Aukus had a less than immaculate conception. It was conceived in secrecy and born in haste, a tribute to political opportunism and a travesty of disciplined planning. The enthusiasm of theatrical announcements notwithstanding, it was in trouble from the beginning. The US Navy had serious doubts about both the ability of US shipbuilders to deliver submarines in any workable timeframe and the ability of the Royal Australian Navy to integrate and operate them. That was not a question of trust but of capacity – on both sides.
And, of course, experienced and well-informed Australian defence planners rang the warning bells from the beginning.
the biggest sticking point, apparently, was the american engineers’ refusal to move the steering wheel to the starboard side of the boat.
Please Australia consider making deals with Europe, Canada, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea instead.
You can’t trust the fascist state who shot one of your reporters.
Isn’t that the subs that France would have already delivered years ago for a fraction of the price, had Australia not cancelled the contract to order American subs that everyone told them would be late and over budget ?
Yep, those are the subs in question. A poor substitution at the time when it would have cost less just to swap to the French nuclear subs they initially offered
Albo’s gonna have to go crawling back to the French
To be fair, AUKUS wasn’t his fault.
Yep, unless the Brits can pull a rabbit out of a hat.
At least he gets to blame Morrison, and Macron already called Scummo a liar to his face so there will be some sympathy (albeit along with a lot of schadenfreude)
The French have been getting a lot of “I told you so” in in the last 6 months, particularly the “have your own MIC don’t rely on the yanks”
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That’s interesting. I hadn’t noticed that. It’s entirely possible, but then that would have been during the Biden era so all bets are off with the Fanta Felon in office
Is it just sunk cost fallacy at this point or do they know something we don’t? There have been red flags for so long now that it will be a major embarrassment if AUKUS genuinely dies and we have no Plan B. “B-b-but the Coalition started it!!!” won’t cut it as an excuse for a second-term Labor government.
I’ve often wondered if there is more to it that is classified or whatever. Albo was not a fan of it, then got a briefing and very quickly signed onto it without any public or even party debate. That stood out to me at the time, and has everytime it comes up since.
Yup, the US was a much more reliable partner in the past but then usians supported/allowed the mango Mussolini win a second term.
Even prior to that Pillar 1 seemed like a horrific deal for Australia. The serious question marks over whether the submarines would ever actually be delivered, let alone on time, existed all through the Biden administration too.
All of this is just reinforcing that if you want something done right you have to do it yourself. Just build Collins 2.0 - no way it could be more expensive than what is already on the table.
I think this was the original proposal in 2007 when Rudd was pm. We’ve been flip flopping on subs for almost 20 years
