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France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

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61–70 of 299 posts

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No downvote on posts, I wish this were implemented but I also know the implications are many

You can flag posts, even if you can't downvote them.

Dang would have to respond, politics are allowed according to the rules, but I think the rules need to be reconsidered. Too many flame wars and not enough on software and hardware.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massive technical military contracts seems extremely SV to me? Isn't that where it all started?

This is all geopolitics. nothing about technology or specifics on anything interesting.

> nothing about technology

Well the whole point is that they've switched technology from diesel to nuclear, based on changing user requirements. Agile, if you like!

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#63
post #31
post #11

It looks like the vaunted experience of Biden and his team has not translated into any sort of deft policymaking, particularly in foreign policy. The messy pullout out of Afghanistan, followed by this scuttling of the deal in progress between Australia and France have reinforced the notion that Uncle Sam can not be relied upon, even by his closest allies. Pretty surefire way of helping fence-sitters become client sta…

Because I am french I will not say anything too dark. But yes, this SUB contract was big. Giant.And Naval Group is partially a state company. The Worth for french community is this : 1) French just hatted Trump. Deeply. His sense of hatting his allies ( Germany...) and loving his foes ( North Corea, ect). 2) As opposed, French loved Biden. More rounded, multi cultural, more social like in Europe. I would say french p…

Biden/the US military industrial complex of which he’s a part have been eyeing the EU with way too much suspicion. I really fear for the consequences in the future. Hoping the EU will take refugees :p

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#64
post #47

It’s pretty much an Anglosphere FU to the EU here, but the stakes are one countries military industrial complex vs another. With nuclear tipped deterrents all around the world why are we so determined to play these power games? Not that it’s anything new of course. It reminds me of the future played out in Dune where nobody can act openly against each other so everyone is trained in espionage - what are those subs go…

I thought the purpose of the subs was to make a large first strike harder by concealing where all the launch sites are

That's for nuclear missile subs. The Australian subs will only have nuclear propulsion. They will be conventionally armed, like a US attack sub.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#65
Big weapons deals are always deeply political. If you have a defense alliance, it affects where you buy.

South Korea, Japan and Australia, etc. can generally buy any big weapon system they want as long as it's American, because the US has huge political commitment to defend these countries. They can take bids from others to keep the price/performance within reasonable limits, but unless the US system is outrageously expensive or inferior, they go with that.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#66

I got how bad this seems from the French perspective, but pulling Ambassadors sounds like something you do if a country assassinated your diplomat or something, not just due to losing a military contract.

Last time France pulled ambassador from Australia was when Australia denied France from a weapons bid due to France testing nukes in the Pacific.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#67
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Derna forever! EDIT: Sorry for the low-effort riffing. I was being wry. The U.S. won a decisive victory at Derna and, in the aftermath of the diplomatic resolution resulting from that victory, promptly abandoned our allies, without pay, in enemy territory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Derna_(1805) It is my opinion that we are unreliable, and it's deeply painful when diplomats squander gains made at the c…

Huh? What does this mean?

[deleted]

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#68
post #39

There's no question that nuclear subs are more appropriate for Australia, especially against a sophisticated opponent like China. Hopefully USA and Australia can compensate France in some way to maintain their prestige.

China is Australia's largest trade partner, and China owns tons of Australian real estate (residential and industrial), and one out of 20 Australians considers themselves of Chinese ancestry. It doesn't seem to make much sense to conceive of Australia and China as submarine warfare opponents.

France was Germany's largest trading partner prior to WWI

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#69
post #7

Is it just me or are there more off-topic political posts on HN lately?

Unfortunately... I found lobste.rs to be a good source of purely technical articles, but those made up only ~half of "the good stuff" on HN. The other half is startup/entrepreneur related posts.

For those, HN is still the best, but the signal-to-noise ratio is getting poorer with all those off-topic posts.

Re: France Recalls Its Ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia over a Submarine Deal

#70
post #47

It’s pretty much an Anglosphere FU to the EU here, but the stakes are one countries military industrial complex vs another. With nuclear tipped deterrents all around the world why are we so determined to play these power games? Not that it’s anything new of course. It reminds me of the future played out in Dune where nobody can act openly against each other so everyone is trained in espionage - what are those subs go…

I thought the purpose of the subs was to make a large first strike harder by concealing where all the launch sites are

I suspect also there's a greater need to "shadow" Chinese subs in the south china sea given expected increase in naval activity there
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