US and UK to now furnish Australia with nuclear submarines.

They didn't have to anger the French quite so gratuitously, though. If they changed their minds and decided that, yeah, we'd like nuclear-powered submarines after all, they could have notified the French, then publicly announced the change of direction, and then allowed the French, and the UK, and anyone else interested an opportunity to make a pitch. The outcome might have been the same, but at least the French wouldn't feel gratuitously disrespected and publicly humiliated, all of which has unfortunate direct and indirect consequences for Australia. I think the Aussies have stuffed this up, and I'm not quite sure why. Other considerations aside, they have now painted themselves into a corner where they are committed to getting the subs from the UK/US when they have no idea how long delivery will be and no idea what the cost will be.

There has also been no opportunity for discussion in parliament or by the public about the volte-face from a policy of having conventional subs that could be operated independently to one of having nuclear-powered subs that can't.

That doesn't look like good defence procurement practice to me.

Sources? You keep asserting the Aussies have backed themselves into a corner.

I'm not saying your necessarily wrong either - my take would be the opposite in that they have made a very tactical long term strategic decision with unprecedented access to US technology. And the US in turn see a new fleet of submarines aligned with its foreign policy heading to the South Pacific.

Granted the political optics may not be great at the moment, but I doubt anyone in charge in the US, UK or AUS are regretting this decision. Going to be an interesting week at the UN General Assembly of world leaders this week no doubt.

It's incredibly close to Vietnam and the Phillipines. Are you aware of what the Chinese have been up to, strongarming those countries, including a hot skirmish with Vietnam? Their voracious appetite for resources is no doubt behind the coup in Burma, which is basically a vassel state whever it is under the control of the milltary. The Chinese want to damn a river in Burma, own it from stem to stern and export every erg to China. No benefit whatsoever to Burma with nothing but ecological ruin and ruination for the Burmese who live, farm and fish on that river. China is a shocking menace to the world and there will be an armed conflict with them. The sooner the better, IMO, before they get much bigger and more accustomed to throwing their weight around unchallenged.

In fairness the "be careful with China policy isn't unreasonable. I worked in the US Dep of Energy previously and we got hacked several thousand times an hour by the the Chinese governments. They are a serious threat to world peace

As are the Americans and British to be honest.

This whole idea that this so called alliance between Australia, America and the UK is something completely new ,it's absolutely not they have been allies since WW1 and every major conflicts since including Vietnam onwards ,

Australia has already started a mass modernisation program of its military , spending several billions on various projects from land vehicles to the F35s and F18s they added to their airforce ,the first French submarine wasn't going be be delivered for another decade at least ,

NATO has been getting undermined for years doesn't help that some of the so called members are afraid of Russia ,we couldn't even get a real response when putin invaded and forceabble occupied parts of Ukraine ,

Could you replace NATO with a European army possibly over a number of decades and that's before you get to the infighting about who's got full control of the command structure and Stanags before ever deploying units on the ground

Not a "war" in the traditional sense. That's not the way the world operates any more. Did NATO and the Warsaw Pact ever go to "war" with each other? Of course not. They'd have wiped each other (and most of the rest of us) out. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of brinkmanship, proxy wars, jostling for international position, eyeballing of each other over strategically important assets (eg Taiwan, West Berlin, Crimea, not to mention the whole Middle East imbroglio), all backed up with the threat that if it ever got out of hand, we could have a real shooting war and therefore the big guys had to have the latest and best military toys in their arsenals. Just in case.

But that Cold War is over. Has been since the Soviet Union imploded. The chess board has changed.

Britain has left the EU. It is looking to expand its global interests in partnership with its (re)new(ed) best friend, the Americans.

The Yanks may have preferred that Britain stay in the EU (their then president, Obama, said as much). But when Brexit happened, America simply assessed the new situation and considered what was its best policy. It has realised that the pieces have arranged in quite an advantageous setup for them. Instead of incurring the expense of guaranteeing European states' security from Russia (which it currently does) they now have a better option. They have, in the Europe and Middle East region, two aggressive, nuclear armed utterly loyal (ie utterly dependent) allies, namely the UK and Israel who like to think of themselves as utterly sovereign and free, don't mind that their neighbours dislike them and are quite prepared to be US lapdogs as long as the Americans allow them free hand with their own priorities.

Israel wants carte blanche to deal with its recalcitrant Arab citizens and those in neighbouring territories it occupies or controls. America grants this willingly. And with a lot of cheerleading from much of America's media.

Britain wants to be seen (by itself if nobody else) as a major global power with complete independence of operation, even if that means that it does the US's bidding without questioning. That's a piece of cognitive dissonance with which it can live. Being bossed about by Brussels? No chance; not the British way. Being bossed about by Biden? That's a different matter altogether and they're quite happy with it. After all, we're all in the Anglosphere together, aren't we? And even a Labour government realised that when America wanted to go to war with Iraq, Britain had no choice but to tug its forelock and say "Yes Boss".

Just as a Labour government behaved exactly as a Conservative one would have done re Iraq, so too does American foreign policy deviate very little from one regime to the next. Would Trump have behaved any differently in hightailing it out of Afghanistan? Unlikley. After all, it was his deal that was being fulfilled. America does what America does, regardless of whether the White House is occupied by a blue or red president.

So the "Western Alliance" is being recalibrated. NATO, like any military alliance in history, was and is terminal and is in its final death throes now. America is going on what a multinational firm might call a "partner reduction" program. Instead of allowing any and all like-minded countries to be its allies it is concentrating on a few really tried and trusted companions: UK and Israel in Europe. Taiwan and Australia in the Pacific. And whatever war lords in Africa can best serve their interests at any given time.

The EU and the US are now "frenemies". Unlikely to go to war with each other but not singing off the same hymn sheet any more. Ireland, as an "interface region" in this new scenario will have to assess what are its own interests and how best they can be served. Maybe we can stay as a "neutral" state, aloof from both power blocks but we will be under huge pressure to make one choice or another.

Challenging times.

"possible..imperiled a EU/Aus trade deal worth 500bn dollars"....

Never mind. They screwed a good one out of Britain earlier this year, as even the rabidly pro-Brexit Daily Telegraph conceded earlier this year. :)

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117444245#Comment_117444245

Do we really want the eu to be a great military power ? The population , the cash and the tech are all there (to degrees) but the will isn't ,

Which is why Europe pins itself (for better or worse ) to the US , the french never liked this - the Germans were more or less happy to have nato largely based in Germany , and the Brits tried to convince themselves that they're still at the top table and that the Yanks couldnt do it without them !

The only thing that's changed is china has swapped with Russia as the other big player , Russia hasn't gone away but they're not the Soviet union ...

I find that disturbing yet reassuring at the same time.

There was a time European countries were capable of developing their own aircraft without American technology ,the Germans at one stage were working on a stealth aircraft that had a smaller radar cross section than the Americans secret f117 at the same time ,

I believe Europe can produce near equally good military vehicles weather it be aircraft , tanks or ships .

Just look at what the Swedish have done time after time.

The biggest issue is actual co-operations and control ,one country can throw their toys out of a pram and set programs behind

The new command and control interoperability and networking is a massive force multiplier.