Aukus: France pulls out of UK defence talks amid row

[beijingwalker]

Aukus: France pulls out of UK defence talks amid row
By Alex Therrien
BBC News
September. 20 2021

France's defence minister has cancelled talks with her UK counterpart amid the row prompted by a new security deal between Britain, the US and Australia.
Paris is angry after Australia signed the Aukus pact to build nuclear-powered submarines, pulling out of a major contract with France in the process.
UK PM Boris Johnson said France had nothing to worry about from the deal.

But Florence Parly's meeting with UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in London this week has been called off.

Lord Ricketts, a former British ambassador to France who was due to co-chair the two days of talks, confirmed the meeting had been "postponed to a later date".
Foreign Office minister James Cleverly told BBC Breakfast that "all bilateral relationships go through periods of tension", but added: "I have absolutely no doubt that ultimately our relationship with France will endure."

He said the pact with Australia and the US was intended to "strengthen and deepen" the relationship with two long-standing defence partners and to support high-tech manufacturing and technology companies across the UK.
The Aukus agreement brokered last week, widely seen as an effort to counter China's influence in the contested South China Sea, ended a deal worth $37bn (£27bn) signed by Australia in 2016 for France to build 12 conventional submarines.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has described it as a "stab in the back" that constitutes "unacceptable behaviour between allies and partners".
And in a virtually unprecedented step among allies, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered the recall of the French ambassadors to Washington and Canberra.
The European Union has said it was "analysing" the impact of the Aukus agreement on its trade negotiations with Australia, which are due to resume in October.

Speaking on a flight to New York, where he will take part in the UN General Assembly, Mr Johnson said France should not "worry" about the alliance, insisting that Anglo-French relations were "ineradicable".

The prime minister said Britain and France had a "very friendly relationship", which he described as being of "huge importance".
"Our love of France is ineradicable," he told reporters.

"Aukus is not in any way meant to be zero-sum, it's not meant to be exclusionary. It's not something that anybody needs to worry about and particularly not our French friends."
Mr Johnson is being joined on the trip with new Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who launched her own defence of the agreement in an article for the Sunday Telegraph.
Ms Truss said the deal showed the UK's readiness to be "hard-headed" in defending its interests and had the potential to create hundreds of new skilled jobs.

Meanwhile, Australia has defended scrapping its deal with France in favour of the Aukus pact.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected accusations that Australia had lied, saying France should have been aware it was prepared to break the deal.
Speaking on Sunday, Mr Morrison said: "Ultimately, this was a decision about whether the submarines that were being built, at great cost to the Australian taxpayer, were going to be able to do a job that we needed it to do when they went into service and our strategic judgement based on the best possible of intelligence and defence advice was that it would not."

The agreement means Australia will become just the seventh nation in the world to operate nuclear-powered submarines.
The pact will also see the allies share cyber capabilities, artificial intelligence and other undersea technologies.
But it has been criticised by China, which has accused the three powers of having a "Cold War mentality".

And on Monday, North Korea, which has its own closely-watched nuclear weapon and missile programmes, warned it could spark a "nuclear arms race".
"These are extremely undesirable and dangerous acts which will upset the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region," state media KCNA quoted a foreign ministry official as saying.

Aukus: France pulls out of UK defence talks amid row

Paris is angry after Australia cancelled a submarine contract in favour of a deal with the UK and US.

www.bbc.com

 

[Globenim]

The famous "international community" just got smaller than a QUAD

 

[Hakikat ve Hikmet]

AUKUS is now BOGUS....

 

[TigerOfMysore]

France is acting like a spoiled brat. $60b or $90b, no amount is France's birth right. Could AUKUS have handled it better sure. But France's hysteria makes her look petty. She should behind closed doors get a few billion here and there to offset her potential earnings. What France is refusing to understand is that this is not about subs or a commercial deal. This is about basing rights for the US. It is about a downstream of potential storage of nukes in Australia. Guam and other frontline bases have become vulnerable, and the US needs the basing rights within Aus.
Second though these subs are supposed to only be carrying tactical weapons, the platform itself is well suited to eventually be transitioned to nukes. The Aussie training will look no different in execution if they were to fire conventional vs non-conventional.
This is a very smart move on the part of the US. They'll enhance their basing rights, forward base nukes in more regions within Aus, train a formidable sub force and back stop all regional powers through Aus.

This move is a serious escalation and China will try to react but has limited options. My thoughts are China will do the following:

1) More nuisance freedom of navigation tours near US waters
2) Enhancing their Djibouti footprint
3) Potential stronger alignment with some South American countries
4) Expansion of relationships with parties that oppose US allies (like PK, Iran)
None of these moves are equivalent to the US escalation.

Unless China can figure a way to manage its APAC relationships it will continue to find challenges within its near region.
China has to find a way to placate countries like Vietnam/Malaysia and Indonesia (build a regional energy sharing formula for the SCS).

No matter what the Philippines say they are deeply entrenched into the Western orbit. Much of that has to do with the effective work the evangelist have done in that region.

Smart move by the US. Tough situation for China. But the long term looser in this equation will likely be Australia.

 

[hualushui]

France is acting like a spoiled brat. $60b or $90b, no amount is France's birth right. Could AUKUS have handled it better sure. But France's hysteria makes her look petty. She should behind closed doors get a few billion here and there to offset her potential earnings. What France is refusing to understand is that this is not about subs or a commercial deal. This is about basing rights for the US. It is about a downstream of potential storage of nukes in Australia. Guam and other frontline bases have become vulnerable, and the US needs the basing rights within Aus.
Second though these subs are supposed to only be carrying tactical weapons, the platform itself is well suited to eventually be transitioned to nukes. The Aussie training will look no different in execution if they were to fire conventional vs non-conventional.
This is a very smart move on the part of the US. They'll enhance their basing rights, forward base nukes in more regions within Aus, train a formidable sub force and back stop all regional powers through Aus.

This move is a serious escalation and China will try to react but has limited options. My thoughts are China will do the following:

1) More nuisance freedom of navigation tours near US waters
2) Enhancing their Djibouti footprint
3) Potential stronger alignment with some South American countries
4) Expansion of relationships with parties that oppose US allies (like PK, Iran)
None of these moves are equivalent to the US escalation.

Unless China can figure a way to manage its APAC relationships it will continue to find challenges within its near region.
China has to find a way to placate countries like Vietnam/Malaysia and Indonesia (build a regional energy sharing formula for the SCS).

No matter what the Philippines say they are deeply entrenched into the Western orbit. Much of that has to do with the effective work the evangelist have done in that region.

Smart move by the US. Tough situation for China. But the long term looser in this equation will likely be Australia.

show American IQ clearly

 

[Ali_Baba]

Suffren in Silence - The French Response to AUKUS

Defence blog focusing on 21st century analysis of Cold War defence, security and continuity of government problems.

thinpinstripedline.blogspot.com

 

[Dalit]

They sure as hell are at each other's throats. It goes to show that money is everything. Backstabbing each other in broad daylight. These are so-called allies for life folks. Walking over each other's corpses and pretending that they are unified.

 

[nahtanbob]

France is acting like a spoiled brat. $60b or $90b, no amount is France's birth right. Could AUKUS have handled it better sure. But France's hysteria makes her look petty. She should behind closed doors get a few billion here and there to offset her potential earnings. What France is refusing to understand is that this is not about subs or a commercial deal. This is about basing rights for the US. It is about a downstream of potential storage of nukes in Australia. Guam and other frontline bases have become vulnerable, and the US needs the basing rights within Aus.
Second though these subs are supposed to only be carrying tactical weapons, the platform itself is well suited to eventually be transitioned to nukes. The Aussie training will look no different in execution if they were to fire conventional vs non-conventional.
This is a very smart move on the part of the US. They'll enhance their basing rights, forward base nukes in more regions within Aus, train a formidable sub force and back stop all regional powers through Aus.

This move is a serious escalation and China will try to react but has limited options. My thoughts are China will do the following:

1) More nuisance freedom of navigation tours near US waters
2) Enhancing their Djibouti footprint
3) Potential stronger alignment with some South American countries
4) Expansion of relationships with parties that oppose US allies (like PK, Iran)
None of these moves are equivalent to the US escalation.

Unless China can figure a way to manage its APAC relationships it will continue to find challenges within its near region.
China has to find a way to placate countries like Vietnam/Malaysia and Indonesia (build a regional energy sharing formula for the SCS).

No matter what the Philippines say they are deeply entrenched into the Western orbit. Much of that has to do with the effective work the evangelist have done in that region.

Smart move by the US. Tough situation for China. But the long term looser in this equation will likely be Australia.

nuclear powered sub != nuclear weapons

 

[monitor]

 

[Solidify]

Brings music to the ears !!!

 

[Whizzack]

Home»News»French MoD Sets the Record Straight on Australian Submarine Affair

Barracuda type SSN Suffren navigating South of Toulon. ©Axel Manzano/Marine Nationale/Défense.
French MoD Sets The Record Straight On Australian Submarine Affair

The spokesperson of the French Ministry of Defense (MoD), Hervé Grandjean, took to Twitter today to set the record straight on the "Australian submarine affair".
Xavier Vavasseur 21 Sep 2021

Australia last week announced its intention to acquire at least eight nuclear-powered submarines (SSN) as part of an enhanced trilateral security partnership between Australia, the UK and the US dubbed AUKUS. This announcement also means the end of the Attack Class Submarine Program which sparked a major diplomatic crisis between France and its three allies.

For the record, the Australian Government selected Naval Group (then known as DCNS) as its preferred international partner for the design of 12 Future submarines for the Royal Australian Navy on April 26 2016. In the SEA1000 project, DCNS was competing with the Shortfin Barracuda design against Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) Type 216 and Japan’s Soryu-class designs. Based on the new Barracuda nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN) of the French Navy (the first ship has already been delivered), Australia’s Attack-class submarine was set to be 97 meters in length and 8.8 meters in diameter. Lockheed Martin was announced as the Future Submarine Combat System Integrator in September 2016 and the Design Build and Integration Contract was signed 12 January 2018.

The recently cancelled Attack-class program was set to see the first of twelve new submarines start construction in 2023 and be delivered in the mid-2030s. The new plan under the AUKUS initiative aims at starting to build the first of at least eight SSNs from the 2030ies.

In this context, Hervé Grandjean, spokesman of the French Mod published today a long and detailed thread on Twitter:


France and submarines are a serious business.
Over the past 120 years, France has built more than 250 submarines, including more than 230 conventional-powered ones. The feedback in terms of engineering and know-how is considerable.
The French project benefited directly from the technological assets of the Suffren nuclear attack submarine, as well as from Naval Group’s expertise, gained from numerous Scorpene programs sold for export (Chile, Malaysia, India, Brazil)
In many ways, the performance of the Attack submarine offered by France to the Australians was better than that offered by a nuclear submarine. Why?
Particularly in terms of acoustics, the discretion of a conventional submarine remains under certain circumstances paradoxically better than that of a nuclear submarine: a conventional submarine does not have a permanent cooling system for its reactor in operation.
The silent speed (at which a submarine can listen without being detected) was particularly high thanks to the pump-jet technology, that very few countries master.
The submarine proposed to Australia was of oceanic class, meaning it had very high autonomy and range capabilities.

France and Australian submarines: the customer is king
In 2009, the Australian Defence White Paper, two years after the start of the Collins replacement project, already said: “The Government has ruled out nuclear propulsion for these submarines”.
In August 2021, the joint press release of the French and Australian defense and foreign affairs ministers still stated, “Ministers underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program.”
On the same day as the AUKUS announcement, the Australians wrote to France to say that they were satisfied with the submarine’s achievable performance and with the progress of the program. In short: forward to launching the next phase of the contract.
Returning to the surface to recharge the batteries is inherent to a diesel-electric submarine. This was the Australian request.
A nuclear submarine has, by nature, a greater projection capability than a conventional submarine. The planned tonnage of the SM Attack (between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes) was large enough to provide the projection capability required for Australian naval operations.

The Australian choice: bad news for… the Australians.
The first Attack submarines were to be delivered by 2030. With this new AUKUS partnership, it will be more like 2040. That’s a long time, when you see how fast China is militarizing…#FastIsBeautiful
According to a June 2021 Congressional Research Service report, the production costs of the last two Virginia SSNs ordered (35th and 36th) would be $6.91 billion, or $3.46 billion per unit (€2.95 billion). Much more expensive than a French Barracuda for example…#GoodManagement
The September 17 announcement indicates that the nuclear submarines will be built in Australia. But Australia says it does not want a nuclear industry, neither civilian nor military. #Coherence
Are we to understand that the United States will provide complete nuclear boiler rooms to be integrated into submarines, with teams of American technicians to ensure commissioning, maintenance and perhaps even operation? #Sovereignty
Investments in infrastructure capable of hosting nuclear submarines in Australia, necessary to prevent any environmental risk, will be expensive and complex. #Complexity

French MoD Sets the Record Straight on Australian Submarine Affair - Naval News

The spokesperson of the French Ministry of Defense (MoD), Hervé Grandjean, took to Twitter today to set the record straight on the "Australian submarine affair".

www.navalnews.com