• Biden announces a defense deal with Australia in a bid to counter China.President Biden said the United States and Britain will help Australia to deploy nuclear-powered submarines, adding to the Western presence in the region.
• Biden expresses confidence in Milley amid questions about his calls to China.
• With Democrats defecting, a crucial drug pricing proposal in the $3.5 trillion bill failed a key test.
• Janet Yellen urges House Democrats to give the I.R.S. more power to crack down on tax evasion.
• Republicans seek Pennsylvania voters’ personal information as they try to review the 2020 results.
• The Biden administration looks to expanded child care funds to combat labor shortages.
• The pope addresses the debate on denying Communion to Biden and other supporters of abortion rights.

In regard to the nuclear shift of Australian defence, Gus has a feeling that this has been in the pipeline for quite some time... And this is why there has been some nasty editorials about China in the "liberal" and non-"liberal" media in this country. As well, a smokescreen was designed to hit us with a fait accompli without any prior discussion. Part of the smokescreen was Dutton blabbing nonsensicals about refurbishing the old Collins class sub which might still go ahead anyway, until the "new" subs are here. But, here on YD, we could smell something was not quite kosher. WE KNEW SOMETHING SMELLY WAS COOKING in the back room but did not know exactly what... One indication was the "dispute" about the contracts and the price going up and up like an aerial lead submarine... 

IN REGARD TO MILLEY, He should be court-marshalled and PELOSI SHOULD RESIGN. That Biden is doing nothing shows he is a hypocrite stupid dangerous man. 

In regard to the Pope... Blah... He's a dork in a white robe... "In his usual fashion, the pope did not give a simple, direct answer. But he left little doubt about his view, invoking a phrase he has used before: “Communion is not a prize for the perfect.” Yes we know sinners are welcome and the more you sin with bigger sins the better — including the sin of war... Idiots...

Gus is a rabid atheist....

assangez

China is well on its way to achieving its goal of complete military modernisation by 2027 and already has more warships and submarines than the US. China’s shipyards launch a new sub every year or so.

Australia is well on its way to achieving world champion status in faffing about with submarine acquisition. As of Thursday, Australia has no agreement with anyone to build any new submarines whatsoever.

China has 66 submarines. It’s expected to have 10 more by 2030, six of those nuclear powered, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence.

By that time, Australia will have exactly as many subs as it has today, which is the same number it had a quarter-century earlier, according to Morrison government’s statements on Thursday.

That is, Australia will have the same six Collins class diesel powered subs that were first commissioned by the Hawke government, assuming they’re still functional. Their retirement has been postponed repeatedly as successive governments – Labor and Liberal – have fumbled their replacements.

So what was all the fanfare from Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson on Thursday? Australia, the US and UK have announced an “enhanced trilateral security partnership”, the inelegantly named AUKUS. It is not a treaty and doesn’t pretend to be.

But it does represent an increased level of trust and an intensified commitment to share technology and advanced weaponry. This includes co-operation on some of the same next-generation technologies that Beijing has declared as its highest tech priorities – quantum computing, quantum communication, artificial intelligence and cyber.

This could prove to be the most important element of the agreement in equipping Australia for its own defence in the longer run, if it’s executed intelligently, a major caveat.

Read more:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/australia-s-submarine-programme-has-truly-lost-its-rudder-20210916-p58scb.html

May as well place huge targets on cities like Sydney and Melbourne for rockets to be aimed at. ScoMo is an idiot. I hope Labor did not fall for the trap as it did when Old Lazarus went and attacked Saddam... But with MOST of the politicians enamoured with anything that goes bang, we could be duped...

Read from top.

assangez

On the morning of September 15, Paris time, the French government-owned Naval Group received a letter from Australia’s Defence Department.

This was the same day that Australia spectacularly ended its $90 billion contract with the company for 12 diesel-powered submarines, but the letter made no mention of what was about to happen.

Instead, it said Australia had accepted new documents sent by Naval Group, including technical specifications. With the contract structured as a series of benchmarked “gates”, the letter authorised pursuing the design phase.

“Everything was okay to finish the negotiation and sign this new contract quickly,” the chairman of Naval Group, Pierre Éric Pommellet, told French newspaper Le Figaro this week.

Within hours, however, at 1.30pm Paris time, Pommellet was asked to join a teleconference with the Defence Department.

“It was during this meeting that they informed us that the contract would be terminated for convenience,” he explained.

Pommellet said the news came “without prior notice, with unprecedented brutality”. He was “shocked”.

“On the morning of 15 September, all the conditions were in place for the program to enter a new phase, after five years of engineering work on the submarines and on the new Adelaide shipyard,” Pommellet said. “We were due to start the production from 2023 and we were building an Australian supply chain.”

This week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison defended the way his government handled the contract, saying he made a decision in Australia’s national security interests: “I know that France would do the same.”

“There is some sense to the idea that you would have some kind of nuclear power industry and as a byproduct of that, you could have a nuclear submarine. But we’re going about it the other way.”

It is now clear the Morrison government pushed for the three-way technology transfer deal that replaced the French agreement. Involving Australia, America and Britain, with the shorthand “AUKUS”, it is not a new security pact but an agreement to share nuclear technology. It will see Australia buy eight nuclear-powered submarines.

The shift to what became that deal began in late July 2019, following a trip by then Defence minister Linda Reynolds to Naval Group’s submarine production operations in Cherbourg, alongside the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

At the time, Reynolds was effusive. “Mr President, I’m very excited to be able to return home and tell all my countrymen how our ship will be,” she said. “It is a great honour for me to be here today to officiate with you and visit the magnificent ship we are celebrating today.”

But The Saturday Paper has been told that briefings given to the Australian delegation on that trip sparked concerns about progress. One insider suggests a view began to form on the Australian side.

“They had a very French attitude to performance management – quite laissez-faire,” is how the insider describes it.

As a result, a small group, understood to include the prime minister, Reynolds and key Australian officials and military leaders, began looking for back-up options – a “plan B” – in case Australia’s demands could not be met. It is understood that the aim then was still to make the existing contract work.

...

Australia did not contemplate buying the French nuclear version initially or now. The French technology requires an onshore nuclear industry to service it, while American and British technology does not. The reactors in American nuclear submarines are designed to last the life of the vessel.

When Australia was entering the French contract, the American technology was not available. Since then, a range of things have changed.

Concern about China has grown. The US and its allies have left Afghanistan and turned their foreign-policy attention elsewhere. Joe Biden replaced Donald Trump. And Brexit has seen British foreign policy shift away from Europe. The needs of Australia, the US and Britain have converged.

After Peter Dutton became Defence minister, Australia approached the US about the nuclear technology and discovered it was amenable to sharing it – not previously done beyond its self-described “special” relationship with Britain.

In June, Morrison attended the G7 meeting in Cornwall, where the three leaders are understood to have sealed their agreement.

The gatecrashing of Morrison’s photo opportunity with Biden by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson now appears slightly less spontaneous.

Likewise Morrison’s message soon afterwards, visiting Macron in Paris.

The prime minister again pressed concerns about progress with the Naval Group contract and set a September deadline for the company to meet design specifications.

It is unclear whether September had already been set for the AUKUS unveiling – but that alignment has only fuelled French anger.

Two weeks before Morrison’s visit, Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty told a senate estimates hearing the government was making “contingencies” around the submarine contract.

Addressing the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra on June 10, Dutton also dropped hints. “What we must do, as a nation, is prepare for whatever may be on or below the horizon.”

Still, he specifically listed “Australia’s Attack-class submarines” as being among those that “will be critical assets”.

Three months on, they’ve been scrapped. Greens leader Adam Bandt condemned the move as buying “floating Chernobyls”. Labor has effectively accepted it.

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese set several conditions on Labor’s agreement, all of which were already being met.

He demanded there be no requirement for a civil nuclear industry, no acquisition of nuclear weapons and no incompatibility with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

Other Labor figures, including former prime ministers Paul Keating and Kevin Rudd, have been more outspoken – Keating against Australian hostility towards China and Rudd on what he alleges is Morrison’s political agenda to talk up national security.

As expected, China condemned the move. New Zealand confirmed it would not allow Australian nuclear-powered submarines – the first of which won’t arrive for about 20 years – into its ports. Singapore and the Philippines welcomed Australia’s initiative. Indonesia and Malaysia were more cautious, concerned about further strategic upheaval. Morrison spoke to Indonesian President Joko Widodo from his plane en route to New York this week, seeking to ease his concerns.

Beyond the diplomatic dimensions, some wonder if the deal prepares the way for nuclear power generation in Australia.

“There is some sense to the idea that you would have some kind of nuclear power industry and as a byproduct of that, you could have a nuclear submarine,” says former chief of the Defence Force, retired admiral Chris Barrie. “But we’re going about it the other way.”

Introducing the prospect of a nuclear industry off the back of the submarines agreement – which Morrison is ruling out thus far – would carry both political risks and potential benefits.

Recent opinion polls suggest Australians’ traditional hesitation about nuclear energy has shifted. This week, a poll in the Nine newspapers found 51 per cent of the population was in favour.

There may be a tempting upside for Morrison in starting that debate. With climate change among the issues of greatest public concern, he could harness nuclear energy as part of an on-paper solution to reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

It would also be a neat pre-election wedge against Labor – especially under a left-wing leader who has already flagged it as non-negotiable.

But Morrison’s immediate political challenges are international, including with France. The Australian government’s stock response to questions about the French fury is: “We understand their disappointment.”

Morrison said he looks forward to speaking to President Macron “when the time is right”. Biden’s phone call to placate Macron resulted in a joint statement that the situation “would have benefited from open consultations among allies” – an effective slap down of Australia.

But it is not only the French who are unamused. When Morrison greeted European Council president Charles Michel at the United Nations in New York this week, declaring that the new AUKUS partnership would boost Indo–Pacific security, Michel’s reply was sharp.

“Well, thank you for your message,” he responded. “But as you know, for us, transparency and loyalty are fundamental principles in order to build stronger partnerships and stronger alliances.”

Undeterred, Morrison held talks with a series of European leaders, seeking support for Australia’s proposed free trade agreement with the European Union, which France is now threatening to derail.

He also pressed the case on Capitol Hill for backing the legislation required to secure access to the US nuclear technology.

“There’s a lot more work to do,” Morrison said. “But that work will be done in a spirit of co-operation, in the spirit of endorsement.”

He said Australia would continue to work with Europe. “So our door is wide open. Our invitation is there. We understand the hurt and disappointment and we’ll be patient and we look forward to working with our friends again.”

Australia’s relations with France will recover. But in the short term, there is certainly work to do – and not just on diplomacy.

The eight new nuclear-powered submarines – which won’t be nuclear-armed – are expected to take years longer to design and build than the cancelled French fleet of 12. Australia needs to develop the workforce to crew and maintain them, including the capacity to respond if there is an accident.

Leasing American or British vessels may be necessary but not straightforward. In the meantime, the existing Collins-class boats will need to have their collective life extended through refurbishment.

And herein lies another possibly unanticipated complication: two key components required to do that are French.

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on Sep 25, 2021 as "Under the surface".

Read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2021/09/25/under-the-surface-australias-submarine-deal/163249200012546#mtr

The French should tell Morrison to F**K orf... He speaks with a forked tongue, and cannot be trusted...

assangez