Editorial of the “World”. The anger of Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian over Canberra’s abandonment of the contract signed with France on the supply of conventional submarines to Australia is justified. The alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, made public Wednesday, September 15, to develop Australian nuclear-powered submarines to counter the rise of China in the Pacific, is well , as he said, a “Blow in the back” from France, to which both Canberra and Washington have concealed all preparations for this operation.
It is above all a blow revealing the risks to which the powers which play above their capacities are exposed. Beyond this bad way done to a country which, until further notice, is an ally, three lessons can already be drawn from the birth of the Aukus, the acronym given to this new security pact on the basis of the acronym Australia-United Kingdom-United States.
The first concerns the transatlantic relationship. For those who still doubted it, the Biden administration does not differ, on this point, from the Trump administration: the United States comes before everything, whether it is their strategic, economic, financial or health interest. « America first » remains the guideline of the White House’s foreign policy.
Alignment with Washington
The creation of the Aukus is not directed against France, but that it inflicts on it a stinging diplomatic and economic setback has no importance for Washington, which has only the Chinese objective in its sights. . Some saw in the multilateralist professions of faith of Joe Biden and the Francophilia of his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, the promise of a more balanced cooperation: they have now been brought back to reality.
The second lesson concerns London. For post-Brexit diplomacy, this agreement marks a major milestone. It places Great Britain in the great Indo-Pacific bath, where, alone, it would not have arrived. But above all it puts the British back in the wheel of the Americans. “Global Britain” was looking for itself: it found itself, in alignment with Washington. The bitterness that had exploded on the benches of the House of Commons at the time of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, organized without consultation with the allies present on the ground for twenty years, is erased, less than a month later, by the aukus grace.
The third lesson is both more important and more complex, because it is addressed to Europe. Beyond French sensitivities, it is indeed Europe’s place and its role in the world that are being called into question here. Where does it want to be in the global realignment that is taking place in the shadow of the Sino-American confrontation? Can it act as an autonomous power there, or will the European countries witness this realignment in dispersed order, sacrificing all hope of exerting any influence and defending their interests?
Ironically, the announcement of the creation of the Aukus comes the day before the presentation in Brussels of the Indo-Pacific strategy of the European Union (EU). This one, suddenly, looks pale. Paris has a nice game to accuse the United States of “Lack of consistency” : the EU has singularly lacked coherence and a backbone in its management of China’s rise, particularly under the influence of Berlin. She pays dearly for it today.
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