It doesn’t mean, however, that it is a good move or a safe one.Īustralian diplomacy is based on the doctrine of “great and powerful friends”. AUKUS is a coherent move for Australia, in line with 200 years of Australian diplomatic tradition. In fact, the perception in France of a reversal of Australia’s strategy is misled. The cancellation of the Australian contract with Naval Group, while brutal, was therefore not totally unexpected given Australia’s historical connection with the US, especially since Canberra had expressed its dissatisfaction to Paris on several occasions. This inflexibility can only lead to an escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing, with Australia further increasing those tensions by choosing to side with the US. As such, it can no longer tolerate a third way in the Pacific. The United States is thus returning to the doctrine of “with us or against us” initiated by then-President George Bush in 2001. The US had an interest in seeing Canberra cancel its contract with France and replace it with one with Washington – thus ensuring American control over a fleet of submarines they are likely to build themselves, despite what Prime Minister Scott Morrison is saying. Taking advantage of a relative decline in the US presence in the Pacific under the Obama administration (when Joe Biden was vice-president), China has considerably hardened its expansionist policy in the area, which in turn has prompted a US reversal over the past three years.Īustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison meets with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the 76th UN General Assembly. It has a network of military bases throughout the region, territories of its own, long-standing political associations and even its own state – Hawaii. It should be remembered the United States has controlled and monitored Oceania since 1945. Rising tensions with China over the past three years have brought Australia back into the American fold in a lasting way. Let’s be clear: the alliance proposed by France, while laudable, was nonetheless unusual. While this plan may have been both judicious (because it proposed a third diplomatic path for the region, freed from the Sino-American stranglehold) and ambitious (because it gave France and Europe a renewed presence in the Indo-Pacific region), there were nonetheless near insurmountable weaknesses in the French position that led to the failure of this collaboration. Under this “contract of the century”, agreed to between Paris and Canberra in 2016, France was to provide Australia with diesel-electric Barracuda submarines for a total of 34 billion euros (A$55 billion) over a 25-year period.įor France, the aim was to develop a partnership with the largest nation in the South Pacific, one that should have sealed a close and lasting agreement for half a century, thus reinforcing its diplomatic and military network in an area of great strategic interest. Though Paris may be shocked by this turn of events, it was somewhat foreseeable, for several historical, cultural and diplomatic reasons. Timmy Gambin, a professor in the university’s Classics & Archaeology department who worked on the project, told CNN that UM had spent 20 years “systematically surveying the seabed off the Maltese Islands,” covering more than 1,200 square kilometers (463 square miles) to date.Australia’s unilateral cancellation of its contract to purchase French submarines and sign up for the AUKUS security pact constitutes a slap in the face for French diplomacy – variously described as a “stab in the back” and a “betrayal” by French diplomats. The hunt for the submarine began in 2017, when Francis Dickinson, grandson of the Urge’s commander, contacted the University of Malta (UM) to ask about its work mapping the seabed. It now lies on the sea bed, approximately 400 feet down. Until its discovery this summer, both the reason for the ship’s disappearance and its final resting place were unknown.Īccording to the researchers who located the wreck, the vessel was sunk by a mine off the island. HMS Urge – part of Britain’s 10th Submarine Flotilla – left the Mediterranean island of Malta on Apbut never made it to its destination of the Egyptian port of Alexandria. The wreck of a British submarine that went missing during World War II with 44 people on board has been found off the coast of Malta.
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