SSNs for Australia

For those interested, there is a reasonably civil and informative discussion going on here also - Why are other countries reacting negatively to Australia's decision to deploy nuclear submarines? https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/68871/why-are-other-countries-reacting-negatively-to-australias-decision-to-deploy-nu

Sorry about the SSBN mix-up, I should have doublechecked NATO designators after reading through a bunch of them.

One post was quite ironic. It claims the French went to a lot of trouble designing a diesel retrofit to their domestic nuke sub for Austrailia. Australia then grumbled that the diesels wouldn't do the job. So French noise is understandable.

 

Naturally the technical aspects of this are far beyond the ken of all but a very few, but the fact remains that Australia is not in any binding defence agreement with either the US or the UK, so seeing it touted as the "AUKUS" alliance looks like deceptive conduct to me. The ANZUS alliance, ditto, it obliges the signatories only to "consult" with each other if there is an armed attack on any one of them. But that is a matter of failure by Australian politicians, unwilling or unable to craft something better than that, although we all know when the crunch comes, no alliances are guaranteed. But that there isn't pen to paper, on a NATO-strength alliance, looks a very bad sign to me. Australian politicians badly need to explain why that has not happened, instead of talking up cute names like AUKUS.

 

Nothing to do with race-baiting, scaring the population with the "threat" of hordes from the North is a common tactic in Australian Federal electioneering. What you say about a lack of capacity to build these vessels intrigues me, if there is isn't that ability to build them in the US, there won't be here, where they are supposed to be built, we don't even have a car manufacturing industry here any more, and when COVID broke out, no ability to manufacture face masks locally, I kid you not. We basically export raw materials and import finished product. And why has no-one asked the question, if we were going to nuclear propulsion, why was the French sub not just re-ordered in its original form, which was nuclear propelled ? Was it because it is essentially an inferior boat regardless of what powered it. In that case, it is more than just a case of enhancement by nuclear propulsion that was driving the decision, it sounds like a matter of greater inter-operability with US forces that was being sought.

 

Please read what was stated...I said capacity, not ability. FWIW, right now the UK has excess capacity to build SSNs, yes it's a money thing. The US is running at capacity to replace the aging SSN 688 class with the newer SSN 774 class, even then the US drops below the minimum number of SSNs required to meet alliance missions.

The French front line SSN is not the same submarine as the offered AIP one. The AIP SORPENE is a "for export" sub, not a French/NATO front line submarine (thought probably better than the COLLINS...rolleyes) . Remember to cast this whole affair in terms of EU/NATO/ex Commonwealth/ex SEATO/ and China right now.

Yes. And in light of China declaring that they want everything in the SCS up to "the first island chain" to form a bastion for their SSBNs, a AIP just doesn't cut it as a counter.

Nope, it is not interoperability with the US as there will not be any similar hardware, but a similar "all ocean, all waters" capability for their submarine forces.

 

Very interesting, I have not seen that proposition ever mentioned by the media here, as the reason for their activities there, all we are ever told, is they want to grab resources there. This starts to make a lot more sense than what we are continually fed.

 

China has Almost Breached the First Island Containment Chain https://intpolicydigest.org/china-has-almost-breached-the-first-island-containment-chain/

 

It's Ok, not lots of info from there. Everyone is left in the shadow world right now.

 

On paper, you would say it is Japan's role to bear more of whatever burdens are required to be borne in this area, not Australia's, which is far removed, but a greatly amped-up Japanese military would not play that well with the neighbours.

 

I mean, Australia has little to speak of in the way of a navy that could defend our local neighbourhood, this business of playing on the big stage far from home, has me baffled.

 

After the recent AU/China trade tiff and a look at the "road and belt" eminent domain PLAN ports being built, Australia is about to be center stage real close to home. Perhaps you haven't heard of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and the reasoning behind it? They are meeting at the White House this week.
5 Things To Know About Biden's Quad Summit With Leaders Of India, Australia And Japan https://www.npr.org/2021/09/23/1039698202/quad-summit-biden-india-australia-japan-white-house

 

Biden couldn't even remember Morrison's name in a tele-conference, sort of tells you how much importance is attached to Australia's participation. I have a strong feeling Morrison is hoping to wedge the opposition party here with a "national security" election campaign, but so far the only negative reaction is coming from a couple of former prime ministers. I maintain that the focus needs to be on what the letter of these alliances is, so far I see a lot of "spirit" but very little in writing that inspires confidence, if some tin-pot central European country can have the protection of NATO conferred on it, why can't we have similar assurance ?

 

New Zealand is not a part of the new alignment, but of course by reason of culture stand to benefit without occurring any cost to them.
Australia is weak and woke. population count is 25,800,000 people. this is a very very small number of people in a very large land mass.
The US is looking at them as simply being a strategic location to counter China, that is the only reason for the alignment with the UK as well.
Europe is done and is no longer relevant. to anything as a global power, they are only the EU which is also a fractured, weak, and woke people.
The US is also weakened and woke and little remains of the respect we used to have worldwide.
China is the new global superpower for now, even if their claims are bogus.
The new alignment is our attempt to thwart the Chinese from taking over Taiwan. We are way to dependent on Taiwan electronic manufacturing, same thing with South Korea. And of course we are EXTREMELY DEPENDENT on Chinese manufacturing for most everything we use here in the USA. That includes most EVERYTHING, medical supplies, pharmaceuticals, you name it, we get it from their manufacturing it for us. Some of which we then use to make other things. My question is if China takes Taiwan, what would we really do about that, seeing how utterly and mistakenly dependent we are for so many things that come from that part of the world. Risk a nuclear war? I seriously doubt that. But for the CCP, they might take that risk betting that we wont and will fall over when shoved. And I think they also think they can win a nuclear war, the CCP does not value people very much, and they have a lot of people. Worst case, we are looking at a certain coming war with China.

 

Bob Ehrlich: America's Options Are Limited - And China Knows It (westernjournal.com)

I am sure with timid, frail, weak Biden as POTUS, and the woke democrats who care more about 'social justice warrioring ' to fundamentally change America, China knows we are beaten. China will control the South China Seas.

Biden you know was the only one voted against taking out Osama Binladen, and as Gates (Obama's cabinet secretary) said, every foreign policy decision of his has been wrong. Look for a recent example at Afghanistan cut and run, and now the open border policies., and how he attacks and divides American citizens.
CCP view Taiwan and the region as their own version of manifest destiny to the Pacific that the US experienced in its westward expansion taking over from the Spanish, and the Mexicans and the indigenous tribes. We could have also taken sparsely populated Canada back then.
If I was China's councilor, I would advise them to take Taiwan at a minimum. Chinese people have always considered Taiwan a breakaway province of China to be brought back under their control, since their civil war was won by the communists and its to where the CCP's enemies fled. This is the view of the people of mainland China, not just the CCP. When they do take over, be a disruption temporarily, but the business of Taiwan will continue to sell its technological products.

 

Smoke From Nuclear War Would Trigger Massive Climate Change, Endangering Health

• Nuclear war would damage the ozone layer, and that would result in enhanced ultraviolet light at the Earth's surface
• How quickly the damaging ultraviolet light would reach Earth's surface would depend on how much soot was injected into the atmosphere
  
• Nuclear weapons used in cities and industrial areas could touch off large-scale fires, sending massive amounts of smoke into the stratosphere
  
• A regional nuclear war would generated 5 megatons of soot and extremely high levels of ultraviolet light would begin within a year
  
• The global ozone layer would be reduced by 25% and recovery would take 12 years
  
• If a nuclear war between the United States and Russia generated 150 megatons of soot the high levels of ultraviolet light would start after eight years
  
• A global nuclear war would cause a 15-year-long reduction in ozone layer with ozone loss at 75% globally and 65% in the tropics
• Thus nuclear war would trigger worldwide climate change and take a dire toll on food production and human health

The findings were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

 

Seriously? You troubled yourself to tell everyone
Nucler war is bad, m'kay.