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AUKUS (Gesundheit)

956 Worldwide

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956 Worldwide

956 Worldwide 34444

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So this is a massive foreign policy development and maybe on of the most significant things, period, that has happened under Biden. The US-UK-AUS have entered into a defense pact to share and develop all sorts of defense technology, notably nuclear submarines. I am massively in favor of this, which is clearly designed to counter China.  A few thoughts:

1. Notable in their absence are New Zealand and Canada. NZ has long declared itself “nuclear free” but both countries are also far more cautious when it comes to China. Will be interesting to watch how the US tries to encourage them to stay in the fold and not wander. 
 

2. Very much in keeping with B. Johnson’s “Global Britain” and promises that Brexit does not mean isolationism. How will this play with future governments. 
 

3. A smart play to leverage civilizational ties, but also you open yourself to criticism. This is very much an attempt to ensure another century of the Anglosphere ruling the waves. Australia is clearly nervous about the prospect of being lost to the West and embraced by a rising China that will make very different rules.

4. Time to re-examine TTP. TTP was everything Trump SHOULD have wanted, which was a trade pact where we called the shots and everyone BUT China was in.  Domestic populism led to scrapping it. Time to realize that our strategic competitors will always use trade policy as a strategic tool so we need to start doing so as well. 
 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/15/us-will-share-nuclear-submarine-technology-with-australia-part-new-alliance-direct-challenge-china/

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31283

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So it would seem that Australia is mostly a client in this partnership (can't read the article bc paywall and cheapskate)?

Despite being relatively low profile, UK still has some pretty robust defense technologies and industries.  

And agree that Australia must continue to be a bulwark of "the west" in SWPAC.  Just like WWII.

Also, yeah, "the west" has kind of a negative connotation these days.  But once you get into the realpolitik, it's pretty much the west versus the bad guys, even with the west's flaws.

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Captainant

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6 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Time to re-examine TTP. TTP was everything Trump SHOULD have wanted, which was a trade pact where we called the shots and everyone BUT China was in.  Domestic populism led to scrapping it. Time to realize that our strategic competitors will always use trade policy as a strategic tool so we need to start doing so as well. 

While TTP was a good macro trade deal, it would have globalized America's draconian IP protections like DMCA and criminalized (with prison time) any unauthorized sharing of information. Not signing TPP definitely sets america back in the economic sphere, but it would have done nothing but hand off more power to corporate IP holders and enabled more draconian domestic measures to be taken by foreign entities. 

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Ebeye

Ebeye 116

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Article: 

Spoiler

U.S. will share nuclear submarine technology with Australia as part of new alliance, a direct challenge to China 

Biden announces new defense alliance with Australia, Britain to counter China
 and 
Today at 5:24 a.m. EDT

President Biden announced Wednesday the United States and Britain will share highly sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia, a major departure from past policy and a direct challenge to China in its Pacific neighborhood.

Biden made the announcement alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who joined the president virtually, as they unveiled a new three-way defense alliance, which will be known as AUKUS. Britain is the only other nation to share U.S. nuclear submarine propulsion technology, an agreement dating back decades and aimed largely at countering the old Soviet Union.

“We all recognize the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term,” Biden said Wednesday from the East Room of the White House. “We need to be able to address both the current strategic environment in the region and how it may evolve because the future of each of our nations, and indeed the world, depends on a free and open Indo-Pacific, enduring and flourishing in the decades ahead.”

 
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None of the three leaders mentioned China in their remarks, but the objective of the new alliance was clear: challenging the country’s growing economic and military influence. The effort comes amid rising tensions with China over a range of issues including military ambitions and human rights, and Biden has made it clear he views China as the country’s most significant global competitor. The president spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week. Biden initiated that call, but one administration official said Wednesday that the Australian submarine plan was not discussed “in any specific terms.”

China on Thursday slammed the agreement for “seriously undermining” regional stability and accused the three counties of inciting an “arms race.” At a regular press briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticized the United States and Britain for “extremely irresponsible” behavior.

The three countries will work over the next 18 months to hash out the details of submarine effort and will pay special attention to safeguards and nonproliferation measures, Biden said Wednesday.

 
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Nuclear-powered submarines are faster, more capable, harder to detect and potentially much more lethal than conventional-powered submarines. The Chinese navy is thought to possess six nuclear attack submarines and many more conventional ones, with plans to expand the nuclear-powered fleet over the next decade.

The United States sails its own nuclear-powered submarines in the Indo-Pacific region, and those and other U.S. ships regularly engage in cat-and-mouse interactions with Chinese vessels that U.S. commanders have long feared could lead to an unintentional conflict.

The Navy’s three most powerful nuclear submarines were all deployed to the Pacific region over the summer. U.S. defense officials have warned of a Chinese naval buildup that challenges U.S. navigation in what the United States and its allies say is international water.

 
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U.S. officials who spoke to reporters ahead of the announcement also avoided any direct mention of China and sidestepped questions about what message the United States was sending to its adversary with the new partnership. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement ahead of the president’s remarks.

“I do want to just underscore very clearly this partnership is not aimed or about any one country,” one senior official said. “It’s about advancing our strategic interests, upholding the international rules-based order and promoting peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.”

Biden declined to answer questions about China after he concluded his remarks.

Countries “should not build exclusionary blocs targeting or harming the interests of third parties. In particular, they should shake off their Cold War mentality and ideological prejudice," Liu Pengyu, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington, told Reuters.

 
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The announcement came as a surprise in Australia, where recent reports suggested France, not the United States, would be deepening military ties as it moved ahead with a plan to build $66 billion worth of diesel submarines for Australia. But then news broke late Wednesday in Australia that Morrison had convened top-secret cabinet meetings.

The arrangement could also lead to damaged relations with France, with one former French ambassador to the United States saying on Twitter the countries “stabbed” France in the back.

In a joint statement, the French minister of foreign affairs and minister of the armed forces said the decision was “regrettable” and “contrary to the letter and spirit of the cooperation that prevailed between France and Australia.”

“The American choice to exclude a European ally and partner such as France from a structuring partnership with Australia, at a time when we are facing unprecedented challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, whether in terms of our values or in terms of respect for multilateralism based on the rule of law, shows a lack of coherence that France can only note and regret,” the leaders said.

 
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In response to the announcement, one Australian politician is calling for an inquiry into the agreement, saying it raised questions around nuclear nonproliferation.

“If it’s a U.S. submarine, they have highly enriched uranium in their reactors and that creates a proliferation issue in terms of Australia standing up saying, no one should have this sort of fuel available to them,” Australian Sen. Rex Patrick, a former submariner in the Australian navy, told his country’s ABC.

Nuclear propulsion is different from nuclear weaponry, and Morrison said Australia remains committed to remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

“Let me be clear,” he said. “Australia is not seeking to acquire nuclear weapons or establish a civil nuclear capability, and we will continue to meet all our nuclear nonproliferation obligations.”

 
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But some experts worry about how the new arrangement will impact the global nuclear power landscape.

“I think if Australia goes down this route and builds nuclear-powered submarines and removes nuclear material from safeguards, it sets a very damaging precedent,” said James Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Acton said he is particularly concerned about how Iran will react to the announcement and whether the country will attempt to skirt safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by saying it is using nuclear material to build a submarine. Before the U.S. announcement, Acton said he would expect China and Russia to vehemently oppose any efforts by Iran to take such actions, but he said the calculus could change after the United States shares nuclear propulsion technology with Australia.

 
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“I do believe the damage to the nuclear nonproliferation regime will be very significant, and I strongly believe it will outweigh the defense benefits of Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines,” he said.

The Biden administration said the United States has informed the IAEA about the announcement and will pay close attention to any nonproliferation implications from the effort.

“I do want to underscore that the Biden administration remains deeply committed to American leadership in nonproliferation,” the senior official said. “This is nuclear propulsion. Australia has no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons, and Australia is, in fact, the leader in all nonproliferation efforts in the NPT and elsewhere.”

The agreement also marks an expansion of U.S. military cooperation with Australia. The country has long been a close military ally, but it is now more on a par with Great Britain, America’s foremost military ally. The United States and Australia have an existing military and diplomatic partnership known as Ausmin, short for the annual ministerial level meetings among the four defense and foreign secretaries. Australia and Britain are also part of the select intelligence grouping known as the Five Eyes.

 
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“This new architecture is really about deepening cooperation on a range of defense capabilities for the 21st century and again these relationships with Great Britain and Australia are time-tested, our oldest allies generally,” the senior administration official said. “This is designed not only to strengthen our capabilities in the Indo-Pacific but to link Europe and particularly Great Britain more closely with our strategic pursuits in the region as a whole.”

Matt Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration and chairman of the China program at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, praised the new effort.

“We are going to be pooling technological advances in important defensive capabilities,” he said, making “the sum of the alliance greater than its parts.”

Pottinger, who was briefed by the White House ahead of the announcement, added the new alliance also fulfills Biden’s promise to make the Indo-Pacific region a priority of his foreign policy.

“It adds more teeth to our collective deterrence and that helps give confidence to countries in the region to stand up for their sovereignty and push back against coercion from Beijing,” he said.

Biden and Xi have only spoken twice since Biden took office, the second call taking place last week. The 90-minute call, which an administration official described as familiar and candid, did not yield any specific announcements, including whether Biden and Xi would hold an in-person summit later this fall.

Both leaders had been expected to travel to Europe for a climate summit in Scotland, but whether Xi still plans to attend remains unclear. Biden has confirmed his attendance, which will come just after a Group of 20 meeting in Rome.

Michael Miller in Sydney and Lily Kuo in Taipei contributed to this report.

 

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atomheartbevo

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8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

Notable in their absence are New Zealand and Canada. NZ has long declared itself “nuclear free” but both countries are also far more cautious when it comes to China. Will be interesting to watch how the US tries to encourage them to stay in the fold and not wander. 

The Houston area has 2 million more people than the entirety of NZ, which is why NZ has the military that they do - they simply don't have the infrastructure to support things like this - the best they can do is contribute manpower.

 

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Telegraph_it

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9 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

The Houston area has 2 million more people than the entirety of NZ, which is why NZ has the military that they do - they simply don't have the infrastructure to support things like this - the best they can do is contribute manpower.

 

Yes but how many sheep does NZ have? 
 

The answer. Way more then people. Plus they have Queenstown which is a badass town. 
 

I googled the number. Quite a lot at 26.8 mm but down 53% from a couple decades ago. 

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staboner

staboner 4959

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all i know is ScoMo is Oz'z George W

Frenchies got backended in this mug.

China has been buttfucking the Aussies since the start of the pandemic and will likely continue to do so. I hate China for doing it because its dumb but goddamn the Aussie government is making it hard to hold onto that hate these days. dumbfucks

scomo-scott-morrison.gif

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washparkhorn

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The Pivot has been been coming since Bush/Obama. We have been awaiting this adversarial turn in the relationship with China. 

China is battening down the hatches and preparing their middle class for leaner times. Their goal is COVID Zero (delta is throwing a wrench in that). 

This defense pact says to China: "We know what you are doing. Please stop." 

It's provocative but it is merely saying the quiet stuff out loud. 

 

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DonkeyCigars

DonkeyCigars 144

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12 hours ago, HornOnTheBayou said:

Apparently France had a huge arms deal already signed with Australia for a load of World War II rifles that were never fired. And they were like new, only dropped once!

Yea, France had billions of dollars in a deal to give them inferior subs. France is really showing poor form by being mad about this. It's not really apples and oranges, your deal isn't as good because the subs aren't as powerful and Australia should be free to take the better deal without you crying about it.

Quote

Australia had signed a contract with a French shipbuilder in 2016 to build nonnuclear submarines, but this week decided to ditch France in order to get its hands on more advanced, nuclear-powered ones. The scrapped deal could cost the French defense industry around $65.7 billion. 

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business-daily/20210916-major-disappointment-for-french-shipbuilder-as-australia-cancels-submarine-contract

Edited by DonkeyCigars
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Cacti

Cacti 191

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Biden is creating a military united front against China, and he should, even though it appears that our continental European allies are saying wtf.

Much has been said about how our NATO allies are increasingly viewing the U.S. as an unreliable partner, but the reality is that they, themselves, are unreliable. Since the Cold War ended most have failed to sufficiently fund their respective militaries; instead, they continue to rely on our military largesse. And now, they are economically cozying up to China, while ignoring the danger of doing so. And, true to character, they want to remain neutral as we move to confront China, both on the economic and military front.

The Europeans seem to think they have no vested interest in trying to contain an aggressive China. But we do, as does Australia, Japan, Taiwan, India, and others.

Good for Biden.   

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DonkeyCigars

DonkeyCigars 144

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2 hours ago, Cacti said:

Biden is creating a military united front against China, and he should, even though it appears that our continental European allies are saying wtf.

Much has been said about how our NATO allies are increasingly viewing the U.S. as an unreliable partner, but the reality is that they, themselves, are unreliable. Since the Cold War ended most have failed to sufficiently fund their respective militaries; instead, they continue to rely on our military largesse. And now, they are economically cozying up to China, while ignoring the danger of doing so. And, true to character, they want to remain neutral as we move to confront China, both on the economic and military front.

The Europeans seem to think they have no vested interest in trying to contain an aggressive China. But we do, as does Australia, Japan, Taiwan, India, and others.

Good for Biden.   

Good post and good for Biden, indeed.

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PenelopeWitherspoon

PenelopeWitherspoon 19093

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6 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

Yea, France had billions of dollars in a deal to give them inferior subs. France is really showing poor form by being mad about this. It's not really apples and oranges, your deal isn't as good because the subs aren't as powerful and Australia should be free to take the better deal without you crying about it.

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business-daily/20210916-major-disappointment-for-french-shipbuilder-as-australia-cancels-submarine-contract

Yes, France is showing their ass on this, IMO.  

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FORTY NINE TO ZERO

FORTY NINE TO ZERO 2630

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6 hours ago, DonkeyCigars said:

Yea, France had billions of dollars in a deal to give them inferior subs. France is really showing poor form by being mad about this. It's not really apples and oranges, your deal isn't as good because the subs aren't as powerful and Australia should be free to take the better deal without you crying about it.

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/business-daily/20210916-major-disappointment-for-french-shipbuilder-as-australia-cancels-submarine-contract

While inferior, I read that France first offered Nuke subs, Australia requested diesel, so the subs were stuck in engineering limbo trying to make diesel work.    The key is France wouldn’t give them the technology behind nuclear. We are willing to share it all. 

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26281

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I don't understand why Australia originally committed to buying noisy French subs. That'd be like, we know Japan has Zeroes, so let's buy Brewster Buffaloes anyway.

Were the Australians planning on using the noisy French subs vs Indonesia? Seems like speedboats with .50 cals would do the trick for that.

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washparkhorn

washparkhorn 9935

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Australian perspectives overview:

In the 'post-American world', has Australia backed the right global superpower?

Robert Oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb", famously quoted the Hindu text the Bhagavad-Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Oppenheimer knew he had unleashed a weapon that could destroy humanity itself.

Australia has now crossed that threshold into the nuclear world. We won't be deploying nuclear weapons, but we will be operating nuclear-powered vessels of war. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said we have entered a new era. He's right. We will now join only six other nations with nuclear-powered submarines.

The battle lines for security in the Indo-Pacific are being clearly drawn. On one side is the US and its allies, on the other China. Australia no longer pretends it doesn't have to choose between Washington and Beijing. We are all in with the US, and the risk is a catastrophic conflict. In fact, we are preparing for it.

. . . ABC Australia (not the Disney ABC) - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-19/australias-fate-tied-to-chinas-xi-jinping/100471778

 

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956 Worldwide

956 Worldwide 34444

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10 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

I don't understand why Australia originally committed to buying noisy French subs. That'd be like, we know Japan has Zeroes, so let's buy Brewster Buffaloes anyway.

Were the Australians planning on using the noisy French subs vs Indonesia? Seems like speedboats with .50 cals would do the trick for that.

Modern conventional diesel electric submarines are quieter than a nuclear submarine when fully submerged and running on electric power, even though today’s nuclear submarines are really, really quiet. The benefit Australia gets is that nuclear submarines are able to remain submerged and on patrol much longer than a diesel electric. Once the diesel electric puts up its snorkel and runs in fuel to charge its batteries, everyone knows where it is. 
 

The new submarines they’ll get from us and the Brits are better strategic tools to operate far from home underwater, but the ones they had on order from the French were very, very good. The best option they had until this deal, because until now we weren’t sharing. 

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