Nope, it was estimated to cost $40B, costs overruns have ramped that up to $90B now.Quote:
Originally Posted by sabang
Nope, it was estimated to cost $40B, costs overruns have ramped that up to $90B now.Quote:
Originally Posted by sabang
SuccessQuote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
That message has been sent and has been received.
My guess would be that AUS will get an answer soon.
So you believe that the americans will start buying the surplus AUS will have in the future ?Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
I know that the chinese are bullies.
States of a certain size often is, but what excatly do you think Aus is worried about ?
Invasion ?
If that was the case, you'd see a very different world.
AUKUS: another Morrison masterclass in big words, poor leadership and dud deals
It’s taken 24 hours, and the emergence of some actual details, to realise just how awful a decision Scott Morrison has made to embrace nuclear submarines. It’s as if this government has a default setting of making the worst possible decisions when it comes to submarines.
A simple recitation of the facts of AUKUS will illustrate this. Morrison has:
- Torn up the existing submarine contract, based on majority-local build, five years and $2b-plus in, with a break fee of at least $500 million to come
- Gone back to square one with an 18-month study
- That study will examine how Australia will buy fewer subs, for even more money, most of which will be built overseas a decade later
- Those subs will require more than twice as many people to crew and a whole new industry to maintain, when Australia can barely crew its existing fleet
- Australia will have no option but to accept the least-worst option the study comes up with
- The country with whom the existing contract was signed was completely blindsided and holds the whip hand over a trade deal with Europe and the potential for carbon tariffs on Australian exports. It’s also a country we’ve been working hard to get more engaged in our own region. France is mortally offended and unlikely to forget being stabbed in the back by ourselves and the Americans.
It would have been straightforward to do this very differently: conduct the 18-month study of nuclear vessels in secret, present the results to Naval Group — a manufacturer of nuclear-powered submarines — and ask if it can match or beat it, injecting some competitive tension into the process, and not enraging the French who would have had a crack at retaining a subs contract. There’d have been no additional delay.
But as we’ve learnt about the prime minister, he’s all about announcements. Actual competent management is beyond him.
Somehow we’ve ended up locked into the outcome of an unknown process that will inevitably deliver a program worse than the existing one in every single way — cost, timing, local content, number of boats. The Americans or the British — most likely the Americans — can present us with whatever deal they like, confident we’re not going to refuse. We can’t go back to Naval Group in 2023 and ask it to revive the contract — not without a 20% hike in costs, total humiliation and a break fee with two extra zeroes on it.
Morrison will be long gone from politics by the time construction starts — in Virginia and Connecticut, not Adelaide — and safely beyond the reach of any political accountability. His successors, however, will be stuck with a decrepit fleet of Collins-class vessels filling in another extra decade.
Perhaps we can politely ask China to hold off on any further aggression for a couple of decades while we get our act together.
They’ll also be stuck with the problem of where to get more than twice the number of submariners in a shrinking employment market as the world population ages. The usual Liberal solution is to simply bring in more foreign labour sourced from developing countries, but that’s probably not workable aboard our prize nuclear-powered strategic assets. The government is already budgeting a cost of $1 million per migrant to bring the talent needed to maintain these vessels to Australia. And it can’t think of a way to pay for what will be a $100+ billion program without dramatically lifting immigration.
The press gallery reaction has been fascinating. Mainstream media journalists been almost completely taken in by the glamour of the announcement — don’t we love it when the Americans take notice of us — and missed the lack of substance and the managerial incompetence on display.
Earlier this year, on a very different issue — Morrison’s profound deafness on gender issues — where coverage was led by female journalists in the gallery, every Morrison announcement was regarded with scepticism and his tendency to treat every issue as a political problem that could be dealt with via a media release was placed under real scrutiny.
Yesterday, on an issue where coverage was led by male journalists in the defence, foreign policy and general politics rounds, they were almost as one entirely gullible. Boys and their toys?
Readers and audiences have been badly served. But not remotely as badly as taxpayers have been and will be for decades.
AUKUS: another Morrison masterclass in big words, poor leadership and dud deals (msn.com)
It is dawning on many Australians that we have been handed one helluva big hangover here. Nobody even has any idea what it is going to cost.
More scuttlebutt-
That Fella Down Under! Scott Morrison’s AUKUS deal designed to win election, not make Australia safe - Michael West Media
Game-changer or irresponsible? The known unknowns on Australia’s nuclear submarine deal (msn.com)
Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
And what's the estimated arrival of one of these ones ? 20 years ?
Helge, you are slipping out of comprehensible English, tweak the dial and have another go :)Quote:
Originally Posted by helge
Do you think that the americans will help the aussies by importing more aussie goods, now that the chinese have started with embargos on trade with AUS ?
Can't do it better :)
On the contrary- they are exporting more goods to China! Aussie beef exports to China have been substituted by US beef.
No
its not a consideration. If you think the Oz will lose cash coz the chinks wont buy Iron well someone will :)
So now the French have recalled their ambassadors from both Washington and Canberra. So this has become very serious. I don't think it's ever happened before. Another big win for the brilliant minds in the State Department. Not.
:smileylaughing: Russ no one gives fuk, that is why the US/UK/Aus fukd them off, the EU is in the same boat - irrelevantQuote:
Originally Posted by russellsimpson
Quote:
Originally Posted by sabang
Ofcourse someone will.Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
If it's cheap, even the french will.
There won't be an embargo against AUS coming from the EU, eventhough we aren't, as you say, to be trusted for support.
But one thing is for sure:
There will be extensive french lobbying in the EU for adding some tarif on aussie goods.
the froggie twats moan ad infinitum, its your lot to put up with it, the UK doesn't have to any more....................enjoy :)Quote:
Originally Posted by helge
It's good. We'll be on the fence, if you need us.Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
Just say please :)
And I have congratulated the english several times.Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
It's all good; you made your choice
Fvcking brilliant. From the same folks who brought you the Afghanistan debacle, just in the diplomatic rather than military sphere. We've all been conned, all waiting to get rid of Trump to normalize relations among the 'allies'. But it turns out this wasn't just Trump but rather much broader foreign policy concerns. The French and other European allies were obviously not consulted on this new arrangement nor were the Canadians and Japanese. I think the Aussies may be taken for a walk down the path to nowhere, what's in it for them I wonder. Aus needs nuclear powered subs like they need a hole in the head.
Oh like the UN :)Quote:
Originally Posted by helge
Russ you are absolutely right, they could sit on the sidelines................now who do we know next to Oz or the US that have done that for the last 50 years? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by russellsimpson
News
France recalls US and Australia envoys over submarine deal
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian says decision ‘justified by exceptional seriousness of announcements’ made by Australia and the United States.
France has recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia for consultations, in a backlash over a submarine deal.
Australia on Wednesday cancelled a multibillion-dollar deal for conventional French submarines to enter a strategic Indo-Pacific alliance with the United States and Britain in which it will obtain US nuclear-powered submarines.
Calling the cancellation “unacceptable behaviour”, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a statement on Friday the decision to recall the envoys, on request from President Emmanuel Macron, “is justified by the exceptional seriousness of the announcements” made by Australia and the United States.
Earlier on Friday, a top French diplomat spoke of a “crisis” in relations with the US.
The diplomat, who spoke to The Associated Press news agency anonymously in line with customary government practice, said that for Paris “this is a strategic question concerning the very nature of the relationship between Europe and the United States about the Indo-Pacific strategy”.
He would not speculate on the effects the situation would have on France’s relationship with the US.
“There’s a crisis,” he stressed.
France has pushed for several years for a European strategy for boosting economic, political and defence ties in the region stretching from India and China to Japan and New Zealand. The European Union unveiled this week its plan for the Indo-Pacific.
The French diplomat said on Friday that Macron received a letter from Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday morning announcing the decision to cancel the submarine deal.
French officials then decided to reach out to the US administration “to ask what was going on,” he said. He added that discussions with Washington took place just two to three hours before Biden’s public announcement.
Le Drian on Thursday expressed “total incomprehension” at the move and criticised both Australia and the US.
“It was really a stab in the back. We built a relationship of trust with Australia, and this trust was betrayed,” he said. “This is not done between allies.”
He also compared US President Joe Biden’s move to those of his predecessor, Donald Trump, under Trump’s “America First” doctrine.
Paris had raised the issue of the Indo-Pacific strategy during the June 25 visit to Paris of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, expressing the importance of its submarine programme with Australia, the diplomat said.
“We said that it was for us a very important and critical component in our Indo-Pacific strategy,” he said. Blinken met with Macron during the visit.
The French diplomat said Australia never mentioned to France before its will to shift to nuclear-powered submarines, including during a meeting between Macron and Morrison in Paris on June 15.
France recalls US and Australia envoys over submarine deal | Australia News | Al Jazeera
^^ And how well has 'not sitting on the sidelines' worked out for the US, UK & Oz this century? Just one humiliating debacle after another. :chitown:
But of course you have helped your friends and allies in the EU too- by handing them a refugee crisis.
It's all bluster and smoke and mirrors, creating chaos and letting others clean up the mess - main thing is act and talk tough while sinking lower and lower . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by sabang
Five mins YouTube for the Background for those interested in the facts
Why the French submarine deal was torpedoed | 7.30 - YouTube
Two mins YouTube on how/why the Nuclear powered subs is a better tactical beast
How nuclear-powered submarines work and how they compare to other types of submarines | The World - YouTube
^ finally the crux. A kettle rather than the diesel belcher ..... :)
Quote:
Originally Posted by malmomike77
Hey Admins! Do your job and erase this imbeciles posts.
Or do you guys belong to the Empire that went down the drain a long time ago?
Was the U.S. drone also a joint venture with the U.K. and Downunderwear?Quote:
Originally Posted by russellsimpson
Kabul drone strike that killed 10 was 'a mistake' -Central Command head
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/head-of-us-central-command-kabul-drone-strike-was-a-mistake-679689