I understand France chagrin. They bad a deal with Australia.
France has nuclear submarines, but the deal with Australia was for diesel powered submarines. They cost less but operationally they are not as quiet as nuclear submarines and they cannot continue to sail for as as many miles at one time as a nuclear sub can.
The U.S. deal will help supply Australia with nuclear subs. Long term it’s a better deal than France’s nuclear subs.
However, when and how the deal was worked out their obviously was not enough diplomacy given to U.S.-French and U.S.-NATO relations BEFORE the deal was announced.
Could not France have been “cut in” on the nuclear sub deal, in as much as the goal is international security in the waters of Asia more than what serves one nation alone. Or, if not that, with the right diplomacy could not France have been offered some equal military hardware supply deal within NATO?
I don’t think the deal between the U.S., U.K. and Australia is bad or wrong. But I do think the Biden administration rushed it just to say they had it, without diplomacy that could have found a way to get France on board with it.
The Biden administration seems to rush pell mell in a number of foreign policy areas. Maybe even they think their time is short.
> They bad a deal with Australia.
I’ve heard that the Australians claim there were contractual “gates”, with associated reviews. They conducted a review and decided not to proceed and took the exit gate.
“France has nuclear submarines, but the deal with Australia was for diesel powered submarines. They cost less but operationally they are not as quiet as nuclear submarines and they cannot continue to sail for as as many miles at one time as a nuclear sub can.”
Mmm. Diesel subs can be quieter than nuc boats because the pumps on the nuc boats have to run constantly and even the best of them generate noise. Diesel subs can be quieter when they’re running on batteries only.
The real dynamic in the Pacific is that Australia’s planned diesel boats were going to augment a littoral navy. The Aussies switching to nuc boats means that in a dust up the Aussies can kill Chicom warships in Chinese waters. That’s a big change for the Aussies because instead of having an in-depth defensive capability they will now have an in-depth offensive capability.
In a future war that means China can be hit directly by Australian forces.
The next thing that needs to happen in the Pacific is to outfit Taiwan with a few hundred/thousand intermediate range ballistic missiles capable of destroying hard targets in China.