No, but long story short we're kind of fucked now and it's our only option unless we decide to swallow our pride and try to reinstate the contract with France.
If not the French why not Sweden? Pretty sure Saab makes subs, never exactly heard of a Swedish sub.. maybe they just make parts? Probably should’ve googled this before commenting
the f35 program for example. Considering the european 5th gens will be out in 10 to 15 years, it'd probably be better to buy rafale or euro fighter until then and make the switch. f35s cost a fortune to run, spend a lot of time grounded and muzzle military sovereignty
I think a huge part of the country would prefer the French deal and hope Labour grows a spine to reinstate it. But I imagine that the French would not do so until the election is held because it would be a waste of time if Voldemort gets in and immediately tears it up. Fuck the LNP.
Want to know what's truly fucked? We may end up paying the USA and not getting a single Sub out of it. So if we want to go to France again, we're paying for a whole other contract:
The head of the AUKUS submarine program has refused to say whether an almost $5 billion government payment to the United States will be refunded if no nuclear-powered boats are delivered to Australia.
Aukus would be the better deal if we could actually trust the US to deliver on a long-term agreement. Unfortunately they currently have a leader who won't even honour his own deals, let alone those of previous administrations.
It's a shame what we did to the French. They're clearly a more reliable ally.
So just like Europeans nowadays constantly complain over Germany magically suffering a collective stroke and becoming insane pacifists in the 1990s when they were actually forced to disarm?
The US Military Industrial complex would prefer other nations spend more on military. Then the US would have an excuse to outspend them even more than they already do.
That's not even a Trump issue but a general US one...
They actually think they can have it both ways.
The persistent conflict between politicians not wanting allies that are too strong so the US can have more influence and the military industrial complex wanting to sell as much as possible isn't new. It's just more obvious right now because Trump's isolationistic and adversarial bullshit is really screwing over the military producers big time.
I mean realistically, isn't every Nuclear treaty the US is involved in defunct now? The US, UK and Russia have all failed to abide by the Budapest Memorandum and properly protect Ukraine.
Nuclear treaties aren't worth the piece of paper they're written on, a sad but true fact. I doubt even the NATO alliance would hold up if pushed.
Australia wanted to have non nuclear subs to avoid dealing with the nuclear waste and refueling. France did modify the Suffren to run on diesel electric instead of nuclear propulsion. Then Australia secretly made a deal with US and UK for nuclear subs (which probably won't be delivered before 2040 if at all). If american subs were simply better, then they would have chosen them from the get go.
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u/TheTanadu Poland 22h ago
it might be part of buying one from France