France said Friday that it recalled its ambassadors from the US and Australia for “consultations” over a new military pact Paris was left out of that caused Australia to scrap a $65 billion plan to buy French submarines.
“At the request of the President of the Republic, I have decided to immediately recall our two ambassadors to the United States and Australia to Paris for consultations,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. “This exceptional decision is justified by the exceptional gravity of the announcements made on 15 September by Australia and the United States.”
The US, UK, and Australia announced a new military pact called AUKUS on Wednesday that aims to counter China. The deal focuses on technology sharing, and the first initiative will give Australia nuclear-powered submarines, giving them no use for the French ones.
On Thursday, Le Drian said the move from Australia amounts to a “stab in the back.” US officials only notified Paris of AUKUS a few hours before it was announced. The French ambassador said he learned of the deal from news reports that were published before the announcement.
Strengthening cooperation with allies in the Pacific is key to the Biden administration’s strategy to confront China. The deal means more US troops, aircraft, and potentially previously-banned intermediate-range missiles will be deployed to Australia.
To hell with the French, they started nuking the pacific and blew up the rainbow warrior (an act of terrorism) . History shows they blackmailed the US into supporting there crimes in South East Asia (Vietnam and Cambodia) or they themselves would have turned Communist and aligned to the Soviet Union. This resulted in Ho Chi Minh turning to the Soviets himself when all he wanted independence from the black mailing French. The rest is history for Vietnam and the wars to follow thanks to arseholes in Paris. They have nerve to call anyone back stabber.
antagonize the Chinese with new aggressive alliances, positioning of troops and expenditures; piss off the French allies in europe; put tens of billions $$$$ more into the Military-Industrial Complexes in the US and UK; and make Australia a big target for Chinese missiles in case of any military confrontation….
good strategy, Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken. war-mongering morons.
It would have been the same under Trump and Pompeo.
Yes, as US foreign policy this is colossal stupidity, but it’s the measure of the irresistible power of the private for profit war economy. The national entity is a subsidiary function of the private economy, …bourgeois nationalism.
What makes Australia so excited to agitate for nuclear war, while they lockdown their country over Covid? They prefer their people die in a nuclear holocaust rather than from Covid?
Boomers are reaching the end and from what I’ve read on other boards like on ‘The Hill’ it sounds like they would rather go out with a WWIII bang than with a COVID whimper. And, another generation wants to send their kids and grand children to war as they stick out their chests, pop a beer and watch all the bloodshed on TV as the SOFA* brigade. Strange because they were the generation who were against the Vietnam War. Some things never change.
*Strongly Oriented For Action.
A lot to think about and sounds valid at first glance. The “SOFA” brigade seem like a real PITA. I keep asking why those people are missing rallies to save Assange, while filling up football stadiums. Please keep contributing.
I wonder how much of our tax money was used to bribe the Australian politicians to buy US submarines instead of French?
Money motives always trump diplomacy.
No pun intended I assume.
LOL, I agree. When I read “Trump diplomacy,” I also paused. The words Trump and diplomacy don’t seem to mix well. He met Kim twice, which was great. But he also hired John Bolton.
The weapons dealers (merchants of death) are fighting over the money- pie. Good thing there will always be more than enough people (“enemies”) for everyone,
Australia’s Defense and Foreign Policy Toward China.
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx
https://www.world-nuclear.org/focus/australia/australia.aspx
My sense is not the sale of nuclear submarine technology to Australia. I sense Washington and London are concerned with Australia ultimately ending uranium exports to China. A global financial force majeure might play a role, but I believe this strategy is baked into the yellow cake, as it were.
Assuming Washington has similar influence over Ottawa, one could conjecture the US’ future uranium supply is reasonably assured. The graphs in the first paragraph are particularly telling as to what US production has been recently (6 tons in 2020) and which countries no long mine uranium. This assumes the numbers are reliable.
Niger and Namibia would continue to supply China, but Kazakhstan is atop the list with relatively consistent production numbers and supplies uranium to many countries. It’s one nation where regional leaders wouldn’t want a terrorist cell or two to gain a foothold.