Fun fact: Between 9 and 15 Greys were used in the show, so I suppose any would do. At least in your world.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe...ver-aukus-submarine-deal-20210916-p58sea.html ‘Stab in the back’: Europe’s fury with Morrison and Biden over AUKUS submarine deal By Latika Bourke September 17, 2021 London: A furious France says Australia stabbed it in the back while the United States was accused of conducting a “hostile act” by helping sabotage a $90 billion submarine deal, as the shockwaves from the new AUKUS alliance spread across the continent on Thursday. In June, Prime Minister Scott Morrison was secretly negotiating a deal to acquire US nuclear submarine technology with US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G7 in Cornwall, while at the same time telling French President Emmanuel Macron that the submarine deal was back on track. France reacts to submarine decision France has reacted angrily to the submarine alliance between Australia, the US and UK. On Thursday morning, the trio shocked France in announcing the new AUKUS defence alliance which would involve Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarines. Morrison did not convey the news directly to Macron before making the public announcement. Macron is due to raise the issue at dinner with outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel. France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was furious and hit the airwaves. “It is really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed and I’m angry today, with a lot of bitterness, about this breach [of contract],” he told France Info radio. “This is not done between allies, especially when there’s been two years of negotiations for this contract.” Foreign Affairs Marise Payne and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at a meeting in 2019.Credit: “It’s a slap in our face,” France’s former ambassador to the US Gérard Araud told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in an interview. He said Morrison had never given the French the impression that he could walk away from the entire contract without notice or negotiation. “Even if you concluded that the program was wrecked it was not necessary to do it in this sort of brutal and inelegant way,” he said. “For us, Australia was the pillar of our Indo-Pacific strategy, we had the impression that we had created a political partnership with Australia, so it’s really quite insulting to see overnight the Australians saying ‘we don’t care’. “Everything we have done with the Australians has been thrown overboard in a night.” When asked if the relationship was salvageable for future collaborations, Araud said: “No, no, it’s not possible.” “The way it was done – the submarines we were selling were nuclear-powered – why didn’t Australia take France on board? Why? Not only did they scrap the contract, they are kicking the French out. “There was no reason why we shouldn’t be part of this new game.” He said the damage was not just confined to the Australia-France relationship. France’s Foreign Minister said Biden’s secret negotiations were something former US president Donald Trump would do. Araud said it was a “hostile act” from the United States. “The US has trampled our national interest. What the US has done to our national interest is a hostile act,” he said. “What we were doing with the Australians was a strategic choice and this strategic choice has been swept away, not only by the Australians but also by the Americans.” He said the British involvement was immaterial because they were “poodles of the Americans, as usual”. Scott Morrison joins US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to announce a pact between the three nations that will see a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines built in Adelaide. In London, Prime Minister Boris Johnson came under pressure to declare that the relationship with France was “rock solid”, while Defence Secretary Ben Wallace conceded “if it had happened to us, I would have been deeply disappointed [for Britain’s defence industry].” Former British prime minister Theresa May asked if the agreement would result in Britain being dragged into military conflict if China invaded Taiwan. The fallout overshadowed the European Commission’s new Indo-Pacific strategy unveiled in Brussels which expressed interest in joint maritime exercises with its partners in the region, including Australia. Josep Borrell, Vice-President of the Commission, was repeatedly questioned about the AUKUS alliance as he unveiled the new European strategy. “I suppose that a deal like that wasn’t cooked the day before yesterday,” Borrell said. “Despite that, we weren’t informed.” The communiqué also stated that concluding a free trade agreement with Australia was one of its objectives and assured Australia that the security pact would not affect the future of those negotiations.
Opinion Australia’s submarine program has truly lost its rudder Peter Hartcher Political and international editor September 16, 2021 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...as-truly-lost-its-rudder-20210916-p58scb.html China is well on its way to achieving its goal of complete military modernisation by 2027 and already has more warships and submarines than the US. China’s shipyards launch a new sub every year or so. Australia is well on its way to achieving world champion status in faffing about with submarine acquisition. As of Thursday, Australia has no agreement with anyone to build any new submarines whatsoever. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has signed an agreement with the United States and Great Britain on nuclear-powered subs.Credit:Bloomberg China has 66 submarines. It’s expected to have 10 more by 2030, six of those nuclear powered, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence. By that time, Australia will have exactly as many subs as it has today, which is the same number it had a quarter-century earlier, according to the Morrison government’s statements on Thursday. That is, Australia will have the same six Collins-class, diesel-powered subs that were first commissioned by the Hawke government, assuming they’re still functional. Their retirement has been postponed repeatedly as successive governments – Labor and Liberal – have fumbled their replacements. So what was all the fanfare from Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson on Thursday? Australia, the US and UK have announced an “enhanced trilateral security partnership”, the inelegantly named AUKUS. It is not a treaty and doesn’t pretend to be. Australia’s nuclear-powered submarine deal with the US and UK Prime Minister Scott Morrison says Australia has 'entered a new era' after signing an historic new defence pact with the US and UK, which will see the country armed with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. But it does represent an increased level of trust and an intensified commitment to share technology and advanced weaponry. This includes co-operation on some of the same next-generation technologies that Beijing has declared as its highest tech priorities – quantum computing, quantum communication, artificial intelligence and cyber. This could prove to be the most important element of the agreement in equipping Australia for its own defence in the longer run, if it’s executed intelligently, a major caveat. As US President Biden put it, AUKUS is a “historic step to deepen and formalise co-operation among all three of our nations because we all recognise the imperative of ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific over the long term.” Australia has spent the post-war era fantasising about nuclear power for its submarines. Until now, that’s all they were, fantasies. But the three wartime allies have chosen to announce as their first initiative a plan to help Australia acquire nuclear propulsion technology for submarines. Australia has spent the entire post-war era fantasising about nuclear power for its submarines. Until now, that’s all they were, fantasies. Morrison gets credit for persuading Washington and London to share their closely held nuclear expertise with Canberra. But what’s Australia going to do with it? Beyond the theatrics of the announcement, what is the practical outcome? First, the Morrison government has cancelled the existing contracts to buy 12 French-designed submarines. This was the deal that the Turnbull government struck five years ago. The subs, to be built in Adelaide based on French design, were to cost an estimated lifetime total of $90 billion. The first was supposed to enter the water in about a decade from now. That agreement, which was feted as the basis of a new era in strategic relations with France, is now dead. All that remains is an argument about how much Australia will have to pay to cancel. And a deep sense of French dismay and betrayal. Much as Australia’s abortive deal for Japanese subs ended years earlier. A new type 094A Jin-class nuclear submarine Long March 10 of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy participates in a naval parade in 2019.Credit:AP And in its place? The Morrison government has announced an interdepartmental committee to spend the next 18 months talking to the US and UK “identifying the optimal pathway to deliver at least eight nuclear-powered submarines for Australia”. They’re to be built in Adelaide, the government tells us, so that will require a full reconfiguration of the shipyards and workforce. But there is no known design and certainly no contracts. In other words, it’s a plan to have a plan. But we know from the Morrison government that the proposed new nuclear subs will be delivered years later than the French-designed subs, and cost more. And because it’s planning “at least eight”, Australia could end up with fewer than the 12 in the previous deal. Nuclear propulsion will, if it ever becomes operative in an Australian sub, allow them to remain on station longer, underwater longer and travel faster. The subs aren’t proposed to have nuclear arms. The nuclear reactors that drive them would be inserted as sealed units by the US or UK. Canberra says that no civil or military nuclear capability will be developed in Australia. “We’d be buying a nuclear reactor in a box,” says ASPI’s sub specialist, Marcus Hellyer. “It does make us even more dependent on the US. At any point, they can turn off the technology. The question then is what expertise we can develop to operate and sustain the subs.” Australia can now contemplate another decade or two with no new subs. And even if this proposal goes to plan, Australia will not have a full sovereign capability but an increased defence dependency on the US. Perhaps Morrison thinks that America, having produced one Donald Trump, could not possibly produce another. So when Beijing’s spokesmen fulminate against this announcement, don’t be surprised if they have to pause to laugh into their sleeves.
Not in our waters: Ardern says no to visits from Australia’s new nuclear subs Australia’s new nuclear-powered submarines would not be allowed in NZ's territorial waters under a long-standing nuclear-free policy...... https://www.smh.com.au/world/oceani...ralia-s-new-nuclear-subs-20210916-p58s7k.html
Uk pulled out of the EU and the Brits and frogs have always had a frosty relationship . Global landscape is changing and it looks like the English speaking nations are re-grouping .