What will North Korea and Iran make of Australia’s back door into the Nuclear Powers Club
I expect they are already planning a fleet of NPT busting submarines
What other bad actors will seize this opportunity to level up?
It’s not like China and Russia didn’t build North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
The Taepodong went from a flying water heater to a very convincing knock off of an effective Russian short range weapon almost overnight. It’s obvious. They just didn’t supply the uranium despite doing all the homework, training their staff and giving them the parts.
Australia having one nuclear sub isn’t a real threat compared to the 200 plus nucler silos China just built and Russia’s new hypersonic missile program to go with their 100 or so new nuclear silos.
Any complaining over this is fucking idiotic.
China just spent the last 3 years threatening Australia out in the open.
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By excluding nuclear powered subs from NPTs it opens the door to any state, with the wear with all, to update the fleet
IMO the world is a safer place if Australia has no nuclear subs than one where North Korea does have nuclear subs
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Quite aside from the NPT issues, we have the decisive disruption of NATO by the UK, and the willingness of the US to facilitate business malpractice
China doesn’t care.
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China doesn’t need to care
We are implementing their foreign policy goals for them
China cares only about China.
If China didn’t threaten Australia so openly, Oz wouldn’t have to be doing this. I’m not remotely surprised with any of this.
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The back stabbing and in fighting are playing right into china’s hands
A submarine equipped with a nuclear reactor is not necessarily the same as one equipped with nuclear weapons.
Even though they both require enriched uranium.
I’m sure Australia has the brain trust to make both if they wanted too. They just don’t have logistics in place and buying them from the US would be considerably cheeper.
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You’re nowhere near the South China Sea.
Good graphic. The politics of Indonesia and Phillipines are going to be very important in the 21st century.
The closer the US and Australia are with them the better.
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True
But that argument applies equally to our enemies as our friends
Australia with nuclear subs does not really improve the security situation with regards to China
North Korea and Iran with them definitely worsens everyone’s security
Nor are you
Your point is?
They will continue to be bad actors on the world stage as long as their current governments remain in power.
China is increasingly becoming hostile to the west. Ideas of freedom are counter productive to their need for control. So they beat their chests to show their strength and how weak the rest of us our and by proxy our ideals.
Nothing will happen as strong trade relationships are required though imo… Probably.
Imo
I’d trust Iran far more than I would North Korea.
The NK military is heavily indoctrinated and they use Maoist/Soviet military doctrine that seems to read: If you fuck up, I’ll lauch nukes. If I fuck up, I’ll launch nukes just in case. If you can’t strike me back, I’ll definitely launch nukes immediately. The Rosenbergs were fools of the highest order.
The Ayatollah is volatile but Iranian politics and people are divided on nuclear weapons despite the regimes desire to have them.
China has a back door solution to that. Prop up corrupt authoritarians around the world and use trade deals to leverage advantage by supplying those regimes with goods better than the Soviets ever could. The Soviet method was to rob all the proxy states and force their leaders to comply with direct violence and the effect of that was to destroy the economies of their vassal states which in turn indirectly starved the USSR’s economy. They were parasites that killed the host organisms.
Propaganda tools from modern technology have provided a huge boost to the authoritarian bloc’s ability to destabilize democratic regimes. I think they believe they can ramp up domestic hostility until it reaches the fanatical levels under Mao and then wage unending proxy warfare as prolifically as Brezhnev without falling into the same economic tarpit.
They need trade but I don’t think their plans necessitate trade with the West.
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Dung who are the largest economic blocks on the planet right now?
There is not a lot left on the plate when large western first world economic powers are taken off the menu.
What does the US and UK have that Russia and China don’t? Nuclear subs that run quietly and that can stay at sea for extended periods of time.
Soon Austrailia will have them as well. I’m not overly concerned with Iran or North Korea gaining inferior nuclear submarines.
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