Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 299 posts

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

#171

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ericmay wrote: post #145
SiempreViernes wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. The UK is part on the basis of historical ties, not because someone looked at a map and said "hey, that guy controls some important bits". It also seems distressingly naive to say "it's been two days and nothing's happened, so nobody cares" when talking about the EU reaction. The only fast EU action you ever get is the stat…

> Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. This is kind of like a nice piece of trivia. France has 0 ability to protect those territories and they're pretty much useless to any other country except in the event of a war in the Pacific, in which case the US would be using them as basis (or China or Japan or whoever but definitely not France). Sure France could sail…

"The US went through a surprising amount of trouble with the whole Huawei thing. The US expectation is frankly - hey we say drop this because China is a rival. Europe just didn't play ball and now the US is saying hey I don't think we can count on you. And you can't blame this on Trump either. It doesn't matter what his approach is."

I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command.

This US approach where we talk about human rights and freedom but stuff people into Guantanamo bay (itself illegally occupied) without trial and attack rivals without a pretence of due process really rubs europeans the wrong way.

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

#172

Post by ericmay »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #165
ericmay wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like political hardball being played and it’s surprising France (and to a lesser extent the EU). Frankly, France and the EU have been trying to straddle a middle ground between the US and China, and strategically Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK (yes I know France can project some power I’m not downplaying them) but they have been dragging their feet and the action is just not going to be in…

> Europe has been unwilling to throw their cards in with America 100% Why should they? America is an unreliable partner. They torpedoed a good deal with Iran, mismanaged the withdrawing from Afghanistan, have been a nuisance regarding the building of pipelines between Germany and Russia and an overall destabilizing force in the Middle-East. Trump did happen. The fastest Europe separates itself from the American spher…

> The fastest Europe separates itself from the American sphere of influence, the better.

And now you know why the US and UK didn't give the slightest shit about how mad France got about this deal. NATO is dead, the US is leaving Europe for better or worse, wanted or not.

And keep in mind I'm just doing my best at an interpretation/observation. Everything you cite here from the perspective of some or many European nations can be just reasons for not wanting to throw their cards in with the US... but the US can act too and say fine, then we're moving on to what we want to do with or without you. This is clearly occurring with the pivot to Asia and strengthening of alliances.

Idk how things will shape up, but I wouldn't be shocked in the next 20-40 years to see free movement of trade and people between the US, Australia, and the UK.

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

#173

Post by systemvoltage »

sudosysgen wrote: post #112
systemvoltage wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point #4. Distinction we need to make is that Australia will obtain Nuclear-powered subs, not nuclear weapons. I haven’t seen what “Nuclear Sub” entails with regards to this contract anywhere so please correct me if I am wrong. It’s not breaking the non-proliferation treaty.

It entails in the case of US subs 95% enrichment uranium.

Is making rad bombs trivial? Can you just dump nuclear fuel out of the sub and stick it in a gun-type bomb with no prior experience?

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

#174

Post by dang »

xyk2 wrote: post #7

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

It's probably sample bias. This perception goes back at least a decade. There's a bunch of links here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869

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

#175

Post by ericmay »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #171
ericmay wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Actually, France has far more territory in the Pacific than the UK, and better positioned too. This is kind of like a nice piece of trivia. France has 0 ability to protect those territories and they're pretty much useless to any other country except in the event of a war in the Pacific, in which case the US would be using them as basis (or China or Japan or whoever but definitely not France). Sure France could sail…

"The US went through a surprising amount of trouble with the whole Huawei thing. The US expectation is frankly - hey we say drop this because China is a rival. Europe just didn't play ball and now the US is saying hey I don't think we can count on you. And you can't blame this on Trump either. It doesn't matter what his approach is." I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command. This US app…

> I guess Europeans aren't happy to impose political sanctions on command.

Right. And so now the United States is moving on from Europe. They still get all the benefits of trade and such without any of the commitment that they feel wasn't being reciprocated.

I'm not trying to make a moral judgement of the US or EU or something here, just trying to interpret what moves are being made.

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

#176

Post by cedricgle »

markus_zhang wrote: post #82

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 (A…

I don't understand why France sticks with the USA/UK at this point as they treated as bull-crap. I am sure they could strike a good deal with the Chinese and be better off: like leasing land in the Caribbean Sea or making a joint venture in some weapon. France don't really care about the China Sea in the end.

They should be as "pragmatical" as the Aussie !.

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

#177

Post by truetraveller »

rmk wrote: post #24
torstenvl wrote: post #20

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?

He's saying what happened in Derna (i.e. abandoning allies) was and always will be the way of the US government. It's a part their DNA, their heritage, and they'll keep doing it. Personally, not sure if this holds merit.

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

#178

Post by systemvoltage »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #165
ericmay wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks to me like political hardball being played and it’s surprising France (and to a lesser extent the EU). Frankly, France and the EU have been trying to straddle a middle ground between the US and China, and strategically Europe is mostly irrelevant outside of the UK (yes I know France can project some power I’m not downplaying them) but they have been dragging their feet and the action is just not going to be in…

> Europe has been unwilling to throw their cards in with America 100% Why should they? America is an unreliable partner. They torpedoed a good deal with Iran, mismanaged the withdrawing from Afghanistan, have been a nuisance regarding the building of pipelines between Germany and Russia and an overall destabilizing force in the Middle-East. Trump did happen. The fastest Europe separates itself from the American spher…

> Why should they? America is an unreliable partner

If this question was raised in 2015, it would have been unequivocally yes. So was last 4 decades of partnership with NATO.

We have such a short-term memory and forgot the state of the world before the pandemic, let alone before Trump.

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

#179

Post by markus_zhang »

cedricgle wrote: post #176
markus_zhang wrote: post #82

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 (A…

I don't understand why France sticks with the USA/UK at this point as they treated as bull-crap. I am sure they could strike a good deal with the Chinese and be better off: like leasing land in the Caribbean Sea or making a joint venture in some weapon. France don't really care about the China Sea in the end. They should be as "pragmatical" as the Aussie !.

US is able to output harm while China doesn't have that ability.

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

#180

Post by Renaud »

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…

The upset is not just about the loss of a commercial deal, I'm sure there will be some contractual compensations.

The issue is about the manner in which the deal was announced. Newspapers describe the urgent calls from the AU officials to their French counterparts hours before the very public announcement by the US, UK and AU.

Diplomatically, that's a pretty callous thing to do to a partner. The ballooning costs may have been a factor in the decision, but it's more likely that the move is purely geopolitical. In these matters, there is also no guarantee that the deal with the US will end up cheaper at all.

The more important subtext here is the damage done to the US' image and trustworthiness as it's willing to do backroom deals to serve its interests by disregarding friends and allies. Not the end of the world, but not a very smart move either if you want to be trusted.

Post reply on HN