Vocal Voices

France is having a major strop because the UK got together with the US and convinced Australia that it didn't want diesel electric submarines from France but, instead, wanted Nuclear subs (powered not armed), from the US and the UK.

France has pulled it's ambassadors out of OZ and the US. Notably we seem to be only a bit player as they did not pull their ambassador from the UK. We were, however, probably the catalyst.

Deary me. China is seriously miffed too because OZ will suddenly have a far greater sub capability than China, who's sub technology lags the US and UK dramatically.

Sometimes living in interesting times is, well, interesting. Mostly it's painful.

Quite a result, really. It's always been a cornerstone of our foreign policy to annoy the French, and we seem to have achieved this in spades.

I've seen some (unsubstantiated) comment elsewhere that the French submarine contract with Australia was already in trouble (possibly over delivery dates?) and that might have been part of the reason for this new initiative.

I think the French contract was signed in 2016, since when the situation with China has become more tense.
Maybe the Aussies thought diesel subs weren't up to the job of deterring China's undoubted ambitions in that part of the globe?

I suspect that OZ tried to cut costs going diesel then realised that "design issues" were driving costs up to close to Nuclear.

Add to that Chinese maritime aggression and the cost differential between diesel and Nuclear becomes moot.

There also seems to be some suggestion in the press that the US is becoming rather concerned about the EU's laissez faire attitude to China, writing deals, refusing to challenge, playing things down.

Add that to EU rhetoric over Afghanistan, whilst providing Zero assistance to help things go smoother and I'd suggest that the US is not the slightest bit interested in what France thinks right now.

Biden may have sleep walked into the oval office on world affairs, including his interference in Ireland in support of the EU, but his sleep appears to have been disturbed with an EU cattle prod.

The EU is finding out that "US first" is not just a Trump slogan.

There is a story that when Atlee won the election after the war his government went on a visit to the US. One of his junior ministers said:
"What is the US political system like? I don't really know much about it".
Atlee is supposed to have responded
"They have a two party system. The Republicans; who are their right wing party and are very much like our Tories and the Democrats; who are their centre right party and are very much like our Tories"!

Interesting article from NBC news. With quite a lot of detail about how the Aukus deal came about.

The Aussies don't come out of it very well and Biden's administration look like a bunch of rank amateurs.

I suppose that the biggest issue here is that everyone expected to be bitten with a mad dog in the white house. Now expectations are higher but the performance doesn't match the expectations.

It is still to be seen whether the UK were just "useful idiots" in this deal or if we were instrumental in making it happen at all.

What does seem to be fairly clear is that if the US come to the UK for, well pretty much anything, in the near future, the situation is going to be "you pony up the trade deal and we'll think about it".

Another day in paradise!