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

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

#81

Post by caycep »

dougmwne wrote: post #18
xyk2 wrote: post #7

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

It seems that the user base here has been deteriorating and the focus has been drifting away from the SV startup scene. I've also been noticing a growing political atmosphere that is in opposition to SV norms. A sign of the times probably, but I also suspect that HN's usefulness to Ycombinator is fading.

I would say politics is germane to everything tech; just tech folks don't like to think of it this way. But it can't be ignored since Big Tech, social media, miniaturization of computers, etc, have arguably played an integral role in every major political event in the past half decade or so - in particular, 2016 election, social media and police brutality, occupy protests, hollowing out of old industry/labor in favor of new industry/labor, Amazon and labor, Tesla and climate change/petrochemical policy, China and everything, especially labor, semiconductors, etc, 2020 election, Jan 6, Republican party thought control...

Defense uses a lot of tech

And besides, I think HN tech community tends to be intellectually curious anyway

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

#82

Post by markus_zhang »

My observation:

1- US probably predicts that China is gonna breakthrough the first island chain in the next 10 years.

2- France needs to reconsider her Indo-Pacific stratrgy because Aussi explicitly shows that it's going all in with US instead of trying to follow some sort of independent strategy.

3- Win for whoever in EU who supports self defense and a more consolidated Europe.

4- First time a non nuclear country (Aussi has very limited exp with nuclear power) manages to obtain nuclear subs from nuclear countries.

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

#83

Post by rmk »

jonnybgood wrote: post #74
rmk wrote: 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…

> Pretty surefire way of helping fence-sitters become client states of China. By offering to provide less costly subs in support of a war with China? Your comment is nonsensical given the context of the deal.

It's not the military hardware that I'm referring to, but the treatment of a longstanding ally that helped found the nation. Did the US participate in the tender? It appears to me that they just swooped in and offered the subs that had been picked over Germany and Japan's proposed subs. The French aren't recalling their diplomats from Germany and Japan, are they?

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

#84

Post by AnimalMuppet »

justinzollars wrote: post #61
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not sure about that. I think if enough people flag a post, it automatically... well, it doesn't remove a post, exactly, but it marks the post as "flagged", which also means that people can't add comments to it any longer.

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

#85

Post by ekabod »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #44
ldargin wrote: 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.

France can do nuclear subs, Australia explicitly wanted diesel, until they suddenly didn't want diesel anymore. Arms deals are a joke always, they don't make sense, its basically all corruption fraud and lies.

France refuses to sell nuclear submarines.

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

#86

Post by blazespin »

Robotbeat wrote: post #56

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.

They are less upset about the deal itself and more upset with the way it was abruptly announced. It really doesn't make the french look like a respected ally.

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

#87

Post by lvs »

tmilard wrote: post #55
gdy wrote: post #28

I wonder what French think now about their cancelling of the Mistral deal with Russia [0] under American pressure [1]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistral-class_amphibious_assau... [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-russia-mistral-idU...

Well... I feel we got screwed twice !

Does a NATO county selling weapons to a NATO strategic adversary not seem mildly questionable on its own?

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

#88

Post by nradov »

fruffy wrote: post #60
tkojames wrote: post #16

It is super laughable because the nuclear powered version that they are building for themselves was a fixed bid contract for something like 10 billion for 8 subs.. and the Australian contract keeps going up and up something like 35 billion for ten subs. The diesel sub for Australia is based on the nuclear sub that they signed the fixed bid contract for. Anybody with half brain can tell they are making up the lost of…

How trustworthy is The War Zone? It seems to be largely focussed on US defence tech industry, so I expect fairly biased reporting on this topic. Is there a better source?

There is some pro-US military bias in their analysis and editorial content. But their factual reports tend to be more accurate than the mainstream media.

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

#89

Post by gpayan »

tkojames wrote: post #16

It is super laughable because the nuclear powered version that they are building for themselves was a fixed bid contract for something like 10 billion for 8 subs.. and the Australian contract keeps going up and up something like 35 billion for ten subs. The diesel sub for Australia is based on the nuclear sub that they signed the fixed bid contract for. Anybody with half brain can tell they are making up the lost of…

Actually, as mentioned multiple times in the past couple of days by former French Ambassador to the US Gerard Araud, diesel was an Australia demand, which required France to modify its subs (all nuclear powered) and added complexity to the project. According to the former Ambassador, it would have been much easier and cheaper for France to supply Australia with nuclear subs.
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