However it shows, already, that Aukus is realigning everything. A new miliary polarity has emerged - and it will attract other nations, just as the EU gained members over time
This time the UK is in at the beginning so we will be able to shape the architecture so that it suits us, as well as the USA and Oz.
Britain made a huge geopolitical error in not joining the EU (EEC) right at the start. We could have moulded it much more in our image, and to our huge benefit.
I sense this is another reason for French anger and pique. They can see the new western military alliance forming in front of their eyes, the alliance which will supplant NATO. And it will be very much English-speaking led by America, then the UK and Oz. France will just have to cope. Even tho it pisses them off
Yes, the western/democratic alliance is now being reconstituted, it will eject the likes of Germany while picking up Japan, India and eventually France/Italy and other Europe countries. Appeaser nations won't be invited to join.
If you think India is going to join an alliance of which Britain is the one of the three keyholders you're sorely mistaken.
Your evidence is ?
And why are they meeting Biden and Morrison and Japan's leader in the US on the 24th September in a quad security meeting
China vs India is already a serious conflict. India is looking for more friends.....
Hence they will avoid UK, they know how bad they are at backstabbing their friends.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
However it shows, already, that Aukus is realigning everything. A new miliary polarity has emerged - and it will attract other nations, just as the EU gained members over time
This time the UK is in at the beginning so we will be able to shape the architecture so that it suits us, as well as the USA and Oz.
Britain made a huge geopolitical error in not joining the EU (EEC) right at the start. We could have moulded it much more in our image, and to our huge benefit.
I sense this is another reason for French anger and pique. They can see the new western military alliance forming in front of their eyes, the alliance which will supplant NATO. And it will be very much English-speaking led by America, then the UK and Oz. France will just have to cope. Even tho it pisses them off
Yes, the western/democratic alliance is now being reconstituted, it will eject the likes of Germany while picking up Japan, India and eventually France/Italy and other Europe countries. Appeaser nations won't be invited to join.
If you think India is going to join an alliance of which Britain is the one of the three keyholders you're sorely mistaken.
China is more of a direct security threat to India than it is to us, they will join in time.
Don’t you think it’s time for UK to give up our nuclear weapons then HY? What a load of money for absolutely nothing? Isn’t it?
No, as long as Putin has them so must we
But surely if you are making the argument UK got to have nuclear weapons, to spend all those billions on Nuclear Weapons, surely it’s the same argument Japan, Canada, Germany etc etc need them too? But they are spending all those billions on Health Care, Social Care, Education, keeping people safe on the streets in their communities instead, aren’t they?
Surely that destroys whatever fig leaf of an argument you have?
Germany relies on the US, UK and French nuclear umbrella to defend them from Putin's Russia, Japan relies on the US nuclear umbrella to protect itself from China, Canada also relies on the US.
Give up our nuclear weapons and we would be reliant on the US and French as the defence of last resort against Putin's nuclear armed Russia, a very risky place to be
Amused by this narrative emerging of how the French were completely blindsided by dumping of the contract. We didn’t know nuke-power subs were in the mix but I wrote back in Feb the deal could be axed.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
The Chinese have made it pretty clear - either the Australians toe the Chinese line, or they need to get some big mates on their side. And get tooled up for a ruck, just in case.
A quick way the deal could yield fruit would be if the first boats are done on the basis that the UK did with HMS Dreadnought - where the back end was called the American Zone, because it was an American machinery set.
8-12 SSNs would be a formable force - something, which *on it's own* would be push back to China. SSKs are simply not as good. Which is why the Chinese are upset.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
Read the small print. The US, Oz and UK are going to swap and share their capabilities on AI, quantum tech, cyberwarfare, undersea weirdness
The future of warfare is not so much "how many bases you have in the Pacific" but is your GPT49 better at swarming bots and micro-drones or corrupting their military internet....
They are going to merge their highest of hi-tech capabilities. Because that is where China is also focusing
That's a big big win for Australia. France could not offer Silicon Valley, or GPT3, or Deepmind
However it shows, already, that Aukus is realigning everything. A new miliary polarity has emerged - and it will attract other nations, just as the EU gained members over time
This time the UK is in at the beginning so we will be able to shape the architecture so that it suits us, as well as the USA and Oz.
Britain made a huge geopolitical error in not joining the EU (EEC) right at the start. We could have moulded it much more in our image, and to our huge benefit.
I sense this is another reason for French anger and pique. They can see the new western military alliance forming in front of their eyes, the alliance which will supplant NATO. And it will be very much English-speaking led by America, then the UK and Oz. France will just have to cope. Even tho it pisses them off
De Gaulle would not let us join, remember?
I think that was later.
Only the Liberal Party advocated joining from the outset. The Labour Party was going to look at it but the idea got nobbled probably by the unions.
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
Read the small print. The US, Oz and UK are going to swap and share their capabilities on AI, quantum tech, cyberwarfare, undersea weirdness
The future of warfare is not so much "how many bases you have in the Pacific" but is your GPT49 better at swarming bots and micro-drones or corrupting their military internet....
They are going to merge their highest of hi-tech capabilities. Because that is where China is also focusing
That's a big big win for Australia. France could not offer Silicon Valley, or GPT3, or Deepmind
What possible objection to it is there? The US and Australia are friendly states, so obviously it makes sense to share military capabilities.
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
We need to take an axe to all the "green crap" as David Cameron called it, before it does some serious damage.
The marketing around AUUKUS has been amazing though - very buzzing. Surely one world leader is going to get caught up in the hype and express a desire to join very soon. Who will it be?
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I am genuinely sorry you are so bitter about AUKUS
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
We need to take an axe to all the "green crap" as David Cameron called it, before it does some serious damage.
The marketing around AUUKUS has been amazing though - very buzzing. Surely one world leader is going to get caught up in the hype and express a desire to join very soon. Who will it be?
This isn't a pact that people can join. The nuclear tech sharing agreement alone precludes any new entrants. The best we will see is associate nations, my money would be on Japan.
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
We need to take an axe to all the "green crap" as David Cameron called it, before it does some serious damage.
lol. I approve of Aukus but this Spanish journalist goes a bit far, even for me
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
She changed her country mainly by governing from the dead centre.
Remember 12 of her 16 years in government as Chancellor were in coalition with the SPD
She was a chancellor for the good times, like Blair here - just as he benefited from the Conservatives' golden economic legacy, so Germany has benefited economically from an artifically low exchange rate and easy monetary conditions, which has meant that she hasn't had to make many hard choices or address Germany's looming problems (an ageing population, crumbling infrastructure, over-reliance on export industries, political extremism, etc.). When she has had to take decisions, as in the migrant crisis, she has shown pretty terrible judgement.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I am genuinely sorry you are so bitter about AUKUS
All day on here trying to say both he doesn't care while desperately running it down. Classic BDS on display.
The UK media tends to underestimate France's diplomatic reach, at the same time. There's been no coverage in the UK media of the fact the Macron has only recently recreated Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union, for instance, but this time with real meetings, structures and teeth.
Here he is in Athens, only yesterday, unofficialy acting as chair of a collection of countries from Portugal to Cyprus, and issuing communiques on everything from the climate to local geopolitics.
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
The marketing around AUUKUS has been amazing though - very buzzing. Surely one world leader is going to get caught up in the hype and express a desire to join very soon. Who will it be?
Nobody can join AUKUS as it is exclusive due to the nuclear secrets
Other countries will become associated but not part of it
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I am genuinely sorry you are so bitter about AUKUS
Yes, I'm going to stop posting about AUUKUS for a bit. It's a inchoate idea and we'll see how it pans out in the months and years ahead. The rest is just idle speculation.
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
France will just have to cope. Even tho it pisses them off
Yeah, "cope". Remember this?
Students were given a passage from McEwan's 2001 bestseller concerning one of its protagonists, Robbie Turner, and were then asked to answer the following questions:
'What are three of his concerns about the situation?', and 'How is Turner coping with the situation?'.
Students claim the words 'coping' and 'concerns' were too hard to understand, and many students took to social media to complain, using the hashtag #BacAnglais.
A petition, addressed to France's Minister of Education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, demanding that 'Question M' should not be counted towards their final marks now has nearly 12,000 signatures.
lol. I approve of Aukus but this Spanish journalist goes a bit far, even for me
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
He's saying what everyone in the EU is currently thinking. The old world is getting left behind and they're shit scared there's no role for the EU to play and worse still it's the UK that is leading the charge.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust is again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
It's to appease the Right when a big U-turn on climate comes. With Biden in power, and our PM taking it seriously, they are heavily isolated at COP.
Its not the right they need to worry about, its the general public. The Independent set it out the other day - get used to living in cold homes and forget hot water on demand. Why the hell they think people are going to accept this is beyond me.
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
Diesel v nuclear powered
Nothing more, nothing less
you have read the contracts
Sometimes Malc you are just silly
You seem so certain and only way you could know that is if you had read the contracts, I take from your reply you were just wildly guessing and have no clue.
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
70...70...that seems far too many for it to be profitable for all of them.
How do they make money from fixed rate if the rate customer paying is say 20 volts and the market rate is now 50 volts? I understand it’s because they buy up in advance because on a fixed rate themselves. But surely, even with that there an equation you have to pull plug on your business or face debtor prison?
What happens to customers when their energy provider goes bust? Surely the government have no other option but step in here and bail a lot of money into the industry?
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
We need to take an axe to all the "green crap" as David Cameron called it, before it does some serious damage.
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I am genuinely sorry you are so bitter about AUKUS
Yes, I'm going to stop posting about AUUKUS for a bit. It's a inchoate idea and we'll see how it pans out in the months and years ahead. The rest is just idle speculation.
You're so relaxed about Aukus you are the only person on earth calling it AUUKUS because, for some reason, giving it a really silly name no one else uses makes you feel better
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
lol. I approve of Aukus but this Spanish journalist goes a bit far, even for me
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
The marketing around AUUKUS has been amazing though - very buzzing. Surely one world leader is going to get caught up in the hype and express a desire to join very soon. Who will it be?
This isn't a pact that people can join. The nuclear tech sharing agreement alone precludes any new entrants. The best we will see is associate nations, my money would be on Japan.
Who had been going to supply the Australians with subs until the French got the contract. No tears for France being shed in Tokyo.
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
Diesel v nuclear powered
Nothing more, nothing less
you have read the contracts
Sometimes Malc you are just silly
You seem so certain and only way you could know that is if you had read the contracts, I take from your reply you were just wildly guessing and have no clue.
With respect! Malc you are not reading the reasons behind the cancellation of the French contract or you are being obtuse
I am not repeating the reason again as it has been widely accepted it is French diesel v US / UK nuclear
70...70...that seems far too many for it to be profitable for all of them.
How do they make money from fixed rate if the rate customer paying is say 20 volts and the market rate is now 50 volts? I understand it’s because they buy up in advance because on a fixed rate themselves. But surely, even with that there an equation you have to pull plug on your business or face debtor prison?
What happens to customers when their energy provider goes bust? Surely the government have no other option but step in here and bail a lot of money into the industry?
Nothing much. They still get energy and ofcom transfers them to a new supplier, probably one of the big companies like British Gas who are picking up the pieces.
She changed her country mainly by governing from the dead centre.
Remember 12 of her 16 years in government as Chancellor were in coalition with the SPD
She was a chancellor for the good times, like Blair here - just as he benefited from the Conservatives' golden economic legacy, so Germany has benefited economically from an artifically low exchange rate and easy monetary conditions, which has meant that she hasn't had to make many hard choices or address Germany's looming problems (an ageing population, crumbling infrastructure, over-reliance on export industries, political extremism, etc.). When she has had to take decisions, as in the migrant crisis, she has shown pretty terrible judgement.
lol. I approve of Aukus but this Spanish journalist goes a bit far, even for me
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
He's saying what everyone in the EU is currently thinking. The old world is getting left behind and they're shit scared there's no role for the EU to play and worse still it's the UK that is leading the charge.
70...70...that seems far too many for it to be profitable for all of them.
How do they make money from fixed rate if the rate customer paying is say 20 volts and the market rate is now 50 volts? I understand it’s because they buy up in advance because on a fixed rate themselves. But surely, even with that there an equation you have to pull plug on your business or face debtor prison?
What happens to customers when their energy provider goes bust? Surely the government have no other option but step in here and bail a lot of money into the industry?
Mine did and EDF took over with no loss of supply or change in contract
70...70...that seems far too many for it to be profitable for all of them.
How do they make money from fixed rate if the rate customer paying is say 20 volts and the market rate is now 50 volts? I understand it’s because they buy up in advance because on a fixed rate themselves. But surely, even with that there an equation you have to pull plug on your business or face debtor prison?
What happens to customers when their energy provider goes bust? Surely the government have no other option but step in here and bail a lot of money into the industry?
You automatically get moved over to a new provider. You won't even notice your provider went bust, until you get a letter from the new provider explaining this and asking what you now want to do.
As far as I can remember, even a few years ago there were only really 10 or so players in this market. Where has this massive expansion come from? The margins must be small and risks high, as a lot of guessing what the price will be, if you aren't a producer, and the government have introduced an element of a cap. Seems like a bad business to get into.
However it shows, already, that Aukus is realigning everything. A new miliary polarity has emerged - and it will attract other nations, just as the EU gained members over time
This time the UK is in at the beginning so we will be able to shape the architecture so that it suits us, as well as the USA and Oz.
Britain made a huge geopolitical error in not joining the EU (EEC) right at the start. We could have moulded it much more in our image, and to our huge benefit.
I sense this is another reason for French anger and pique. They can see the new western military alliance forming in front of their eyes, the alliance which will supplant NATO. And it will be very much English-speaking led by America, then the UK and Oz. France will just have to cope. Even tho it pisses them off
If the aim is, as you seem to imply, to forge a military alliance that does not include mainland European countries to replace the one that does, then the French have every right to be pissed off, and we ought to be pissed off too. That would be a huge strategic blunder and a gift to the authoritarian opponents we face. That would be a geopolitical equivalent of that horror movie trope where the soon-to-be-victims split up to search the haunted house. It's not smart.
For what it's worth, I don't think that this is what's intended, so I'm not that worried. I don't think Boris and Biden are that stupid.
Nor do I but it will depend on France
France will not be part of AUKUS but it has a role to play if it wishes to do so, that is a decision for them
That's gracious of you.
Nothing to do with me, just the way AUKUS has been set up
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
Diesel v nuclear powered
Nothing more, nothing less
you have read the contracts
Sometimes Malc you are just silly
You seem so certain and only way you could know that is if you had read the contracts, I take from your reply you were just wildly guessing and have no clue.
With respect! Malc you are not reading the reasons behind the cancellation of the French contract or you are being obtuse
I am not repeating the reason again as it has been widely accepted it is French diesel v US / UK nuclear
G, if it was as simple as that then they would have asked the French to quote for nucleur as well and driven down the ransom fees.
lol. I approve of Aukus but this Spanish journalist goes a bit far, even for me
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
However, put it with that Italian politician yearning to join Five Eyes and it is obvious the EU is not going to meekly follow France's lead, either in their strop against the Anglo-Saxons, nor in their desires for a French-led combined EU military
France is in a pickle. In fact, post Brexit and post Aukus it is France that looks, suddenly, like a nation without a foreign policy and, in hard military terms, rather friendless
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
Read the small print. The US, Oz and UK are going to swap and share their capabilities on AI, quantum tech, cyberwarfare, undersea weirdness
The future of warfare is not so much "how many bases you have in the Pacific" but is your GPT49 better at swarming bots and micro-drones or corrupting their military internet....
They are going to merge their highest of hi-tech capabilities. Because that is where China is also focusing
That's a big big win for Australia. France could not offer Silicon Valley, or GPT3, or Deepmind
What possible objection to it is there? The US and Australia are friendly states, so obviously it makes sense to share military capabilities.
You've got over Biden being filth, a spineless coward and scum who should burn in hell then?
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
Diesel v nuclear powered
Nothing more, nothing less
you have read the contracts
Sometimes Malc you are just silly
You seem so certain and only way you could know that is if you had read the contracts, I take from your reply you were just wildly guessing and have no clue.
With respect! Malc you are not reading the reasons behind the cancellation of the French contract or you are being obtuse
I am not repeating the reason again as it has been widely accepted it is French diesel v US / UK nuclear
G, if it was as simple as that then they would have asked the French to quote for nucleur as well and driven down the ransom fees.
They did. The French refused to share their nuclear sub technology. So the Aussies shopped elsewhere. It's not, er, rocket science
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
Read the small print. The US, Oz and UK are going to swap and share their capabilities on AI, quantum tech, cyberwarfare, undersea weirdness
The future of warfare is not so much "how many bases you have in the Pacific" but is your GPT49 better at swarming bots and micro-drones or corrupting their military internet....
They are going to merge their highest of hi-tech capabilities. Because that is where China is also focusing
That's a big big win for Australia. France could not offer Silicon Valley, or GPT3, or Deepmind
What possible objection to it is there? The US and Australia are friendly states, so obviously it makes sense to share military capabilities.
You've got over Biden being filth, a spineless coward and scum who should burn in hell then?
You've missed the main feature. Joe's the Man now. Although the old dear needed a firm steer from our PM, the redoubtable "Boris". What explains such a turnaround in sentiment amongst all of our Anglo hawks? "Aukus" that's what. Aukus. One small acronym for a submarine supply contract plus a "statement of intent" on this & that; one giant leap for the English speaking peoples in their battle against the new imperialists of China. And one sock in the eye for the Europeans, especially France and that jumped up little man, Macron.
However, put it with that Italian politician yearning to join Five Eyes and it is obvious the EU is not going to meekly follow France's lead, either in their strop against the Anglo-Saxons, nor in their desires for a French-led combined EU military
France is in a pickle. In fact, post Brexit and post Aukus it is France that looks, suddenly, like a nation without a foreign policy and, in hard military terms, rather friendless
It's more than a touch Orwellian - the component parts of Oceania have decided Eastasia is the enemy rather than Eurasia.
Perhaps no one bothered to tell Scott Morrison "Tomorrow, when the War came" was a book aimed at the young adult market and not an actual work of military history.
It now seems it's not even about the "containment" of China - after all, the US was always committed to defending Australia and Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack which will never come. Xi, like Putin, likes the finer things of life too much to risk jeopardising them by military conflict - the same is true of Kim Jong-Un to be honest.
A life without the trappings of western bourgeois decadence - unthinkable for your average Communist elite member these days.
Nothing has changed in Europe despite all the predictable anti-French sneering. NATO still exists - if anything, this confirms Biden is interested in defending his allies and as the UK is one of those, it's clear the American commitment to the defence of Europe remains. It's easy of think of every Russian leader as wanting to be like Peter the Great or Tsar Alexander I but I suspect Putin has no more intention of invading Europe than I have of climbing Mount Everest in my birthday suit.
To be fair, Putin and Russia have as much right to "power projection" as we do.
It's a setback for France though it'll help Macron with an election next year to look independent of the Americans - I suspect that plays well. He'll find Scholz more to his liking than Merkel and he can assume the "senior" partner role but the EU is not NATO and NATO is not the EU.
As for AUKUS, I'm neither for it nor against it. I don't know what's it meant to achieve though if we derive some benefit in terms of jobs, fine. It's not a policy for containing China and we still haven't really worked out a response to Chinese economic imperialism in Africa and elsewhere. I do think the Indian Sub-Continent is a potential and serious flashpoint - clearly, you can imagine China aligning with Pakistan but does that place us on the side of Modi's India?
Gérard Araud seems to think France should pull out of NATO.
The new reality of the world rivalry of great and middle powers should lead France to a 2.0 Gaullist stance. Allied but not aligned. Some confrontations are not ours.
And that for the benefit of @kinabalu is why AUKUS and not FR/GER are the "chaps we can trust."
French anger is directed at the US and Oz and the reason for this is we have little to do with what’s happening, which is all about the submarine deal. Australia was offered the nuclear option by America, said yes to that, therefore cancelled their order of lower tech ones from France. That's the essence of it.
According to The Times (posted up thread) Australia approached the UK first over submarines because the French contract was well over budget and very late - it was the UK that suggested expanding it into a broader scope project and not just “a submarine deal”. The UK and Australia then worked through the US system to get it agreed.
The funny thing is that while Macron was strutting his stuff at the G7 in Cornwall with stories of “isolated Britain” the biggest strategic alliance in decades was being cooked up behind his back.
France doesn’t want any narrative to get out about post-Brexit Britain being other than isolated which is why they are pretending it had little to do with us.
That sounds unlikely to me, that we were the driver. But I get the Times today so I'll check out the story.
Hmm. This kind of has Boris written all over it - indulging in his usual fantasy by trying to be Churchill to Biden's FDR. Biden's going senile and is advised by idiots, so it's easy to see how they'd be persuaded. Quite why the Fella Down Under thought it would be a good approach remains mysterious.
The whole Aukus thing, you mean, or the nuclear subs?
The sub thing would have gone ahead anyway, though I suspect more would have been done to soothe French indignation. The AUUKUS branding element however is pure Boris: heavy on slogans and wishful thinking but poorly conceived and riddled with hidden dangers.
The French are indignant because they've lost billions of Aussie dollars.
Its pure mercantile greed that is the only reason they're upset. There's no way to soothe that over. That's their problem.
Didn't the French and Aussies have some kind of contract between them?
A contract the Aussies were capable of cancelling it seems.
so much for honour.
Why should the Aussies honour a contract with the French that is over budget, years late and doesn't meet their needs?
Maybe if they'd been on time and on budget the contract would have been honoured. Just a thought.
In that case there would be penalty clauses and withdrawal clauses. If the contract was cancelled properly then I would understand it.
One assumes the Aussies are indeed invoking a withdrawal clause.
It would help us all in this room if the French/Aussies actually published why the contract was cancelled, rather than speculation.
Diesel v nuclear powered
Nothing more, nothing less
you have read the contracts
Sometimes Malc you are just silly
You seem so certain and only way you could know that is if you had read the contracts, I take from your reply you were just wildly guessing and have no clue.
With respect! Malc you are not reading the reasons behind the cancellation of the French contract or you are being obtuse
I am not repeating the reason again as it has been widely accepted it is French diesel v US / UK nuclear
G, if it was as simple as that then they would have asked the French to quote for nucleur as well and driven down the ransom fees.
French keep their nuclear secrets to themselves and do not share with anyone
I’m still trying to see just what the Aussies are getting from this deal, other than an upgrade from diesel- to nuclear-powered subs (which to be fair, could be a big plus as AFAIAA nuke-powered subs are much harder for adversaries to track).
But on the other hand, the existing project was already not scheduled to deliver for another decade; will this not now take longer, starting again from scratch? And while that project was facing delays and cost overruns, it’d hardly be a shock if this more complex project does too.
Australia is already in a mutual defense pact with the US, and the whole reason they pivoted towards the Americans after WW2 was that they thought they were being left to the tender mercies of the Japanese by the UK (not that we had a whole lot of choice). Nice that they trust us again, but we don’t have the presence in their part of the world that we once did. I know the UK has beefed up its remaining naval facility in Singapore recently, but it’s hard to see it ever making a big difference to Australia’s defense.
For the US the benefits are clear: more pork for the military-industrial complex, while Boris gets to indulge his Churchillian fantasies while attempting to distract from the Brexit car-wreck.
What does Australia get from this substantially, other than to help some of the rest of the Anglosphere give the French a bit of a shoeing? I know that never goes down badly in the English-speaking world, but is it really worth it for them?
I suspect Boris wielded his charm and convinced Morrison that AUUKUS would be enormous - a conglomeration of many nations from across the globe with unprecedented power - and Australia, along with Britain and America, would be running it. That's a heady thing to have dangled before you, if you believe everything Boris says.
I am genuinely sorry you are so bitter about AUKUS
Yes, I'm going to stop posting about AUUKUS for a bit. It's a inchoate idea and we'll see how it pans out in the months and years ahead. The rest is just idle speculation.
Comments
At the beginning of 2021 there were 70 energy suppliers in the UK. Industry sources say there may be as few as 10 left by the end of the year.
BBC News - Four more small energy firms could go bust next week
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58610561
70...70...that seems far too many for it to be profitable for all of them.
Give up our nuclear weapons and we would be reliant on the US and French as the defence of last resort against Putin's nuclear armed Russia, a very risky place to be
https://twitter.com/andrewtillett/status/1439070743052967940?s=20
In March Australia approached the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58610561
This is quickly becoming a political problem.
A quick way the deal could yield fruit would be if the first boats are done on the basis that the UK did with HMS Dreadnought - where the back end was called the American Zone, because it was an American machinery set.
8-12 SSNs would be a formable force - something, which *on it's own* would be push back to China. SSKs are simply not as good. Which is why the Chinese are upset.
The future of warfare is not so much "how many bases you have in the Pacific" but is your GPT49 better at swarming bots and micro-drones or corrupting their military internet....
They are going to merge their highest of hi-tech capabilities. Because that is where China is also focusing
That's a big big win for Australia. France could not offer Silicon Valley, or GPT3, or Deepmind
Only the Liberal Party advocated joining from the outset. The Labour Party was going to look at it but the idea got nobbled probably by the unions.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/food-shortages-looming-after-factory-closures-hit-production-q8sxcs6m0
"Government races to save businesses as energy prices soar
Food shortages looming after factory closures hit production
Ministers are racing to avert acute food shortages after high gas prices forced most of Britain’s commercial production of carbon dioxide to shut down. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, is holding emergency talks with a series of energy chief executives to help companies weather an unprecedented spike in gas and electricity prices."
We go top with a five goal win at Villa!!
"Prime Minister Johnson finds in this new, more flexible and open environment an opportunity to continue in the leading group of the West thanks to Brexit and not depending on a European Union that was strategically lost decades ago and unable to make a single decision in time.
"For Australia, it means ensuring its regional leadership based on its membership in the Anglo world, which will lead the world against China for the remainder of the century. Continental Europe languishes, once again, while the world created by Elizabeth I of England rises from its ashes and Churchill's ideal scenario regains all its political, ideological and military strength and power."
https://twitter.com/Pedro_F_MM/status/1439258533401436166?s=20
Overall, her record is firmly mediocre-to-poor.
All day on here trying to say both he doesn't care while desperately running it down. Classic BDS on display.
Here he is in Athens, only yesterday, unofficialy acting as chair of a collection of countries from Portugal to Cyprus, and issuing communiques on everything from the climate to local geopolitics.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/9-eu-mediterranean-countries-hold-summit-in-greece/2021/09/17/a3359616-17a7-11ec-a019-cb193b28aa73_story.html
"So, they said get vaccinated, twice & there’ll be no more lockdowns
Then they said you have to get the booster & there’ll be no more lockdowns
Now, no jab no job. No jab no travel. No jab no freedom. No jab, become the most hated
Israel's lockdown rules"
Israel goes into yet another strict lockdown TODAY
https://twitter.com/GreyHaired07/status/1438745291163799552?s=20
Other countries will become associated but not part of it
Quite so
I just checked today's Times of Israel and their actual headline is entirely different, but maybe as shocking in a different way
"Mossad killed Iran’s top nuke scientist with remote-operated AI machine gun"
https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-killed-irans-top-nuke-scientist-with-remote-operated-machine-gun-nyt/
What happens to customers when their energy provider goes bust? Surely the government have no other option but step in here and bail a lot of money into the industry?
I am not repeating the reason again as it has been widely accepted it is French diesel v US / UK nuclear
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-58610561
As far as I can remember, even a few years ago there were only really 10 or so players in this market. Where has this massive expansion come from? The margins must be small and risks high, as a lot of guessing what the price will be, if you aren't a producer, and the government have introduced an element of a cap. Seems like a bad business to get into.
However, put it with that Italian politician yearning to join Five Eyes and it is obvious the EU is not going to meekly follow France's lead, either in their strop against the Anglo-Saxons, nor in their desires for a French-led combined EU military
France is in a pickle. In fact, post Brexit and post Aukus it is France that looks, suddenly, like a nation without a foreign policy and, in hard military terms, rather friendless
Well - yes it fucking does actually. It makes her comment bullshit.
Typical troll and liar.
https://twitter.com/Gofeedyourcat/status/1438778985786212355
locked down so we should all leave in protest
Perhaps no one bothered to tell Scott Morrison "Tomorrow, when the War came" was a book aimed at the young adult market and not an actual work of military history.
It now seems it's not even about the "containment" of China - after all, the US was always committed to defending Australia and Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack which will never come. Xi, like Putin, likes the finer things of life too much to risk jeopardising them by military conflict - the same is true of Kim Jong-Un to be honest.
A life without the trappings of western bourgeois decadence - unthinkable for your average Communist elite member these days.
Nothing has changed in Europe despite all the predictable anti-French sneering. NATO still exists - if anything, this confirms Biden is interested in defending his allies and as the UK is one of those, it's clear the American commitment to the defence of Europe remains. It's easy of think of every Russian leader as wanting to be like Peter the Great or Tsar Alexander I but I suspect Putin has no more intention of invading Europe than I have of climbing Mount Everest in my birthday suit.
To be fair, Putin and Russia have as much right to "power projection" as we do.
It's a setback for France though it'll help Macron with an election next year to look independent of the Americans - I suspect that plays well. He'll find Scholz more to his liking than Merkel and he can assume the "senior" partner role but the EU is not NATO and NATO is not the EU.
As for AUKUS, I'm neither for it nor against it. I don't know what's it meant to achieve though if we derive some benefit in terms of jobs, fine. It's not a policy for containing China and we still haven't really worked out a response to Chinese economic imperialism in Africa and elsewhere. I do think the Indian Sub-Continent is a potential and serious flashpoint - clearly, you can imagine China aligning with Pakistan but does that place us on the side of Modi's India?