France may sulk – but AUKUS makes sense

“Donnez-moi un break” said Boris Johnson about the French reaction to the UK/US/Australian (AUKUS) submarine deal. He was displaying all the diplomatic skills he was renowned for during his spell as Foreign Secretary, but he has a point. This was a strategic move which makes perfect sense for all three countries and is part of the new geopolitical architecture of the 21^st century.

In 2021 even a shiny brand-new French diesel submarine would look rusty given the role Australia ordered them for. Canberra was going to buy 12 diesel-powered Barracuda submarines after signing the $66 billion deal in 2016. They were a long way from being future-proof and so China’s military build-up, and ambitions in the South China Sea, quickly made Australia nervous that it was buying a pup, or rather 12 pups. Diesel subs are noisy, leave a trail behind them, and cannot stay underwater for extended periods. The nuclear-powered submarines they will now get can stay underwater for months, have a far greater range, and are much more difficult to detect. As China attempts to claim the whole of the South China Sea and then move down past the First Island Chain, the new subs will have a crucial role to play.

Only six countries have the technology to build them: the US, India, France, China, Russia, and the UK. The French diesel contract was seriously behind schedule, over-budget, increasingly obsolete, and France was reluctant to share aspects of its nuclear technology. Hence what Paris is calling the “stab in the back” and outrage at losing out on what it called the “contract of the century”.

But AUKUS is about geopolitics, not money. The naïve belief in 2016 that China might still evolve to become more liberal has given way to anxiety that it is hell bent on remaining a one-party dictatorship and dominating the Indo-Pacific region, including the international shipping lanes. This new tripartite agreement includes greater co-operation in AI and cyber but is primarily about the oceans and is loosely woven into other sea-based strategies emerging in the region. 

This week sees the first in-person meeting of the heads of government of “The Quad” nations. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue is a loose naval agreement involving Australia, India, Japan and the US which was pioneered by the former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. It was born out of maritime cooperation following the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 and is still at the semi-formal level, but has grown in importance year on year.

The Quad and AUKUS also need to be seen in the context of increasing naval cooperation between Australia and Japan which is now so close that if an Australian navy ship, or air force plane, is near Japanese sovereign territory it comes under the protection of the Japan Self Defence Forces. Tokyo and Canberra see each other as partners in supporting democracy in the Indo-Pacific and keeping the international sea lanes open.

Australia is also forging closer ties with India through the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue which last week saw the two countries’ defence ministers coming together for its inaugural meeting. They declared their commitment “to maintaining a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific” by which they meant that China should behave itself in the South China Sea.  

Both Australia and India have been on the sharp end of aggressive Chinese behaviour recently. Twenty Indian soldiers were beaten to death by Chinese troops in the Galwan border region last year, and Australia has suffered huge economic losses when, after calling for an international inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, China put punitive tariffs on Australian wine, barley, wheat, copper, and timber among other products.

Another piece in the jigsaw is trust. Australia trusts the US and UK, who are among its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners, to keep delivering the submarine and other defence technology assets for decades to come. Canberra would not be so impolite as to suggest publicly that perhaps France’s commitment might not have such longevity, but in private, government and defence officials do have concerns.

To prevent the current row deepening into a major split between allies the French will need to be placated. The French navy already operates in the South China Sea region as, indeed, does the Royal Navy which dispatched its aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth II to the area this summer. There is room for co-operation between all concerned.

Boris Johnson’s other jibe – that the French should “Prenez un grip” – is at odds with what a cabinet minister told me this week: “We are going to love-bomb the French over the next few months”. However, there is a time and place for “love-bombing”. There’s also time to get to grips with the new reality of what is happening to the security architecture in the most important, and possibly dangerous region in the world. That time is now and that is what the Australians, Americans, and British have just done.