The AUKUS treachery replaced state of the art AIR-INDEPENDENT super silent submarines using fuel cells with noisy old all too large US nuclear attack subs. Moreover, the US subs use HEU Highly Enriched Uranium (bomb like)… which is arguably unlawful for Australia to have… And moreover Australia doesn’t have the nuclear military know-how, so AUKUS makes it completely dependent upon the USA. … With a would be tech which incites, per its weakness, the Chinese dictatorship to attack.
The motivation for the treachery was purely nasty nationalism: Australians speak English, so we, the US led by Biden owns them, Aussies have no right to make a gigantic sub contract with France. The proof of this is that the US can’t even take care of its own attack subs.
Wall Street Journal: Here’s an ominous illustration of America’s growing security problems: U.S. Navy attack submarines are excellent weapons for devastating America’s enemies, but the fleet doesn’t have enough boats and is in serious disrepair. Republicans in Congress are right to ask President Biden to address this crisis as part of a deal to sell subs to the Aussies. For more details, see appendix below
The super silent air independent diesels were derived from state of the art nuclear attack Suffren class. Suffren uses jet propulsion, which is one thousand times more silent than propeller propulsion. Suffren can operate while its nuclear reactor is basically shut down. In the old propeller driven Virginia class, the nuclear reactor is always circulating coolant and making plenty of noise.
Several powers, not just France, developed air-independent diesel electric subs. These subs stay underwater for at least a month without coming close to the surface. They’re more silent than conventional nuclear subs. This is why France developed the Suffren class, which usually works in silent mode, purely electric.
Biden thought smart to torpedo the French nuclear industry, but actually his 33 nuclear attack subs are very far from state of the art, and China is scrambling to deploy an air independent hybrid diesel electric fleet which could make short work of the large, noisy, old Virginia class (Suffren like technology will be introduced by the US in 2030s, in SSBN).
The two independent nuclear armed democracies with independent Military Industrial Bases are France and the USA. It’s sad and scary that Biden behaved relative to France in a way that weakens the West.
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The naive Jeffrey Solomon interjected:
Don’t really care a bit about France, but if this Suffren class technology is as good as you indicate (without analyzing potential negatives such as expense, maintenance, etc.) then it would be interesting to learn why is isn’t being integrated into the U.S. Fleet.
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Tyranosopher:
This is all about the perfidious AUKUS!
Well, as the United States would not have come into being without the huge help of France ($6 trillion in 2023 $), plus the fact nascent US and French philosophy and politics were entangled in the century and at the time the French and American republics were created (the constitutions came within weeks of each other in1789!), any US citizen should have a reverence to France as the creator country (England is also in a similar situation relative to France).
The Defense Industrial Bases have been an essential part of the military of independent countries since the Bronze Age. During the US war of independence, for many years, more than 90% of the ammunition of the US army was made in France, and shipped across the Atlantic, fighting the Royal Navy. Without the French DIB, there would not even have been a US war of independence.
The West now counts only two independent DIBs: that of the US and that of France. The UK, also a nuclear power, uses a majority of French and US equipment for its crucial systems, so is not DIB independent.
It is in the crucial survival interest of the West to maintain at least two DIBs. The AUKUS pact was a sordid affair, the sort of behavior many have suspected Trump was capable of… But it was Biden who did it.
The US DIB wants all the money it can possibly imagine. Competitive French systems with French electronics are a greater threat than Putin (who is actually a friend of the US Military Industrial Complex, the DIB). A DIB can also create bounds that last: the F35 is a poor interceptor, but all countries which buy it engage into a Faustian bargain with the US Deep State. Biden tried the same with AUKUS… Except that the F35 is state of the art in some ways, whereas the Virginia class is obsolete.
Most Americans in good standing repeat like deranged parrots that US tech is vastly superior to all and any. In particular, French. However the Barracuda class has pump jets, which are a thousand times more silent than propellers. The US will have pump tech in the 1930s for the future Columbia SSBN class. Also Suffren above, a nuclear sub, can go completely electric… which is more silent than nuclear. Now the important point is that AIP, Air Independent Propulsion, can just use fuel cells and electric… And that’s extremely silent! Several countries, not just France, are developping that tech, and this includes India (from a French tech transfer)… But also of course China!
This is the slight problem that has not been considered in the case of a possible invasion of Taiwan: Chinese AIP subs may be capable of imposing maritime dominance. Australia, by opting to buy immensely expensive, obsolete, gigantic nuclear subs from the US… which builds only one of this subs each year, not satisfying its own needs by a long shot… Australia is inciting China’s Xi to attack… And maybe that’s the idea all along… If not an explicit idea, maybe an implicit one…
Patrice Ayme’
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 