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by Balero 1734 days ago
> b) join AUKUS as a junior partner, very painful but logical;

Why is this logical? These partners have already shown that they are going to betray France's trust and lie to them. It would be better to be on your own than have unreliable partners, or worse ones that work against you.

4 comments

Unreliable partners are Europe's mode of operation since Antiquity. The positive side is that European countries mostly know what to expect from one another. Xi's China is a new player whose intents are much less legible.
It’s not right to say to be allies you need to put my commercial interests above your security and commercial costs
> These partners have already shown that they are going to betray France's trust and lie to them.

What? Betray France? So France jeopardizes a nation's national defense by failing to deliver critical defense assets, and this is spun into being a betrayal on France?

Are we supposed to put our blinders on to think that this issue is about France's commercial interests and not Australia's national security?

They hit their September deadline with the project, and all of the requested changes. The assets were on track, with the requested changes.

The betrayal issue comes with the very recent statements from Australia about supporting the project, whilst behind the scenes unbeknownst to France planning to scrap it.

To be fair, France has consistently betrayed its allies, throughout history. The start of WWII is worth looking at, where both France and Britain broke mutual defense treaty after mutual defense treaty appeasing Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

A lost sale in contrast? That seems more like normal business than lying and betrayal.

mind you that pre world war two. the political and diplomatic game in Europe was far different then it is today.

I would not expect France to the same behavior with other EU members.

None of the other parties here are EU members.

Culture runs deep. France adores Vercingetorix, who surrendered to Julius Caesar after "releasing" all the women and children to die of starvation between the Roman and French lines at the Battle Of Alesia.

Since WWII, France has been a fickle ally to the US at best.