basically that the US is not a Goliath (in expeditionary war).

This was not a question but statement. IRL = In Real Life.

Sure, but if the US command had for some reason been psychopathic enough, Afghanistan could have been leveled into a barren desert. Wars of occupation are messy and often inherently unwinnable. But the US can absolutely "output harm" anywhere on earth.

Because France doesn't need to care about China but they do need to care about Russia, and they don't have the ability to counterbalance Russia without the US. This is part of why their nationalist movement to rebuilt their military is growing strength, but they're far from being capable of being independent from the US.

Europe and China are much more naturally aligned in not wanting to see Russia as a dominant military power. Review the history of the cold war if reference is needed.

The sino-soviet split was not an inevitable result of geography.

You think it would be pragmatic for them to turn away from USA, UK, other EU and Anglosphere states, Japan, etc., and instead start forming military alliances with a genocidal communist dictatorship?

Interesting strategy.

> My observation

I don't think that any of those are observations.. probably more like speculations.

It seems like a bit of an overreaction. Is shipbuilding that important to France?

That's part of it, but it's mostly a larger political play around France and Europe being less dependent on the USA as a partner around the world. France has been pushing on 'strategic autonomy' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_autonomy) for quite some time now, and this played right into their hands as an opportunity of the USA not being reliable.

Whether or not it's true, or if this will work, will take a lot more time to figure out.

Also genuinely curious. With no judgment, I want to understand the French perspective here.

And can anyone weigh in on whether these deals getting scuttled is so rare. Esp for advanced military equipment, I’d think that it’s quite common.

A large part is the behaviour of Australia and the US who just said "Surprise! We're a couple now! Oh, by the way France, I texted you that you've been dumped this morning"

And the reason they did it this way is basically because it was domestically convenient for them to have a press release last Wednesday and they didn't want to bother with first cancelling the contract and waiting even a month with announcing the new alliance that at the moment is entirely on paper.

France is more annoyed that the point wasn't raised during its summit with Australia during the summer nor by the USA during their last meetings. They consider that to be a deep breach of trust between allies and therefore recalled their ambassadors.

€50B over 50 years, dubbed "the contract of the century".

The French were messing up the contract all on their own.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-20/australia-attack-clas...

It's always about domestic politics. Macron doesn't want to look weak in the leadup to the 2022 election, and it's not hard to see why France would be upset here.

When Merkel decided to welcome one million refugees on german soil, it was about domestic politics?

Refugee is essential a business in Germany.

Not sure what you're trying to poke at here, so I'll just clarify.

Basically any diplomatic actions that on their face appear to be overreactions, or intense provocations, are better understood as communicating something to a domestic audience in a context that rewards it.

Classic example is "wolf warrior diplomacy", where tweets from Chinese officials can seem to indicate that the PLA is about to deploy tanks when in reality it's just a diplomat trying to look as nationalistic as they can for their bosses' approval.

Or when France opposed the Iraq War in 2003, the "Freedom Fries" nonsense in America was really more about the general patriotic hysteria of the moment rather than a sign that there was any enduring hatred for France.

> When Merkel decided to welcome one million refugees on german soil, it was about domestic politics?

No, that was about personal revenge for the press eviscerating her and calling her the "Ice Queen"[1] after an interview segment was shown on TV in which Merkel can be seen rejecting a refugee girl's teary-eyed plead to bend the asylum law solely for her.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CKBa2VvUMAE1Ymv?format=jpg&name=...

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/7/29/a-refugees-hope...

Importing entry level workers to be more globally competitive and counteract population decline.

It isn’t just that Australia cancelled the deal and made a new one with someone else. It is they kept their plans secret from France instead of letting them know about it and giving them a chance to make a counter-offer or save some face.

France has nuclear submarines too, so maybe France could still have played some role? Maybe AUKUS could have been AFUKUS? They didn’t allow France into the negotiation room, and they told France “everything is fine, we are sticking with your submarines” even while secretly negotiating with the US and UK.

I think being excluded and lied to upsets Macron far more than the submarines themselves do.

Looks to me like political hardball being played and it’s surprising France (and to a lesser extent the EU). Frankly, France and the EU have been trying to straddle a middle ground between the US and China, and strategically Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK (yes I know France can project some power I’m not downplaying them) but they have been dragging their feet and the action is just not going to be in Europe anymore. Australia (and the UK) are far, far more important to the United States. Europe has been unwilling to throw their cards in with America 100% and America is saying well… ok then we can’t rely on you so we’ll do something else.

Look at the repercussions now. France is huffing and puffing and what exactly is going to happen? The Us is still buying French wine and German cars, and the EU is still buying US products and trade is just going to continue on as normal. Who cares?

On the other hand, Australia is vital.

I don’t think NATO exists in a meaningful way anymore and this is just window dressing around what has already happened. Russia is Europe’s problem. And the US is losing a reason to engage when Europe is seemingly not willing to. Think about it. If you take away the saber rattling why would the US give a shit about Russia? It’s an economic backwater. Europe doesn’t want to pony up and show teeth. What is to be gained? Hell, the US and Russia will probably forge better ties going forward.

And yes I’m an American, but I’m just looking at this as I see it geopolitically.

Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. The UK is part on the basis of historical ties, not because someone looked at a map and said "hey, that guy controls some important bits".

It also seems distressingly naive to say "it's been two days and nothing's happened, so nobody cares" when talking about the EU reaction. The only fast EU action you ever get is the statements, and those have been supportive of France. The interesting thing is to see what happens this spring when France has the EU presidency.

Anyway, the big benefit of NATO is to keep Europe and the US aligned; Europe has lived with Russia for a long time before NATO existed and the big trouble in Europe was about keeping whatever nations where large at the time from attacking each other.

I don't see the US and Russia getting along much better, precisely because, as you say, Americans don't think they need to respect the Russians very much, a judgment which the Russians don't agree with.

> Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too.

This is kind of like a nice piece of trivia. France has 0 ability to protect those territories and they're pretty much useless to any other country except in the event of a war in the Pacific, in which case the US would be using them as basis (or China or Japan or whoever but definitely not France). Sure France could sail the Charles de Gualle to the Pacific but it's not like the UK and the Falklands. It's uh... a bit of a drive. (Not to mention if there is a serious power in the region on the island(s) that is probably not enough of a force to fight with - the CdG I mean). The EU allies had a tough time with Libya without American logistics support. This was a wakeup call for the US.

The UK was added because of the close alliance. Better power projection capabilities than France but it's certainly close. But the point is that the UK is on board. Team USA all the way baby. France? Eh... not sure if we want to anger China kind of stance. They (like the rest of the EU) is keeping both trying to guess, and the US doesn't value being in that position. Better to force the issue.

> It also seems distressingly naive to say "it's been two days and nothing's happened, so nobody cares" when talking about the EU reaction. The only fast EU action you ever get is the statements, and those have been supportive of France. The interesting thing is to see what happens this spring when France has the EU presidency.

No no. I'm saying you saw what will happen. Nothing meaningful will happen because France and the EU can't really do anything. Tell me, what are they going to do? Get the gang together and start a trade war? Be even more wishy-washy toward the now non-existent US interests in the Middle East?

> Anyway, the big benefit of NATO is to keep Europe and the US aligned;

The problem here is the assumption that either cares to be aligned anymore. The EU says they're not committed to the US. So the US is relegating the EU to "just another country/group of countries". The US went through a surprising amount of trouble with the whole Huawei thing. The US expectation is frankly - hey we say drop this because China is a rival. Europe just didn't play ball and now the US is saying hey I don't think we can count on you. And you can't blame this on Trump either. It doesn't matter what his approach is.

> Europe has lived with Russia for a long time before NATO existed and the big trouble in Europe was about keeping whatever nations where large at the time from attacking each other.

I think this reinforces my point. NATO is irrelevant now. There's nothing left in Europe to care about. What's Russia going to do? Annex Ukraine? What is the US supposed to do that Europe isn't already more than willing to do? Soviet tanks aren't going to be driving through Berlin so what's the point anymore?

> I don't see the US and Russia getting along much better, precisely because, as you say, Americans don't think they need to respect the Russians very much, a judgment which the Russians don't agree with.

Yea but now we go from "bad Putin bad!!!" to "eh? who cares?". That's an improvement. Russia really is an economic backwater and this is all about economics.

At least this is my take. Appreciate your thoughts here!

"The US went through a surprising amount of trouble with the whole Huawei thing. The US expectation is frankly - hey we say drop this because China is a rival. Europe just didn't play ball and now the US is saying hey I don't think we can count on you. And you can't blame this on Trump either. It doesn't matter what his approach is."

I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command.

This US approach where we talk about human rights and freedom but stuff people into Guantanamo bay (itself illegally occupied) without trial and attack rivals without a pretence of due process really rubs europeans the wrong way.

> I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command.

Right. And so now the United States is moving on from Europe. They still get all the benefits of trade and such without any of the commitment that they feel wasn't being reciprocated.

I'm not trying to make a moral judgement of the US or EU or something here, just trying to interpret what moves are being made.

"Right. And so now the United States is moving on from Europe"

This "US was helping ungratefull Europe, and now is tired of doing so" story seems to have a few pages missing.

The US bases here are largest outside US itself, and are vital for US logistics - they have everything from stategic airlift to nukes. Every deployment to Middle East involved them. So lets not pretend US has no need of them.

US ability to project power around the world depends on countries being willing to host their kit.

Where can I see the evidence of this "moving on" happening in the real world, rather than it just being a diplomatic spat? None of the equipment has left.

> This "US was helping ungratefull Europe, and now is tired of doing so" story seems to have a few pages missing.

It doesn't matter what is true, it matters how the parties feel about these things.

> The US bases here are largest outside US itself, and are vital for US logistics - they have everything from stategic airlift to nukes. Every deployment to Middle East involved them. So lets not pretend US has no need of them.

The US isn't going to be in the Middle East anymore.

> US ability to project power around the world depends on countries being willing to host their kit.

Eh not really. Aircraft carriers, aerial refueling capabilities, etc. It definitely makes things easier though. For the Pacific the US has Australia, Guam, the Mariana Islands, etc.

> Where can I see the evidence of this "moving on" happening in the real world, rather than it just being a diplomatic spat? None of the equipment has left.

The US just walked out of Afghanistan without giving a shit about NATO and started giving nuclear technology to Australia within the span of about 3 months... The US is moving missiles out of Saudi Arabia [1].

I mean it's not like it's going to be some big announcement or something.

[1] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-removes-advanced-missi...

> France has 0 ability to protect those territories

France has nuclear-powered submarines carrying nuclear ICBMs. Of course they can defend their islands.

> Sure France could sail the Charles de Gualle to the Pacific

France has a permanent navy presence in the Pacific. They don't need to get an aircraft carrier there. Aircraft carriers are useless against a modern army anyway. It's all about submarines.

> because France and the EU can't really do anything

That's the second economic block in the world. There is plenty they can do to piss off America if they want to. They could think it's in their best interest to be more concilient with China for example. That's how diplomacy works.

> What's Russia going to do?

Russia is a nuclear power and one of the largest country on the planet, a country full of natural resources. They are also quite close to China and an important link in the new silkroad which is an important part of China global strategy. You can't just dismiss Russia. It's foolish.

> France has nuclear-powered submarines carrying nuclear ICBMs. Of course they can defend their islands.

Let's not pretend that France is going to go to nuclear war to over these territories.

> France has a permanent navy presence in the Pacific. They don't need to get an aircraft carrier there.

I mean so does the Philippines. The question is what are they going to do with it?

> Aircraft carriers are useless against a modern army anyway. It's all about submarines.

I'm not really sure that's true. And why would it be less true with better detection technology now than it would have been in World War II where aircraft carriers were what mattered?

A submarine will have to find the carrier fleet and evade defenses. No easy feat. Navies have been battling submarines for decades so it's not like it's some big secret weapon.

> That's the second economic block in the world. There is plenty they can do to piss off America if they want to.

I think this is wishful thinking. The US is far stronger than the EU is economically, and any sort of actions harms the EU too. So there isn't really much they can do.

> They could think it's in their best interest to be more concilient with China for example. That's how diplomacy works.

and that's why the US is going behind Frances back, creating and strengthening alliances with the Uk and Australia. The US has come to believe that the EU is more interested in playing both sides, which doesn't benefit the US.

> Russia is a nuclear power and one of the largest country on the planet, a country full of natural resources.

100%

> They are also quite close to China and an important link in the new silkroad which is an important part of China global strategy.

I wouldn't be so quick to toss Russia into China's lap. The silk road is mostly marketing. Some economic development but it's a ho-hum affair.

> You can't just dismiss Russia. It's foolish.

Sure I can. What exactly are they going to do? Bother Europe? It's not 1970 anymore. My point isn't that Russia doesn't have capabilities. My point is they don't really have much to do that they aren't already doing and most of it is targeted toward agitating Europe which, appears to not want the US's help with.

> Let's not pretend that France is going to go to nuclear war to over these territories.

Who is going to conquer them?

And if someone tried, I think it is likely that other regional powers would help – Australia, New Zealand, the US – not for any great love of France, but rather because they'd see such a conquest as a threat to their own national security, so they'd want to help France out of self-interest.

Sure so that goes back to my point, why does the US exactly care about France in the region? France can’t stop China (which is who would conquer those islands if anyone) and the US would have to do it anyway. Oh and France is staying at arms length from both the US and China.

New Zealand is kind of eh too. They don’t contribute much to the alliance of the Anglosphere countries and have been (for their own export-oriented economic reasons) reluctant to anger China… an ally in the region? Sure. But it depends on how (from the perspective of the US) annoying they are. The whole “no nuclear on the island” thing basically forces the US to violate New Zealand sovereignty in the event of a war if they’re going to dock there at all. So what’s the US to do? New Zealand wants to have its cake and eat it too.

Again, not judging NZ or France here, just speaking to what I’m observing in the geopolitical sphere.

My point was that Australia/UK/US could have done this in a way which offended France less – invite them into the discussion, tell them that Australian wanted nuclear submarines, even tell them that the UK/US HEU-based submarines were more attractive than France's LEU-based ones – and offer them some consolation prizes such as engineering consulting, joint training and joint exercises, manufacturing of some parts. Maybe even officially bring France into AUKUS and make it AFUKUS.

Now, if they'd tried to do that, maybe it wouldn't have worked out – but it appears Australia/UK/US never tried, they did all of their negotiating completely behind closed doors, without telling France what they were doing, and then presented it to France as a fait accompli. If they tried to include France, and the discussions had broken down, France still would have taken it better than the current situation, where Australia/UK/US made no attempt to include them.

France is officially an important and long-standing formal ally to the US and the UK through NATO. Australia and France do not have a formal military alliance, but had been describing each other as "strategic partners". I think the way Australia/UK/US went about this has caused unnecessary damage to their relationship with France. They could had arrived at essentially the same outcome in a way which caused far less damage to that relationship. Viewed in that light, I don't think geopolitics is very relevant – whatever the value of France as an ally or partner, needlessly offending them is just stupid.

Your premise is that the US, UK, and Australia just went about this as though they didn’t know exactly how France would react and that what they did was stupid and unintentional, and that they believe that France or the EU are important strategic partners.

What I would say is that I question this premise. It’s not Trump. I don’t doubt for a second that this reaction is something of a surprise for the allies we’re discussing. So the question is why? I don’t think incompetence is a compelling answer given the current administration.

> Viewed in that light, I don't think geopolitics is very relevant – whatever the value of France as an ally or partner, needlessly offending them is just stupid.

Right. I think the US, UK, and Australia simply don’t value the EU as a partner against China. Or maybe there’s another explanation. It would take a lot of convincing that this is just ignorance or stupidity on behalf of three different countries. They either don’t care, or there is something else at play.

> I don’t think incompetence is a compelling answer given the current administration.

Really? I see the debacle of Afghanistan as evidence that all recent US administrations are perfectly capable of incompetence – whether Bush or Obama or Trump or Biden. And Iraq before that. No denying that Trump took incompetence to worrying new heights, but I don't think we should therefore dismiss the idea that the other three administrations have also demonstrated it, even though not to quite such an exuberant degree.

And having witnessed the lack of urgency with which the Australian federal government pursued the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, the idea that the Australian government might be incompetent, not just at fighting a pandemic, but also at managing international relations, does not seem implausible. Likewise, many Brits question the competence of the Johnson government – COVID vaccination rollout is one area in which they have done well, but in many other areas (including other aspects of COVID response) their competence is widely questioned.

France is actually the least upset at the UK, because they expect this kind of behaviour from them, especially under Boris Johnson – there is a reason why the phrase "perfidious Albion" is centuries old – but they expected better from Australia and the US.

In other words, everybody is incompetent except the country completely caught off guard in this situation?

Sorry I just don’t buy the incompetence argument.

What is going on here is geopolitical calculus. The US doesn’t care about France that much anymore. I think we all want to cling to the past, but the world is changing. Alliances come and go, things change. France and the EU have lost a lot of status with the US and I don’t think the US views them as willing partners in the US’s approach to contain China.

The world is changing, but not the US.

In what way is the world changing but the US isn't changing?

This deal was initiated during the trump administration.

The sub deal with Australia? I mean it's not like the U.S. had to do it and Biden and his diplomats didn't have to not tell France and just keep on with it lol...

> Let's not pretend that France is going to go to nuclear war to over these territories.

Why wouldn't they? Nuclear retaliation is their whole defense doctrine. They probably won't need to because they maintain adequate diplomatic relationships with all of the different powers in the Pacific.

> I'm not really sure that's true. And why would it be less true with better detection technology now than it would have been in World War II where aircraft carriers were what mattered?

Carrier groups are too slow and carry too little protection to actually resist an attack from a military of an equivalent technological level nowadays. Anti-ballistic ship missiles and supersonic missiles fired from high altitude are a pain to detect and fly too fast to be reliably stopped. The US has been trying to develop counter-measures but their actual capabilities are unproved and they remain vulnerable to saturation. You will not be able to operate carriers close to China or Russia if they want them out of the picture.

> Sure I can. What exactly are they going to do?

Cripple your navy? Nuck you? Geopardize your economic blocus with China and provide them with the mineral they need? They could do all of these things.

Step out of your bubble. You don't understand the actual position of the USA in the modern world. You can't just dismiss countries. That's not how diplomacy works.

> Why wouldn't they? Nuclear retaliation is their whole defense doctrine. They probably won't need to because they maintain adequate diplomatic relationships with all of the different powers in the Pacific.

We’re at risk of losing any essence of what we were originally talking about. But I see no compelling reason that France would launch nuclear weapons for any reason other than a potential invasion of France or unless some other country launched nuclear weapons at it.

> Carrier groups are too slow and carry too little protection to actually resist an attack from a military of an equivalent technological level nowadays.

Not seeing any evidence of this whatsoever.

> Anti-ballistic ship missiles and supersonic missiles fired from high altitude are a pain to detect and fly too fast to be reliably stopped. The US has been trying to develop counter-measures but their actual capabilities are unproved and they remain vulnerable to saturation.

So nobody has a Navy then… and now the US just maintains the current advantages it has? And why develop hypersonic missiles (which the US has) and deploy them when your potential adversaries can’t stop cheaper cruise missiles either. Launched from, oh, idk, nuclear powered subs in the region that the US Navy also has and is increasing via allies such as Australia?

And not to mention, potential adversaries have to find US ships and overcome their defenses which, are pretty good though not perfect. Meanwhile those ships are probably out there doing things in places you don’t have reach to. If a war broke out with China, which is a country that is massively dependent on imports, you can just use your land based (Japan, Guam, Australia, etc.) and have the US Navy seize shipments coming to China. Now what? Transport resources from Central Asia to vulnerable factories and other facilities in the coast?

> You will not be able to operate carriers close to China or Russia if they want them out of the picture.

You’re assuming that it’s necessary to do so and that the US fleet is somehow just a passive recipient of attacks without countermeasures or the ability to initiate an offensive.

> Cripple your navy? Nuck you? Geopardize your economic blocus with China and provide them with the mineral they need? They could do all of these things.

Well jeez in that case the US can just nuke Russia! But we aren’t talking about unrealistic, world-ending scenarios. Russia can’t cripple the US Navy, won’t nuke it, and is already trading with China.

> Step out of your bubble. You don't understand the actual position of the USA in the modern world. You can't just dismiss countries. That's not how diplomacy works.

“Someone has a different opinion than me so they just live in a bubble”

c’mon.

Core of the issue is this- underlying your comment on Huawei and Russian sanctions, seems to be an expectation that an entire continent of 28 countries and 500 million people should follow whatever random idea comes out of Washington that day. Today we are Invading Iraq, tomorrow we are pulling out, then we are invading again.

European leaders can't follow all the dicktats from across the ocean, and the decision to support Iraq war has ended Tony Blair's career. I have encountered this attitude before, and the vibe I am getting is that you don't want partners and allies, you want lapdogs.

A lot of Europeans see these decisions as serving Washington's interests rather than their own, and if you want to leave europe, many like Macron will say 'good riddance'.

And that’s why the US is moving away from Europe militarily. Not much to gain. No more Middle East wars. An EU that (again perspective of the US) isn’t clearly on the side of the US (I don’t care about the reasons here some are legit of course) and who the US is feeling annoyed with having to get the EU to “do something for their own good”. Big expense for the US in political and military capital and not much in the way of returns.

If the US left Europe completely what happens? That’s the question the US is asking now and by the moves they’re making it seems to me the answer is a resounding “nothing that we care about”.

"Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK"

By what metric did you conclude that? It doesn't have a majorlead in anything measurable

Re. USA and Russia, it was US, not EU pressing for greater sanctions against Russia

Militarily it's no longer relevant to US interests. And as far as economics go, well, nothing is changing here.

> Re. USA and Russia, it was US, not EU pressing for greater sanctions against Russia

Right... that's my entire point. The US is doing this on behalf of Europe based on the idea that there is a Russian threat (there isn't really for core EU nations) and that Europe wants to be defended. Europe doesn't want to be defended and isn't onboard with US actions to "defend" Europe. So why would the US spend any time here? What's to gain? A Europe that doesn't want the US? There's much more important things going on and you can't waste time and resources on this.

> Europe has been unwilling to throw their cards in with America 100%

Why should they? America is an unreliable partner. They torpedoed a good deal with Iran, mismanaged the withdrawing from Afghanistan, have been a nuisance regarding the building of pipelines between Germany and Russia and an overall destabilizing force in the Middle-East. Trump did happen. The fastest Europe separates itself from the American sphere of influence, the better.

> The fastest Europe separates itself from the American sphere of influence, the better.

And now you know why the US and UK didn't give the slightest shit about how mad France got about this deal. NATO is dead, the US is leaving Europe for better or worse, wanted or not.

And keep in mind I'm just doing my best at an interpretation/observation. Everything you cite here from the perspective of some or many European nations can be just reasons for not wanting to throw their cards in with the US... but the US can act too and say fine, then we're moving on to what we want to do with or without you. This is clearly occurring with the pivot to Asia and strengthening of alliances.

Idk how things will shape up, but I wouldn't be shocked in the next 20-40 years to see free movement of trade and people between the US, Australia, and the UK.

I think you should take a look at the UK trade routes, import situation, geographic position and internal political situation.

Well what's the worst-case scenario? The US would just give the UK stuff if it came to that. But the UK will continue to trade with Europe and international partners. Probably won't be "as good" but this changing in geostrategy doesn't mean countries won't trade with each other or something... I mean the US and China and all that are a pretty good example. I mean the US trades with Russia even.

> but I wouldn't be shocked in the next 20-40 years to see free movement of trade and people between the US, Australia, and the UK.

I doubt that is going to happen for full free movement of people. I think Australia especially doesn't want to allow anyone from the US or the UK to move here. Professionals with degrees–doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, engineers, IT people, etc–I think the majority of Australians don't have a problem with that. But a flood of British retirees–or chavs–searching for sunny beaches?

I can foresee agreements to streamline the process of getting a visa for university-educated professionals and make it easier and simpler and faster, but I doubt Australia will want to agree to doing away with the selectivity and just allow anybody, even American or British unskilled labourers with no particular qualifications, to immigrate.

Sure that can happen. I can also see Australia “opening up” as a condition of the alliance too.

All speculative here so thanks for your thoughts!!!! (Serious)

> Why should they? America is an unreliable partner

If this question was raised in 2015, it would have been unequivocally yes. So was last 4 decades of partnership with NATO.

We have such a short-term memory and forgot the state of the world before the pandemic, let alone before Trump.

Geopolitically Europe is much more important to the US than Australia ever will be. If US wants to contain China technologically European cooperation is a must. Maybe this is a sign that they are giving up on that. Or this is just a short sighted move.

From the perspective of the US , Europe is not committed to the degree the Uk and Australia are to China (I would say this is a fact really) so there isn’t really anything to lose by shifting away to more important regions. Trade stays the same, and then the US can focus attention elsewhere and let the EU deal with Russia if there is such a need.

Australia is a big country, lots of resources, extremely important as a land of last resort in the Pacific. Far more important to US global interests than the EU. No question in my mind.

That would make a good strategy for China if it were true: keep tension high at the SCS to draw US away from Europe; solidify relationship with Europe to develop technology and hedge against Russia.

I mean there are some interesting elements there but I don’t see the solidifying Europe one as much.

I think it’s more so Europe being independent and trading with both China and the US and keeping both at arms length, which is what’s driving the US to stop caring about Europe militarily. No more Middle East wars (oil supply is secured and Iraq was won), and why bother defending Europe? What are they defending it from? They can’t stop Russia from chipping away at countries. The EU is going to have to do that.

So for the US it’s like why spend money or resources or attention in Europe? Just trade with the EU like any other countries and get the same benefits without any of the cost.

I don't think that is what US political elites want but it is actually a good outcome for world peace. Russia is not moving anywhere, neither is China. Continental detente will play out over many decades, way beyond US election cycles. An independent Europe trading normally with both US and China, and Russia, is a much more stable configuration. Core Europe will feel secure at the price of peripheral Europe. However in such a scenario, while everyone may prosper, the geopolitical center will move back to the Eurasian continent. AUKUS will be mostly irrelevant. Sure they can pat themselves on the back for deterring China, but China got the crown jewel if it can pry Europe away from the military alliance with the US. China and European powers are much more naturally aligned. France recognized PRC right after China helped Vietnam to kick them out. Think about that for a while! And European countries helped China into the UN to replace Taiwan.

> I don't think that is what US political elites want but it is actually a good outcome for world peace. Russia is not moving anywhere, neither is China. Continental detente will play out over many decades, way beyond US election cycles. An independent Europe trading normally with both US and China, and Russia, is a much more stable configuration. Core Europe will feel secure at the price of peripheral Europe

Agreed maybe with some asterisk and what-ifs but this seems likely.

> However in such a scenario, while everyone may prosper, the geopolitical center will move back to the Eurasian continent.

I think moves to the pacific, south East Asia, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, Indonesia, India, etc. That's where most of the world's people are. I don't think Russia is developed enough in the east to be of too much relevance here. Long story short, the important parts move, to the slow irrelevance of Europe.

> AUKUS will be mostly irrelevant.

Yikes. I can't think that's further from the truth. This move just upped the ante and is yet another signal of Anglosphere commitment to the region.

> Sure they can pat themselves on the back for deterring China, but China got the crown jewel if it can pry Europe away from the military alliance with the US.

Well Europe certainly won't ally with China barring something insane happening. They've chosen the path of keeping more neutral, which lends to your first point about the stable configuration. A Europe allied with China would be destabilizing. But I also don't think it matters. Europe has lost its military relevance for the foreseeable future because there's just nothing going on in Europe that matters.

The whole purpose of NATO and the European alliances with countries like France was to ward of Russian aggression and keep Europe stable from starting another ridiculous world war, but... it doesn't look like that's needed anymore. So what is the U.S. doing focusing on Europe?

> France recognized PRC right after China helped Vietnam to kick them out. Think about that for a while! And European countries helped China into the UN to replace Taiwan.

And the U.S. fought to get China into the WTO and spent decades trying to forge economic ties. I wouldn't read into that too much. And then if you wanted to, well why are European countries saber rattling against Chinese influence? So I think it's more that Europe wants to play both sides, which is annoying the U.S. which is now no longer really getting the ROI it wants from European engagements, especially now that it is withdrawing from the Middle East.

> Well Europe certainly won't ally with China barring something insane happening. They've chosen the path of keeping more neutral, which lends to your first point about the stable configuration.

European neutrality is all that China could hope for and it is good enough for strategic detente.

> This move just upped the ante and is yet another signal of Anglosphere commitment to the region.

If it is about moving US troops and assets out of harm's way by stationing them down under, it will be a strategic retreat dressed up as pivot. It is good for peace but it also gets US out of the play. US will be like Aaron Burr: out of the room where the play is made.

> well why are European countries saber rattling against Chinese influence?

Because some peripheral European countries are desperate to keep US engaged. As much as they don't like the Russians, they won't necessarily welcome German overlords either.

> European neutrality is all that China could hope for and it is good enough for strategic detente.

Right which is why the US is moving forces out of the EU. But the problem is in the event of an actual war the EU will either be neutral (unlikely) or pro-US. It also doesn’t matter because the EU was never going to Asia anyway. So nothing of importance listed

> If it is about moving US troops and assets out of harm's way by stationing them down under, it will be a strategic retreat dressed up as pivot. It is good for peace but it also gets US out of the play. US will be like Aaron Burr: out of the room where the play is made.

No the US and the Anglosphere is just arming Australia. The US hasn’t withdrawn any troops.

> Because some peripheral European countries are desperate to keep US engaged. As much as they don't like the Russians, they won't necessarily welcome German overlords either.

Sure. That just means a thorn in the side of the Russians and Chinese.

> The US hasn’t withdrawn any troops.

Sure but I thought your point is that US should or will leave Europe. I actually don't believe that will happen.

> No the US and the Anglosphere is just arming Australia.

The first sub is not expected to be in service before 2040.

Well unless there is a reason to you’re probably not giving up bases but what I mean is that in terms of geopolitics the US is shifting remaining away from Europe. The region no longer supports the US interests (logistically or otherwise) because all the future action is in Asia.

> The first sub is not expected to be in service before 2040.

Right. So if you wanted to say that wasn’t meaningful, then they wouldn’t do it because the timeline is perceived to be too long. But I think they’re operating on longer time scales.

But also this is just one action of many. Wouldn’t surprised to see something like a joint US, UK, Australian base in Australia or similar.

French nuclear submarines require refuelling part way through their operating life, US and UK ones don't. Australia doesn't have or want to develop the domestic nuclear power industry to be able to do this itself.

Is that real notivation? I am sure they could be refueled in France once in a decade if needes

That is because US/UK nuclear submarines use weapons-grade highly enriched uranium, French submarines only use reactor-grade enriched uranium. The US has been trying to stop non-nuclear weapons states from adopting highly enriched uranium for naval propulsion on the grounds of proliferation risk; they've decided to make an exception here for Australia. However, the US will supply that uranium to Australia, Australia has agreed not to attempt to enrich it themselves.

Australia could have gone with US nuclear submarines, but still thrown some sops to the French, like some engineering consulting or training cooperation or buy some components from them or something. France would not have liked that, but still would likely have been more happy than they are now, where they've been shut out completely. Even if Australia/UK/US tried to include France somehow, but it didn't work out, would have gone down better than the current situation in which they never took France into the conversation.

"everything is fine"? What have you read anything about this submarine contract?? It's been on the edge for years. Aussies finally got feed up.

France has a GDP of ~2,600 billion and the contact was something like 40 billion + potential overruns.

Recalling an ambassador over a 1-2% of GDP slight seems pretty proportionate. It is a lot of money.

Agreed, this was huge huge deal for them. Reporting from Washington was Biden admin totally downplayed France objections, I was surprised actually. I think Macron is right to raise a fuss, but nothing will come of it. Europe doesn’t have a defense leg to stand on, that’s the current world order, right or wrong.

The other thing that surprises me is the Anglo centric makeup of AUKUS, Oceana anyone?

It’s pretty much an Anglosphere FU to the EU here, but the stakes are one countries military industrial complex vs another.

With nuclear tipped deterrents all around the world why are we so determined to play these power games? Not that it’s anything new of course. It reminds me of the future played out in Dune where nobody can act openly against each other so everyone is trained in espionage - what are those subs going to do? Give a 2 minute head start on 10 minute ICBMs?

I thought the purpose of the subs was to make a large first strike harder by concealing where all the launch sites are

That's for nuclear missile subs. The Australian subs will only have nuclear propulsion. They will be conventionally armed, like a US attack sub.

I suspect also there's a greater need to "shadow" Chinese subs in the south china sea given expected increase in naval activity there

These are attack submarines. They won't carry ICBMs (or nuclear weapons of any kind) for deterrence. They could potentially be used to pre-emptively sink some Chinese missile submarines, but that's pretty far fetched.

I got how bad this seems from the French perspective, but pulling Ambassadors sounds like something you do if a country assassinated your diplomat or something, not just due to losing a military contract.

Last time France pulled ambassador from Australia was when Australia denied France from a weapons bid due to France testing nukes in the Pacific.

This is amazing, is it always about money? Surely there are other examples.

>always about money

Usually the messier politics behind the scenes, in this case there was little notification, embarrassed French Pacific ambitions (France has substantial territory/EEZ holdings next to Australia), and a few months before the French election. Also diplomatically a dick move for transatlantic relationship, EU just announced their Indo-Pacific strategy. Last time in 1995 also had AU messing with French embassy diplomatic bags, delaying French ships at AU ports and other shenanigans.

Recalls don't happen that often, especially between "friendly" countries. It's pretty wierd it happened twice between France and Australia. Arguably French deserved it, but Australia also seems to have gone full bogan.

US / France has their own drama, especially in MIC competition, i.e. US label France of conducting industrial espionage on par with China, meanwhile US poached lucrative contracts from France before. So both money and political influence.

US industrial espionage on the level of China and France (using Echelon and the rest of the NSA) was uncovered in the Snowden leaks.

It's also about the US trying to force Australia to commit to an anti-China policy while the conservative government is in power.

Australia announced support to the US in the region so it's also because of that.

It's just dirty geopolitics. The US is trying to tie in Australia before they realize that it's not worth massive expense to defend their trade routes from China. When those trades routes are... With China.

Pretty much. US and French MIC has always been filthy competitive. UK needs the $$$ after Brexit. AU both willing and IMO unable to object. It's just a very sensible geopolitical arrangement once the interest calculus is crunched. AU was always going to concede to US orbit. Getting US Nuke tech transfer is a big deal, consolation prize for $$$ from PRC that AU lost to US. Assuming the procurement goes through fine, which I doubt. As I mentioned in other post, IMO it's foot in door for other US assets that can be reoriented short term than SSNs that may or may not show up for 30+ years.

They are less upset about the deal itself and more upset with the way it was abruptly announced. It really doesn't make the french look like a respected ally.

The issue is not the submarine deal, but frustrations lasting for months over other issues, in particular the travel ban. The US has had an EU travel ban for over 18 months, despite the EU having more vaccination and less covid than the US[0]. Which country's citizen are not banned from traveling to the US? Russia! Despite a soaring epidemic and very low vaccination rates.

Biden told the world that 'America is back'. Yet most of his foreign policy is similar to Trump's, the difference is being in practice more abrasive to allies and more conciliatory with rivals. If this continues, the US will simply have less allies. Perhaps it's more profitable to be a rival - the US will treat you better.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/16/biden-travel...

[1] https://www.nafsa.org/regulatory-information/covid-19-restri...

(Note that the EU travel ban was about to be lifted in January, the President reinstated it for no reason I can fathom.)

> Which country's citizen are not banned from traveling to the US? Russia!

That's technically true, but de-facto entering the US is almost impossible if you need a new/renewed visa - the US stopped issuing those in Russia, and even for people wealthy enough to fly to a different country to get a US visa, that is also nearly impossible with wait times of 6+months.

> If this continues, the US will simply have less allies.

I’m not so sure. We’re in a two super power world now with China being a threat to almost every Western country. Which countries do you think would risk losing support from US intelligence and military in this climate?

The EU just might have to put up with some of America’s BS if you want us to keep China in check when they come after your interests.

Whether rightfully or not, EU does not feel threatened by China, and therefore sees no need for US help to 'keep China in check'.

Technically they only banned the Schengen area countries, not the EU.

You can still travel to the US freely from Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Cyprus, if you can find a flight.

There's no question that nuclear subs are more appropriate for Australia, especially against a sophisticated opponent like China. Hopefully USA and Australia can compensate France in some way to maintain their prestige.

France can do nuclear subs, Australia explicitly wanted diesel, until they suddenly didn't want diesel anymore.

Arms deals are a joke always, they don't make sense, its basically all corruption fraud and lies.

France refuses to sell nuclear submarines.

Didn't know that, thanks for the correction.

It's never that simple.

From what I understand, France is willing to sell nuclear submarines, with some caveats related to non-proliferation treaties (though apparently the upcoming US deal might blatantly violate those).

This kind of move is about backroom deals and consolidation of soft power; if Australia had asked France for nuclear submarines, they would never have sunk a multi-billion deal over that.

China is Australia's largest trade partner, and China owns tons of Australian real estate (residential and industrial), and one out of 20 Australians considers themselves of Chinese ancestry.

It doesn't seem to make much sense to conceive of Australia and China as submarine warfare opponents.

France was Germany's largest trading partner prior to WWI

The US was also Japan's top trading partner a decade before Pearl Harbor

We are very protective of our territorial waters, not all submarine usage is warfare.

Conventional subs are quieter than nuclear subs, so are for defending coastal waters not far from port. But nuclear subs project more power, since they can stay underwater for months at a time.

Lol, no one is using nuclear subs to defend territorial waters. Their job is to help the US run a blockade against China and it's trading partners, nothing else.

Specifically in this case it's to build submarines which can chase after submarines which are trying to break us blockade. If china invades Taiwan, the obvious next step is to blockade Chinese oil imports, which cripples upwards of 60-80% of Chinese domestic food production, but is justifiable on "military grounds" and definitely prevents china from creating supply lines outside of the first island chain.

There is no sensible equivalent retaliatory action on the part of china after such a blockade, as the us is currently food and energy self-sufficient.

Their job isn't to chase other submarines next to Chinese waters. That is suicidal. Chinese submarines are almost as stealthy as the Virginia class, and they'll have to operate in the middle of Chinese anti-submarine warfare. That is to say, they won't survive long.

Their job is to actually sink the merchant ships. The US can't do that easily with surface combatants, because getting close to a strait means compromising your position, which means risking getting suck by a Chinese hypersonic missile.

There is absolutely a sensible retaliation from China, that's to sink the US fleet in the pacific using ground-based weapons which can't be destroyed.

Hence why submarines are interesting to the US, it's the only way to force a blockade without risking destruction by very powerful Chinese anti-shipping weapons that can't be destroyed with ease.

Also, the entire blockade strategy itself is a risky gambit. China has enough stockpiled as far as oil goes to guarantee 100 days at full consumption without any imports, and before any invasion of Taiwan they would make sure to secure enough overland imports, stockpiles, and domestic production to allow for over a year of oil.

Meanwhile the political costs of blockading the Malacca Straits and co will be devastating to the US. It will be the US's Suez Canal Crisis. China will keep Taiwan anyways.

China is definitely going to break through the first island chain. 4-8 Virginia class submarines are not gonna change anything there. They are not invulnerable superweapons, and if they were the US already was going to use them.

Without air supremacy and given the massive concentration of Chinese anti-submarine assets, operating in the first island chain is a completely suicidal option.

The only possible way for this to happen is if somehow the US manages to get Russia on board with a blockade.

What are the political costs of blockading the Malacca straights? China sentiment worldwide is at rock-bottom due to wolf warrior diplomacy and belt and road corruption, Xinjiang, etc. Hell, public sentiment for boycotting the Beijing Olympics is >50% in Canada. If china invades Taiwan, I'd be surprised if most countries don't jump at the chance to screw over china.

It might not even be necessary to work that hard at a blockade. If there's any hot action in the south china sea, most oil shippers are going to cease operations voluntarily because they don't want their ship to be accidentally shot down by either side.

>100 days

That's 3 months. Not very much.

What countries are downstream of the Malacca Straits?

The world is much more than the US and Canada. The EU itself would face a terrible economic crisis.

There's no way of blockading only China. The US has no way of knowing if a boat is going/coming from Cambodia, Vietnam, or even South Korea without stationing assets very close to the border with China, which we know is really not practical.

The vast majority of countries in the world will simply not care if China invades Taiwan. Why would they?

The BRI is actually seen as a positive, not negative, by a lot of people in developing countries that benefit from pretty good deals and development. China knows it needs the BRI to hedge against a US blockade and thus make it not worthwhile, so they're willing to give pretty good deals comparatively.

I assure you, the vast majority of the world will not mind. What they will mind is the US blocking off 30-50% of their foreign trade in a blockade and causing a massive economic downturn. There's no way around that.

100 days of straight reserves is a lot. If they're still importing from Russia at full capacity that's even more, around 150 days, and they would certainly increase the reserves before any kind of invasion. That's without rationing, which they certainly would do. By rationing non essential civilian use, and increasing Russian imports as well as domestic production, and increasing reserves, they would last a year. That's a full year for them to construct more domestic exploitation, more imports from Russia and Central Asia, and alternatives. The war might very well be over by then as both sides run out of precision munitions.

As far as action in the SCS, I just don't see it lasting more than a month, unless the US is trying to impose a blockade. What would the contention be once China has invaded Taiwan? There is no way the US could invade and liberate Taiwan back, so what would be the point? Just shooting at civilian ships and try not to get found from a submarine while lacking air superiority surrounded by Chinese sonobuoys and UUVs? I don't see the strategic goal that would lead to a confrontation in the SCS for months after the fall of Taiwan, nor do I see how US surface ships could survive.

As for companies not wanting to do it, have you considered that many of those companies are Chinese? What do you expect them to do, nothing? Some are even Chinese state-owned enterprises.

I could even see the PLA making these ships unmanned as bait in the SCS to get submarines to shoot at them with passive sonar rigged in unbeknownst to the submarine, triggering a launch of China's air-launched anti-submarine torpedoes.

China is already starting to leverage that trade with Australia to push demands that are fundamentally incompatible with Australia's status as a democratic, independent country, plus they've been carrying out aggressive military expansionist manoeuvrers that are pissing off much closer regional allies. France and other EU countries still have this idea that they can somehow balance themselves between China and the US, despite China already openly throwing its weight around against elected politicians who so much as criticise it.

Sure, but there was no need to publicly humiliate France by keeping the deal secret until the last minute.

The only real reason Australia didn't first cancel the French deal some months in advance of announcing their AUKUS deal is that they simply didn't care what their supposed ally would think about it, and set the timeline by some domestic needs.

But honestly I don't think the Biden admin will do much to assuage French concerns about not being respected, this administration doesn't really have any genuine interest in diplomacy, mostly just leaving things in place expecting them to tick over peacefully.

I hope the Australians are aware of the disposal cost of nuclear submarines - if I’m right the UK has yet to fully dispose of any of their retired nuclear submarines; they are just sitting in harbour. If Australia is alright with that, or the US agreed to do disposal for them, then that’s fine I guess.

Big weapons deals are always deeply political. If you have a defense alliance, it affects where you buy.

South Korea, Japan and Australia, etc. can generally buy any big weapon system they want as long as it's American, because the US has huge political commitment to defend these countries. They can take bids from others to keep the price/performance within reasonable limits, but unless the US system is outrageously expensive or inferior, they go with that.

This is not good - the west should be unifying against Russia and China, not infighting. Bunch of comments here about how US is an unreliable partner, how France is throwing a tantrum over trivial matters and how Australia is stabbing them in the back. The larger picture of all this bickering is causing sentiment dent amongst NATO countries and the rest of the western powers. Media finds all this spicy and it has been on top news channels spooking people into tribal instincts. Not good.

Australia realised that Macron was a snake when he cosied up to China for the EU China trade deal and then started threatening Australia with EU climate export tariffs.

You are speaking as if The West is one big unified group of countries with a common agenda...

A little part of me was hoping the objection was on the grounds that we shouldn't be increasing the number of hot nuclear weapons, but of-course it's just a turf war.

A similar case is with Iran. France was bullied into leaving Iran and breaking our contracts there because the US do not like Iran.

France and style other countries tried to ask EU to weight it, but it was busy with doing nothing (and since it has zero influence anyway wild not have helped).

The US is a bully. We are the 1st grade kid being beaten up for fun and profit, and told to smile.

International politics is ugly and hypocrisy, in the name of Diplomacy.

Un café liberté, s'il vous plait!

Why didn't they also recall their ambassador from the UK as well?

Why haven't they recalled their Ambassador from the UK?

The french have a reason to be upset. Biden announced this without given them a chance to adjust to changing circumstances.

He did it in the manner he did, because he didn't want it leaked out over time and undermining his announcement, which will surely help his approval rating as being tough on China.

This makes the french look stupid and out of the loop. It certainly doesn't make them look like a respected ally.

The deal itself, they can't complain. Australia is below china and if giving them nuclear subs is the right to do for national security, it's the right thing to do.

I think it’s a touch ironic that for all the time the French government spent mocking the US because of Trump that they are now pulling a Trumpian temper tantrum for losing out on a business deal.

Is it just me or are there more off-topic political posts on HN lately?

This isn't off-topic for HN. We've always had 1) submarine posts (aha, I mean both meanings here haha), 2) military strategy posts, 3) $40B deal-falling-apart posts, and even 4) war escalation posts. There's even a prized technical angle about the development of high-tech nuclear submarines.

On-topic.

geopolitical topics != politics

impact of nation-state relations have a very real impact on the world commerce

Didn't know we are are Commerce News.

Disturbing observation: 5 years ago, the trends that seemed most important to me were all technical - I really paid no attention to politics. Today, they are mostly geo-political.

Let me guess, 5yr ago you had an order of magnitude (or two) less money tied up in markets and illiquid investments.

Could it be an ennui about tech news, resulting from the Tower of Babel of great projects and great ideas, that haven't reliably improved our IT or development experiences?

It seems that the user base here has been deteriorating and the focus has been drifting away from the SV startup scene. I've also been noticing a growing political atmosphere that is in opposition to SV norms. A sign of the times probably, but I also suspect that HN's usefulness to Ycombinator is fading.

Massive technical military contracts seems extremely SV to me? Isn't that where it all started?

Presumably "SV norms" here refers to the expectation that one does not ever explicitly acknowledge this element in Silicon Valley's history, lest it undermine the "plucky dudes in a garage" mystique.

This is all geopolitics. nothing about technology or specifics on anything interesting.

> nothing about technology

Well the whole point is that they've switched technology from diesel to nuclear, based on changing user requirements. Agile, if you like!

The word you're looking for is "pivot."

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You know what else is as old as the hills? Those guidelines.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140702092610/https://news.ycom...

It might have been an illusion before but I personally think HN feels more like Reddit nowadays compared to then.

Society is becoming Reddit and it seems HN is following suit. The next logical step is for society to become 4chan, and we are off to a smashing start here, no?

Do you think the mod(s) here are aware? I know they're working hard, and I have no idea how dang has done this job for so long. I don't always agree with him, but I recognize the incredible (and incredibly difficult) job he does.

Still, I sometimes wonder if there is some internal denial around the chang(ing/ed) culture of HN.

>You know what else is as old as the hills? Those guidelines.

Funny part is the guidelines link to old posts that show how long people have been complaining that HN is becoming Reddit, as if this is proof it can't possibly be true. But, what it really shows is how much time has passed since they've declared that HN isn't becoming Reddit. Is it impossible for something to have changed in those ~15 years?

It also states that this is just a noob misperception. Fair enough. So, what does it say when long time HN users--who previously did not make this comparison--start to do so?

I think after 14 years here we're allowed a moment of self-reflection.

> I've also been noticing a growing political atmosphere that is in opposition to SV norms

Genuinly curious, what are "SV norms"? I think most of the people here don't come from SV, and I think this has been the case for a large part of HN existance, but I have nothing to prove it.

There's always been a heavy SV startup scene slant to the user base here, especially around YC incubated companies. The politics have historically been a sort of hybrid Cyber Libertarian/California Progressivism. I sense the SV bias is fading away and also that the politics (tech focused and otherwise) have very much evolved from where they were in 2007. For example, I detect a conservative element here that Reddit has actively been trying to expunge. I think it's mainly a result of the moderation probably taking a more permissive approach and the US political climate getting ever more divisive. Plus, there just seems like there's less to talk about in the startup scene these days, mobile is now long in the tooth and much of the focus has shifted to maturing regulation.

I wonder if part of it is also due to people getting older.

Totally agree, if you want proof of the paradox of tolerance look around HN. In the sake of being tolerant to misogynistic, homophobic, racist, and transphobic posts and comments it has chased away many people leaving more and more the ugliness behind.

Most women, and trans people I know despise and avoid the site at this point. All you have to do is look at the comments any time something even tangentially related to women’s experiences in tech or when tech impacts women to see it.

You are getting downvoted, but I think you hit the nail on the head there. There is an increasingly strong "disaffected male" contingent here. It's allowed because we're extra adult here and can handle some divergent opinions, at least so the theory goes. Unfortunately it's starting to feel downright gross at times and I can absolutely understand why a woman would not feel welcome here. These are the hard to swallow pills, but it's happening all the same.

I would say politics is germane to everything tech; just tech folks don't like to think of it this way. But it can't be ignored since Big Tech, social media, miniaturization of computers, etc, have arguably played an integral role in every major political event in the past half decade or so - in particular, 2016 election, social media and police brutality, occupy protests, hollowing out of old industry/labor in favor of new industry/labor, Amazon and labor, Tesla and climate change/petrochemical policy, China and everything, especially labor, semiconductors, etc, 2020 election, Jan 6, Republican party thought control...

Defense uses a lot of tech

And besides, I think HN tech community tends to be intellectually curious anyway

Politics is a human system. Systems analysis and nudging systems is of interest to hackers, no?

Humans are the infrastructure on top of which technology runs.

Hey now, lots of startup hackers are interested in geopolitics

No downvote on posts, I wish this were implemented but I also know the implications are many

You can flag posts, even if you can't downvote them.

Dang would have to respond, politics are allowed according to the rules, but I think the rules need to be reconsidered. Too many flame wars and not enough on software and hardware.

I'm not sure about that. I think if enough people flag a post, it automatically... well, it doesn't remove a post, exactly, but it marks the post as "flagged", which also means that people can't add comments to it any longer.

I think the COVID slowed down the open source development scene. For example, we didn't see many JavaScript frameworks these last two years.

I hope it slows down. I never understood why web devs feel the need to reinvent their entire stack annually

I think people were genuinely looking for good patterns, and still are in a way.

I think that requires replacing javascript itself

That's what people are trying to do with WASM. There's a project currently on the front page or not far about a frontend framework in Rust, and it's one of many. There's also TypeScript, and other alternatives. User interfaces are far from being a solved problem.

This trend started years ago. My opinion is that politics should be off topic on HN but the "everything is political" crowd doesn't seem to agree.

I've been busy today, didn't see if the daily yellow peril story hit the front page (China's about to invade Taiwan, China should respect British sovereignty in Hong Kong, China should treat Uighur terrorists nice like the US did in next door in Afghanistan etc.)

It's not just you. That's all it is these days. I was thinking of making an app that would take HN posts, and apply a categorization layer that would filter out political posts. Too much excitement around what regulators are doing. I really don't care.

Unfortunately... I found lobste.rs to be a good source of purely technical articles, but those made up only ~half of "the good stuff" on HN. The other half is startup/entrepreneur related posts.

For those, HN is still the best, but the signal-to-noise ratio is getting poorer with all those off-topic posts.

You can argue perhaps the central concern of all of this is, "What happens to TSMC?"...everything else follows...

TSMC is geopolitically irrelevant.

Same feeling and concern. And the politization results in many replys or whole subthreads getting greyed out into oblivion. That shading reflects the virulence of posters. It looks bad.

It's probably sample bias. This perception goes back at least a decade. There's a bunch of links here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

It looks like the vaunted experience of Biden and his team has not translated into any sort of deft policymaking, particularly in foreign policy. The messy pullout out of Afghanistan, followed by this scuttling of the deal in progress between Australia and France have reinforced the notion that Uncle Sam can not be relied upon, even by his closest allies. Pretty surefire way of helping fence-sitters become client states of China.

Derna forever!

EDIT: Sorry for the low-effort riffing. I was being wry.

The U.S. won a decisive victory at Derna and, in the aftermath of the diplomatic resolution resulting from that victory, promptly abandoned our allies, without pay, in enemy territory.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Derna_(1805)

It is my opinion that we are unreliable, and it's deeply painful when diplomats squander gains made at the cost of decades of treasure and military blood.

This is especially painful right now. A lot of us had to beg, borrow, and steal our way to rescuing Afghan interpreters while the State Dept did nothing.

Huh? What does this mean?

He's saying what happened in Derna (i.e. abandoning allies) was and always will be the way of the US government. It's a part their DNA, their heritage, and they'll keep doing it. Personally, not sure if this holds merit.

You shouldn't let downvotes cow you into issuing mea culpas. Stand your ground and ignore the loss of imaginary internet points :)

It is deeply unjust that old farts (who no longer even send their own children into combat; the current president is a fortunate exception) instigate futile wars and then blunder their way out of them by essentially capitulating more or less completely. This has been especially true in Iraq where we have handed the country on a platter to Iran, and also in Afghanistan where we do not even know if future terrorists will not be sheltered.

But I still believe that what Churchill (supposedly) said about us is essentially correct: "Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”

You do know the messy pull out of Afghanistan was a peace deal agreed to by prior governments (without the consent of the Aphgani government no less) could they have done better, absolutely but the way you are framing it is hardly unbiased.

As for countries deciding to not rely upon America, that has long been a desire, but the previous administration drove it home like a stake through the heart. Having lived outside of the US for most of the last five years I can’t fully express how far the US has fallen in the eyes of the world, and just how much of a joke we are these days.

Well, if Biden's pitch to the electorate was that he had more experience and was more capable, it is difficult to reconcile these clumsy efforts with the sales pitch. If you claim to be better than your predecessor, you really can't have it both ways: ultimately, responsibility lies with you, and you had better deliver the goods.

Biden had months to prepare for the pullout.

Ironically, France evacuated its embassies months ahead of time, for obvious reasons (at least obvious in hindsight). The Biden administration at the time criticized us for undermining confidence in the Afghan government.

Because I am french I will not say anything too dark.

But yes, this SUB contract was big. Giant.And Naval Group is partially a state company.

The Worth for french community is this : 1) French just hatted Trump. Deeply. His sense of hatting his allies ( Germany...) and loving his foes ( North Corea, ect).

2) As opposed, French loved Biden. More rounded, multi cultural, more social like in Europe. I would say french people felt Biden was a friend.

So With this SUB commercial stab in the back, the feeling of a friend that betrays us french is palpable.

It feels as if Biden just behaved like Trump.

The nuclear subs appear to have much bigger advantages over conventional subs, so on the merits of the product, perhaps the US/UK combine increases security in the Pacific and strengthens the "contain China" strategy. Similarly, withdrawing from Afghanistan puts an end to twenty years of lying to the American public that the Afghan war was even a modest success, and allows resources and political capital to be focused on other efforts/strategic goals of national interest. But it has all been done in a hamfisted way.

Well then the Australians perhaps should have asked the French to build them nuclear subs, like the French are used to building?

Nuclear submarines are expensive to dispose of though. The UK hasn’t completely dispose of any of their retire nuclear submarines if I’m right. Is the US going to dispose of the subs for Australia when they reach the end of their life or are the subs going to sit in dock forever like the UK subs?

P.S. Hell, the US itself is behind schedule disposing of their retired nuclear carriers.

Biden/the US military industrial complex of which he’s a part have been eyeing the EU with way too much suspicion. I really fear for the consequences in the future. Hoping the EU will take refugees :p

If they think the US is bad seems like an even worse idea to go buddy up with China imo. You know, the country on a more egregious economic imperialism kick for the last 15-25 years.

Though downvotes I agree here - I would rather the US eschew the UK to have better relations with the EU, who seem to have a much better grasp on the challenges of today, while also providing for better quality of life for their citizens. Of course nothing is all roses but I’d find it hard to argue the average person in the (western) EU has a worse quality of life than in the US.

This would be a less bitter pill to swallow if other EU countries made their nato spending commitments (it's only France).

Honestly putting UK as an adversary to the EU is ridiculous. We are all allies. There should be no eschewing.

> Pretty surefire way of helping fence-sitters become client states of China.

By offering to provide less costly subs in support of a war with China? Your comment is nonsensical given the context of the deal.

It's not the military hardware that I'm referring to, but the treatment of a longstanding ally that helped found the nation. Did the US participate in the tender? It appears to me that they just swooped in and offered the subs that had been picked over Germany and Japan's proposed subs. The French aren't recalling their diplomats from Germany and Japan, are they?

France, our long-standing ally, has no interest in providing support to the US against China’s aggression. Let’s deal with the reality of modern day geopolitics and not that of over 200 years ago.

That's exactly what has happened here, but it's difficult to see how this improves "America's standing in the world" vis-a-vis Trump. Anthony Blinken is supposedly a seasoned diplomat vs. Rex Tillerson or Pompeo, not to mention the clearly more experienced Biden. Is this hamfisted diplomacy what we get by replacing Trump? Not much finesse there no matter who's occupying the hot seat, it appears.

It's only worth comparing these decisions with the credible alternatives. In Afghanistan, America had to choose between a messy pullout or a swift escalation with the Taliban. Biden himself really was left with a matter of months to execute on either, and it was never going to be escalation.

It could be the case for one reason or another, but I find it pretty hard to believe that President Trump/Romney/Obama/Clinton/Sanders/Buttigieg would have really made it go any better, as though the "withdraw from Afghanistan gracefully" button is right next to "lower the gas prices" in the Oval Office. I am almost certain it would have gone worse under some of them.

By pissing off the French and bolstering Australia, it could just as easily be argued that Biden was being shrewd in signaling his seriousness about the Asia-Pacific by spending down some political capital in France. I think that will end up depending on how contained the fallout from this will be, but it's not like the rest of America and France's shared interests just evaporated.

>America had to choose between a messy pullout or a swift escalation with the Taliban.

The Taliban offered to let the US control Kabul for the evacuation[0], it was the admin that refused. Earlier, the US extended the deadline itself from 1/5 to 31/8 - without an escalation (and without making any use of the extra time it appears).

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/28/taliban-take...

Honestly, I'm kind of hoping Biden keeps pulling moves like that.

My biggest worry with a Biden presidency was that he'd undo Trump's effect on US image. There's increased awareness in EU countries now that the US cannot be relied on, and that any relationship with them will always be one of vassalage (see also the proposed US-UK deal after brexit).

There's still a serious chance Biden might be a return to business as usual, with EU countries courting the US favor instead of trying to be a rival superpower.

So I do hope he keeps pulling out these blatant "fuck you"s to allied countries. Now is way past time to rip the band-aid off.

Hoping for conflict.

I mean, ideally, I'd hope Biden would get back into the JCPOA, pay Iran reparations for the damage they inflicted to their economy by going back on their own deal, pardon Julian Assange, close Guantanamo Bay and all US black sites, cease drone strikes on foreign soil, scale back US surveillance on allied countries, and repeal FATCA.

But realistically, none of this is going to happen.

So realistically, I'm hoping Biden screws up enough that European countries wean themselves off of their dependence on the US.

Not a surprise, with the EU's passivity wrt Russia, China, and Iran

This feels like a submarine piece.

http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

What a meta-reference for HN community :D

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