Yes, losing the Australian deal and few billion dollar sucks but there are bigger worries:
1) US has not opened up the sub market 2) it may also translate to arms transfer across military technologies. 3) signaled to the rest of the world that it is not bound by yesteryears commitments to norms and vague notions of regional stability.
2) Market run by a few monopoly vendors now faces competition from a player which has both the tech and money but was hamstrung by its normative commitments. Not a great day for market leaders.
3) All the huffing and puffing about revising French commitments in NATO and Indo-Pacific appears to be mere bombast. Don't know about NATO so much (but surely Paris can't sell its stuff to Moscow) but let's look at the Indo-Pacific.
4) First of all, France is their for its own territorial interests. If that is the case, then one arms deal should not matter.
5) If they are not, then the whole Indo-Pacific strategy stuff was just bandwagoning on the concerns of Indo-Pacific states vis-a-is China and to get some more lucrative arms deals. Well, if that is the case, then it is just bad luck because the market just opened up.
6) And the Quad countries in particular should look at American military stuff because it has real interests at stake (compared to France), commits US much more to the region, improves interoperability, and the promise of American tech keeps prices low.
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I have always admired Sandeep Unnithan work but I have some major issues with this article: indiatoday.in/india-today-in…
1) The central argument is that US will never part with sophisticated nuclear sub tech (NST), because they have never done so in the past. They just decided otherwise. confirmation bias?
2)Tweak1: Nevertheless, they will never do so for India. The same argument was prevalent for civilian nuclear cooperation before the Indo-US nuclear deal. We got there eventually. Inter. politics often springs surprises for naysayers. Just wait for the right condtns & motivations
1) For the 1st time since the US helped the Brits in nuclear sub tech beginning in late 1950s, US has made a decision to share it's nuc propulsion tech with any other state.
2) Rickover agreed to help Brits bcz of his cultural affinities; but declined to help Even other NATO members such as Italy and Netherlands. Nonproliferation norms did the rest.
3) US decision has finally opened the nuclear military tech market which otherwise gave advantage to states such as Russia and France. There were no other vendors available. What is being offered to a treaty partner today, may be offered to a strategic partner tomorrow.