Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
According to The Times, Australia came to us and then we both went to convince the Americans so it's rather surprising the French have exempted us from this. Maybe it's a passive-aggressive attempt to play down our role in it or it's just not realistic to do so.
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The reality is, we don’t have the manufacturing capacity to provide Australia the components they need to self-assemble their new subs. Nor do we have the capacity to assemble them. The shipyard at Barrow is fully occupied and its supply chain is fully committed. Nevertheless we could have provided them with something eventually, so the Yanks would have nothing to lose (as in, they couldn’t stop Australia acquiring nuclear powered subs, assuming they even wanted to) and everything to gain by being the ones to sell them the gear. Plus, the strategic case is actually quite strong, because an Australian nuclear submarine fleet takes some of the pressure off the Americans, and also gives them access to potentially very useful naval dockyard facilities on the other side of the Pacific. There is a very high level of integration between the US and UK armed forces so I imagine the Aussies got a very high-level hearing in Washington really quite quickly.
I don’t think the French are being passive-aggressive towards us though. They need day-to-day diplomatic relations with us in a way they just don’t with either the Yanks or the Aussies. They are fizzing, with some justification, but realpolitik requires them to choke it down in our case. Again, I note the significance of that with regards to other aspects of our relationship with European countries.