AUKUS : US, UK and Australia forge military alliance to counter China

Yeah, so wouldn't switching to life-of-the-ship reactors make sense? The savings will allow you to go for more subs.
When we sign a treaty, we make efforts to respect it: for example, we are the only one of the five officially nuclear countries to have dismantled all our nuclear test facilities, the Megajoule laser being in conformity with the treaty which authorises "small" explosions.
 
Contrat du siècle: après la gifle australienne, la main tendue indienne?

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Contract of the century: after the Australian slap, the Indian hand out?


India and France will strengthen their cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. A historic partner of the French defence industry, could New Delhi turn the slap in the face suffered by France in Australia to its advantage? Insights.

Could the French fiasco in Australia, by ricochet, serve Indian interests?

Since Canberra torpedoed the "contract of the century" for 12 submarines with the complicity of the Biden Administration, eyes have been on India. New Delhi has expressed interest in the French submersibles and has budgeted 12 billion euros to acquire six nuclear-powered submarines. "One idea is gaining ground among analysts in the capital: New Delhi must seize the opportunity to push France to transfer its submersible technology, particularly in nuclear propulsion," reports Le Figaro.

"The taboo of nuclear dissemination has been shattered"

On 21 September, Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi spoke by phone. The two statesmen reaffirmed their willingness to act jointly in the Indo-Pacific region. According to the Elysée, the President of the Republic insisted on "France's commitment to contribute to strengthening India's strategic autonomy, including its industrial and technological base". It remains to be seen whether a French concession in the strategic and sovereign field of nuclear propulsion is possible.

"It seems quite logical on the Indian side to widen the gap to ensure a transfer of technology that the Americans are not ready to do," journalist Olivier Da Lage admitted to Sputnik.

Author of the essay L'Inde, désir de puissance (Éd. Armand Colin, 2017), he underlines that the "taboo of nuclear dissemination has been shattered" following the announcement by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson of such a technology transfer to Australia.

"In India's current frame of mind, the issue of technology transfer will arise anyway. India really wants to achieve the fullest possible autonomy as quickly as possible. I find it hard to imagine them simply asking for submarines without participating in their development and construction, which was the case with the Scorpene."

In 2005, New Delhi had placed an order for six submersibles with DCNS (now renamed Naval Group), built in Bombay. This contract was accompanied by a technology transfer "unprecedented for Indian industry", to quote the French group. The process was also a prerequisite for the Rafale contract. Dassault was only able to partially avoid this by drastically reducing the number of aircraft: initially 126, of which 108 were manufactured in India, the operation was finally concluded with 36 aircraft manufactured in France.

As Olivier Da Lage reminds us, France is a 'highly valued' partner for the Indians in military matters. A long-standing relationship. If the "spectacular" Rafale contract signed in 2016 "has entrenched the idea in India that France is a strategic partnership", as early as the 1950s, India had bought 130 Ouragan ground attack aircraft and 110 Mystère IVs from Dassault Aviation, then around fifty Mirage 2000s in the mid-1980s. The latter were particularly famous during the Kargil conflict in 1999, enabling the Indian army to destroy Pakistani strongholds on the Himalayan peaks.

Since these feats of arms, the Mirage 2000 remains the main multi-role aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF). So much so that at the beginning of the week, the Indian press revealed that New Delhi had bought 24 demobilised Mirage 2000 from Paris at the end of August in order to maintain its fleet in spite of the arrival of the Rafale on the air bases in Kashmir.

French word more reliable than American

Despite the hitch of having inflicted an embargo on India during the second Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, France enjoys the status of a power not aligned with any of the blocs and of not being the former British coloniser. In 1998, these bilateral links in the field of defence were concretised by the signature of a strategic partnership. Paris recognised India's pivotal role in the region and wished to support it in international bodies, promoting cooperation in the fields of defence, civil nuclear energy, trade and industry. A privileged relationship that has never ceased to grow and around which Paris has built its strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.

France thus remains India's second largest arms supplier behind Russia, which remains by far the country's leading partner. This is an important position, given that India is the second largest importer of arms in the world after Saudi Arabia.

"Rightly or wrongly, the French are seen as putting fewer conditions on the delivery of arms than the Americans: there is no Congress that can come and vote to impose restrictions and we don't anticipate that a change of President could change the arms delivery policy.

But Franco-Indian relations are not limited to the defence sector. In another strategic sector, nuclear power, France's EDF is planning to build six EPR reactors in Jaitapur, in southwest India. It is in this "continuity" of Franco-Indian relations that Olivier Da Lage considers an Indian request to acquire nuclear propulsion plausible.

India as a partner of the United States and Australia

However, Paris is not the only Western ally of choice for New Delhi. Despite the crisis between France and the United States and Australia, Narenda Modi "is not letting the Anglo-Saxons down at all".

Indeed, while Emmanuel Macron has had a phone call from the Indian Prime Minister, the latter is in Washington on 22 September, "not only to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, but also to take part in a meeting of the 'Quad'", says Olivier Da Lage. This is his first visit outside the immediate vicinity since the start of the pandemic," he adds. The Quad, or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, is a cooperation group that has brought together Japan, Australia, India and the US since 2007.

Although less formal than the newly launched Aukus with London and Canberra, it is nothing less than an alliance against the backdrop of growing competition between Washington and Beijing. It remains to be seen whether India will have the financial means to fulfil its ambitions. Indeed, New Delhi "does not have infinitely large coffers", concludes Olivier Da Lage. Above all, it remains to be hoped that the Quad under American tutelage will not have the same effects on France as the Aukus.
 


 
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French word more reliable than American

Despite the hitch of having inflicted an embargo on India during the second Indo-Pakistani war of 1965, France enjoys the status of a power not aligned with any of the blocs and of not being the former British coloniser. In 1998, these bilateral links in the field of defence were concretised by the signature of a strategic partnership. Paris recognised India's pivotal role in the region and wished to support it in international bodies, promoting cooperation in the fields of defence, civil nuclear energy, trade and industry. A privileged relationship that has never ceased to grow and around which Paris has built its strategy in the Indo-Pacific region.

France thus remains India's second largest arms supplier behind Russia, which remains by far the country's leading partner. This is an important position, given that India is the second largest importer of arms in the world after Saudi Arabia.

"Rightly or wrongly, the French are seen as putting fewer conditions on the delivery of arms than the Americans: there is no Congress that can come and vote to impose restrictions and we don't anticipate that a change of President could change the arms delivery policy.

But Franco-Indian relations are not limited to the defence sector. In another strategic sector, nuclear power, France's EDF is planning to build six EPR reactors in Jaitapur, in southwest India. It is in this "continuity" of Franco-Indian relations that Olivier Da Lage considers an Indian request to acquire nuclear propulsion plausible.
Errrr.... no.


Remember selling Exocets to Argentina ally?

And given that Macron recently declared China not to be an adversary of NATO, how can India rely on that?


Who would he even side with if there was a conflict beteen India and China? Right or his wallet. That's the EU problem all over. They'd sell their granny for a Euro.

 
Of course not, they'd be talking to themselves.
Paris recalled its ambassadors from the United States and Australia, but it has snubbed Britain. It has not mentioned London in any public communication and officials have privately said London's role was "smoke and mirrors".
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
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New AUKUS nuclear bloc won't just battle China, it will take West into confrontation with Russia too, Moscow's security chief says​


A new geopolitical deal that will see the US and UK team up with Australia to station nuclear submarines deep down in the Pacific Ocean is a hostile step aimed not only at Beijing, but at Moscow too, a top Russian official claims.

Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, told the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper on Tuesday that the pact between the three nations, known as AUKUS, will inevitably be yet another military bloc aimed at containing and confronting the two strongest non-Western powers.

According to the interview, Patrushev compared the pact to QUAD, a strategic dialogue format between the US, India, Japan, and Australia, designed to strengthen Washington's position across Asia. According to him, the group is “a military-political bloc with a pronounced pro-American character.”
“Just the other day, another military bloc was formed in the region – the American-British-Australian AUKUS, which pursues the same goals,”
the top official went on. According to him, the new deal, which will see London and Washington hand over the technical know-how for Canberra to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines, is a threat to “the entire security architecture in Asia.”

France, which saw its long-delayed multibillion-dollar deal to supply Australia with a fleet of new submarines canned as a result of the new pact, has hit out at the decision. Over the weekend, Paris ordered its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra home as part of a furious response to the move, with the French envoy to Australia accusing his host country of “treason in the making.” Jean-Pierre Thebault said that all options were on the table in terms of a diplomatic response after his nation was “stabbed in the back.”
 
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New AUKUS nuclear bloc won't just battle China, it will take West into confrontation with Russia too, Moscow's security chief says​


A new geopolitical deal that will see the US and UK team up with Australia to station nuclear submarines deep down in the Pacific Ocean is a hostile step aimed not only at Beijing, but at Moscow too, a top Russian official claims.

Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, told the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper on Tuesday that the pact between the three nations, known as AUKUS, will inevitably be yet another military bloc aimed at containing and confronting the two strongest non-Western powers.

According to the interview, Patrushev compared the pact to QUAD, a strategic dialogue format between the US, India, Japan, and Australia, designed to strengthen Washington's position across Asia. According to him, the group is “a military-political bloc with a pronounced pro-American character.”
“Just the other day, another military bloc was formed in the region – the American-British-Australian AUKUS, which pursues the same goals,”
the top official went on. According to him, the new deal, which will see London and Washington hand over the technical know-how for Canberra to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines, is a threat to “the entire security architecture in Asia.”

France, which saw its long-delayed multibillion-dollar deal to supply Australia with a fleet of new submarines canned as a result of the new pact, has hit out at the decision. Over the weekend, Paris ordered its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra home as part of a furious response to the move, with the French envoy to Australia accusing his host country of “treason in the making.” Jean-Pierre Thebault said that all options were on the table in terms of a diplomatic response after his nation was “stabbed in the back.”

AUKUS has completely taken the heat off QUAD. So that's a relief to India.
 
Après la crise des sous-marins, l'Inde cherche à ménager la France

After the submarine crisis, India seeks to spare France

After the announcement of the military alliance between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, India and France reaffirmed the importance of their strategic partnership. For Indian analysts, this crisis represents an opportunity to promote technology transfers, particularly in the field of nuclear-powered submarines.

France and India have put on a show. After a telephone conversation on Tuesday between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, the two leaders displayed their good relations on Twitter. In his message, the French president chose to address his "dear partner" and "dear friend" Narendra Modi in Hindi, a language he holds dear, before thanking him in English for reaffirming the importance of their strategic partnership.

"France is a very important partner for us in the Indo-Pacific but also in multilateral forums. Our two countries have a strong sense of strategic autonomy," said Jawed Ashraf, Indian Ambassador to France.

Avoiding any form of hegemony

Without mentioning the new security alliance between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (Aukus), Paris and New Delhi recalled that their approach had "the ambition to promote regional stability and the rule of law, while ruling out any form of hegemony" in the Indo-Pacific, the epicentre of tensions between China and the US.

For Jawed Ashraf, "France is actively present and will continue to contribute to the stability of the Indo-Pacific region. It has pushed Europe to develop a strategy for this area where it could bring a lot of economic weight. "Any engagement that would make France uncomfortable should be avoided," comments researcher Harsh Pant, a professor at King's College London and affiliated with the Observer Research Foundation.

Distancing itself from Aukus

In its first official statements, New Delhi has been cautious about Aukus, although it is a group of partners. "We are not part of this alliance," Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla said on Tuesday, on the eve of Narendra Modi's departure for the US. The Indian prime minister will attend a summit of Quad leaders there on Friday, a diplomatic format that brings together India, the US, Australia and Japan and aims to counterbalance Chinese power.

"The Aukus alliance is rather good news for India as it offers a more substantial counterweight to China in the region. However, India does not want to lose France as a bilateral partner and wants it to continue to be part of a broader coalition that is emerging in the Indo-Pacific," Harsh Pant points out. For, as Jawed Ashraf points out, "the level of military activity in the Pacific will only increase.

An opportunity

For Indian analysts, this submarine crisis "opens up the possibility of a transfer of technology between France and India in terms of nuclear-powered submarines," says Uday Bhaskar, a former Indian naval officer, now director of Society for Policy Studies, a think tank based in New Delhi.

The naval shipbuilder Naval Group has been accompanying India since 2005 in the construction of six submarines based on the Scorpen model, a conventional submarine of 1,800 tonnes, entrusted to the Indian military shipyard Mazagon Dock Ltd (MDL) in Bombay. Step by step, Naval Group has helped the Indian industry to upgrade and the first Kalvari submarine was delivered in 2017. Since then, four have been delivered. India is considering a new tranche. Notably, in 2015, New Delhi approved a project to build six nuclear-powered attack submarines. "The United States has always refused this transfer of technology to India in the name of nuclear non-proliferation, but now, with Australia, it has opened a door to France and India," says Uday Bhaskar.

Since the sale of 36 Rafale aircraft in 2016, France and India have also strengthened their strategic partnership, with an increase in joint military exercises. However, India is still caught between contradictory choices, between equipping itself with the latest military equipment available or manufacturing at home.

And due to the lack of a sufficient budget, the country is having trouble honouring its promises of military modernisation. Dassault is still hoping for an additional Rafale order, while New Delhi has just confirmed an order for 56 C-295 military transport aircraft from Airbus, which was announced in... 2015!
 
Agree, AUKUS is more of a defense pact rather than a strategic alliance against China.US and the UK created this mask to make a defense deal with Australia.What will be the impact on QUAD only time will tell ...
Won't affect the Quad in the slightest. It's all the more better if AUKUS is the tip of the spear..We can't afford a naval war with the Chinese..
 

New AUKUS nuclear bloc won't just battle China, it will take West into confrontation with Russia too, Moscow's security chief says​


A new geopolitical deal that will see the US and UK team up with Australia to station nuclear submarines deep down in the Pacific Ocean is a hostile step aimed not only at Beijing, but at Moscow too, a top Russian official claims.

Nikolay Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, told the Argumenty i Fakty newspaper on Tuesday that the pact between the three nations, known as AUKUS, will inevitably be yet another military bloc aimed at containing and confronting the two strongest non-Western powers.

According to the interview, Patrushev compared the pact to QUAD, a strategic dialogue format between the US, India, Japan, and Australia, designed to strengthen Washington's position across Asia. According to him, the group is “a military-political bloc with a pronounced pro-American character.”
“Just the other day, another military bloc was formed in the region – the American-British-Australian AUKUS, which pursues the same goals,”
the top official went on. According to him, the new deal, which will see London and Washington hand over the technical know-how for Canberra to develop and deploy nuclear-powered submarines, is a threat to “the entire security architecture in Asia.”

France, which saw its long-delayed multibillion-dollar deal to supply Australia with a fleet of new submarines canned as a result of the new pact, has hit out at the decision. Over the weekend, Paris ordered its ambassadors in Washington and Canberra home as part of a furious response to the move, with the French envoy to Australia accusing his host country of “treason in the making.” Jean-Pierre Thebault said that all options were on the table in terms of a diplomatic response after his nation was “stabbed in the back.”
Only if Russia back China.
Paris recalled its ambassadors from the United States and Australia, but it has snubbed Britain. It has not mentioned London in any public communication and officials have privately said London's role was "smoke and mirrors".
:ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
O RLY?


 
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What's that supposed to show?
The French SSN Suffren (Barracuda Type)
The Suffren was officially delivered to the French Navy on 6 November 2020 in Toulon.

The Navy then began a new test campaign, during which its operational capabilities were tested in a real-life context, and which led to modifications, carried out during a technical stop from January to April 2021 in Toulon. The admission of the submarine to active service is planned for the end of 2021.