Canberra’s shock decision to go for US nuclear submarine technology still reverberates around the world. Indian politicians are furious that the US has refused to cooperate with New Dehli on nuclear submarines for more than a decade.
Why are the Australian’s getting access? They smell racism.
In Paris President Macron’s government continues to seethe – and Australia’s chances of winning a free trade agreement with the European Union increasingly look to be in the toilet.
Why such fury?
When the US first launched a nuclear submarine in the 1950s, the naval world was transformed. Dominated by battleships until 1940, and by aircraft carriers for the subsequent decade, nuclear powered and armed suddenly became the most powerful warships in the world.
Capable not just of destroying enemy nations, but whole continents, nuclear submarines roamed the world, virtually undetectable.
The US developed a massive fleet – larger than that of all its competitors and allies put together. Today Washington deploys 72 nuclear powered navy vessels – 66 of them submarines.
The US submarines use today’s most sophisticated nuclear reactors. The newest, the Virginia class hunter-killer submarines, have reactors that use bomb-grade uranium – enriched to more than 90 per cent.
Once launched, they can operate for 33 years without refuelling. Capable of creating their own air and drinking water, they can stay submerged as long as the crew can bear – and food supplies last.
The whales of the US fleet are the 14 ballistic missile submarines – large launching pads for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Those massive machines are guarded by 52 hunter killer submarines, of which the Virginia class is the most recent and by far the most powerful.
The latest Block V Virginia Class submarine will greatly increase the number of missiles which can be carried. In effect this will make it a cruise missile submarine (SSGN). Yet it will not take away from this otherwise flexible anti-ship, anti-submarine, intelligence and special forces platform.
Naval News (US)
Both India and France, it would seem are furious at Les Anglos for getting together in another deal – and working together on the most powerful military machines in existence.
John Lichfield, writing on Unherd, explains the unfolding French fury.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, is a cautious man, solid, reliable, even a little dull. He is not (unlike some French politicians) prone to empty gestures or over-dramatic statements. On Saturday night, on live television, Mr Le Drian, accused the United States government of lying to France. He also accused Australia of “lies and duplicity”.
John Lichfield
Britain, the French Foreign Minister said, was guilty merely of its “usual opportunism”. Boris Johnson’s government was the “fifth wheel on the cart” in an unfriendly conspiracy against France by the two other English-speaking nations.
This is not normal language between allies – certainly not that of an experienced foreign minister speaking to his nation on live TV.
There was a “serious crisis” between Paris, Washington and Canberra, Le Drian said, “a serious breach of trust”.
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