EU snubbed in AUKUS agreement

And France is not taking it kindly.

France has recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia for consultations sparked by the “exceptional seriousness” of Canberra’s surprise decision to cancel an order for French-built submarines and its security pact with Washington and London.

  The Guardian

That sounds pretty shitty on Australia's part. Are there some mitigating circumstances?

The French are furious at Australia’s decision to cancel a A$90bn (£48bn) contract it signed with the French company Naval Group in 2016 for a fleet of 12 state-of-the-art attack class submarines. That deal became bogged down in cost over-runs, delays and design changes.

Ah.

It is the first time France has recalled a US ambassador; the two countries have been allies since the American war of independence. France also cancelled a gala due to be held on Friday to commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of Chesapeake Bay, a decisive event in the war, which ended with the French fleet’s victory over the British on 5 September 1781. A White House official told Reuters that the United States regretted the French decision and said Washington had been in close touch with Paris. The official said the United States would be engaged in the coming days to resolve differences between the two countries.

Ninety billion differences.

Peter Ricketts, a former permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office and former UK ambassador to France, tweeted: “Don’t underestimate reaction in Paris. It’s not just anger but a real sense of betrayal that UK as well as US and Aus negotiated behind their backs for 6 months. I lived the rupture in 2003 over Iraq. This feels as bad or worse.”

OK, that sounds pretty shitty on all of AUKUS.

The Australian foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne, in Washington, said she understood the “disappointment” in Paris and hoped to work with France to ensure it understands “the value we place on the bilateral relationship and the work that we want to continue to do together”.

Fine way to show value, negotiating behind their backs.

[Ricketts added,] "A signal Paris regards Washington and Canberra as ringleaders in plot, with London as accomplice. Expect further French measures targeting interests of all three.”

I don't know what France can do on its own, but nobody trusts the US any more.* 

Perhaps the EU will back France in the matter. And we thought Biden was supposed to be restoring connections with our European allies. 

 *

The chaotic withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan, which has already prompted soul-searching among Western partners, is now reviving a decades-old debate within the European Union: Does the 27-nation club need its own military?

[...]

Many experts say the prospect of rolling out a free-standing E.U. military anytime soon is unrealistic. But the clamoring, which subsided somewhat after President Biden’s election, has intensified once more, after Biden rebuffed calls to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan past the Aug. 31 deadline. European leaders say that left them no choice but to cut short their evacuations, leaving thousands of their citizens and Afghan allies behind.

  WaPo

Not good.

E.U. foreign policy chief Josep Borrell asserted that a proposed joint rapid-deployment force of 5,000 troops could have helped to secure the Kabul airport and that a coordinated European security strategy would have allowed the bloc more influence over the “timing and nature of the withdrawal.”

“The only way forward is to combine our forces and strengthen not only our capacity, but also our will to act,” Borrell said after a meeting of E.U. defense ministers in Slovenia on Thursday.

[...]

French President Emmanuel Macron is one of the concept’s biggest boosters and has been calling for a “true European army” since he took office — while at one point criticizing NATO as brain dead.

[...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who once endorsed Macron’s suggestion for an army, has nonetheless been a staunch supporter of NATO as well as the U.S. military bases in her country. But Armin Laschet, who is vying to succeed her, said recently that Europe must be strengthened “such that we never have to leave it up to Americans.”

[...]

Some critics say European leaders are attempting to distance themselves from the Afghanistan fiasco despite generally supporting the decision to leave. Germany, for instance, declined to send troops back to help stabilize the country last month as the Taliban made sweeping territorial gains.

Things are rarely just black or white, are they?

But the renewed debate among European leaders also reflects a growing frustration with Biden, who told the world that “America is back” but has pursued foreign policies that echo some of his predecessor’s positions.

“What happened in Afghanistan was a defining moment,” said Nathalie Loiseau, who chairs the European Parliament’s subcommittee on security and defense. When the United States decided to pull out of the country, there was scant coordination with allies, she said. Biden dismissed European calls for a “conditions-based withdrawal,” and he refused to extend the deadline for pulling out. [...] “Now, Europeans must stop focusing on what the U.S. does or does not do.”

[...]

“There is not enough oomph behind all this politically to translate it into something practical,” said [Nathalie] Tocci, the director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a global affairs think tank. “We are just not prepared to see body bags coming home, and Afghanistan is not going to change that. It’s a political question that Europeans keep on ducking.”

And who can blame them? They still remember WWII.

NATO, now a 30-country alliance, has been the primary military force in Europe since the aftermath of World War II, but the United States has long set its agenda. In the weeks since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, European leaders have called the mission a “failure” and a “debacle,” saying it’s further evidence that the E.U. should be able to act on its own.

[...]

“If you want to go all the way to strategic autonomy, you do have to have a European command — you can’t keep pretending you can follow the NATO command structure,” said Fabrice Pothier, a former NATO policy chief. “That will indeed create some friction with NATO and possibly with the U.S. and the U.K."

[...]

Some steps have already been taken to strengthen cooperation between European militaries. France, Germany and Spain are working together on Europe’s largest defense project, developing a new fighter jet. But four years after the plan’s announcement, the countries have only recently finalized the details.

The E.U. has set lofty targets before. In 1999, member states pledged to build a military force of up to 60,000, but it never materialized. Instead, the bloc has had multinational “battle groups” of about 1,500 troops since 2007, but they’ve never been deployed because of a lack of funding and political will.

Putin must be smiling. 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.