Too over eager and over anxious pro-US Scott Morrison conned into becoming an American tool, which ironically he already had been

ABC:

Australia's nuclear submarine deal fundamentally changes our relationship with the world

Offending "good friends, good partners" has its limits in this ever-changing world.(AP, AAP)

Emmanuel Macron should perhaps have been on his guard when he greeted Scott Morrison in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace in June this year, complete with ceremonial pomp. Our Prime Minister seems to have a bit of form in courtyards.

Just over three years ago, on August 22, 2018, at a press conference in the prime minister's courtyard at Parliament House, the then treasurer was asked whether he had ambitions for Malcolm Turnbull's job.

He responded by throwing a reassuring arm around his prime minister's shoulder and declaring: "This is my leader and I'm ambitious for him!"

"Thanks ScoMo," Turnbull responded, perhaps just a little uncertainly. Two days later, Morrison had replaced him as PM.

Throw forward to June 15 this year, and Macron was welcoming Morrison to the presidential palace in Paris after the G7's meeting in Cornwall.

Emmanuel Macron and Scott Morrison bump elbows at the Elysee Palace in June.(AP: Rafael Yaghobzadeh)

Excruciating COVID elbow bumps protocol almost prevailed, except Macron warmly threw his arms around Morrison.

With Australia under pressure from China, the French President declared: "You are at the forefront of the tensions that exist in the region, of the threats, and sometimes of the intimidation. I want to reiterate here how much we stand by your side."

"We are good friends, we are good partners", Morrison told Macron later in remarks over an official dinner. 

"We share common goals and we share common values and that's why our partnership with liberty and affinity I think is one that we'll be able to progress further this evening."

'It's a stab in the back'

What the PM didn't mention was that he had just held talks in Cornwall with US President Joe Biden and UK PM Boris Johnson about a proposal for a tripartite alliance, the most spectacular immediate element of which would be dumping the $90 billion plan underway to build French submarines in Australia in favour of some (yet to be worked out) plan to build American (or British) ones (for some unspecified amount of money).

French ambassador says he only learnt of the decision to tear up the contract through media reports.

In fact, nobody bothered mentioning this rather significant change of heart to the French until hours before the announcement was made jointly, with much pomp early on Thursday morning Australian time, with Morrison in Canberra, Johnson in London and Biden in Washington.

The French were very underwhelmed, with Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian saying: "It's a stab in the back."Having dumped one good friend, the PM had thrown his lot in with another, who appeared for all the world like he couldn't remember the name of "that fella down under".

"We had established a trusting relationship with Australia, and this trust was betrayed."

The website Politico.eu reported he had added he was "angry and very bitter about this break up", and that he had spoken to his Australian counterpart days ago and received no serious indication of the move.

On Saturday morning, the French government recalled its ambassadors to Australia and the US, saying the new deal was "unacceptable behaviour between allies and partners".

Should we really worry about offending the French? One unkind cynic snorted on Friday, "It's not like we've nuked the Pacific or anything".

And yes, the French contract had rapidly blown out from $50 billion to $90 billion and seemed plagued by all sorts of problems. This was partly because we were, somewhat ironically, asking the French to redesign their perfectly functional nuclear submarines for conventional power.

But offending "good friends, good partners" has its limits in this ever-changing world.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian expressed anger after Australia announced it would dump its contract with France to build diesel-electric submarines.

Consider this. We are now told that this cunning plan has been in the works for 18 months. So, let's rewind to the state of the world 18 months ago.

In the first quarter of 2020, Donald Trump was president of the United States. He was facing impeachment, had ordered an airstrike that killed Iran's security and intelligence commander, was ringing his "very good friend" Kim Jong Un to wish him happy birthday, giving Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom and declaring his hope that the US economy would be back on its feet in the midst of COVID-19 by Easter.

You have to wonder how this week's announcement might have gone down with Trump in the White House — whether it would have been greeted quite as pragmatically in Australia as it seems to be.

Joe Biden hails AUKUS as a new phase in the strategic trilateral partnership between the three nations.

Maybe it is the case that the defence and strategic establishments in both countries see beyond the chaos of any particular political meretricious players, and have faith that, whatever the politicians might get up to, the underlying strategic good sense of whatever is under consideration will prevail.

But the reminder of Trump is an important one to illustrate why most sensible countries want to maintain some sort of sovereignty over their own defences. Which we have just abandoned.

There may have been in recent times a fundamental, clear-eyed reassessment by the government and the national strategic establishment of the threat China presents to us.

But this week's moves — which do not just include the announcement that we may build some submarines with American and British technology but, on Friday, news of more US troops rotated here, along with US missiles, US airforce planes and visits by US nuclear submarines — fundamentally change our relationship with the world in several different ways.

Shibboleths have been demolished

Obviously the first is to align us firmly with the US and make us unambiguously its forward base in the region.

Some see this as a welcome and clear-cut sign of commitment by the US to the Indo-Pacific after years of dithering. Others argue that it is a commitment made without the US actually having to do all that much other than share technology with an always faithful ally.

For it also involves Australia consciously taking on a more assertive military stance of our own in the region, but using imported technology. Over which we have virtually no control. Based on the current stated policy, we will be utterly reliant on the Americans and British to keep our boats afloat.

So many long-standing shibboleths have been demolished in the past few days: starting with the arguments we have heard for years about why we "couldn't" have nuclear submarines. This was based on the "given" that it would require onshore nuclear expertise and nuclear power — and that we didn't want to ever go as far as having US missiles based in Australia.That is, if the Prime Minister is actually serious about limiting the nuclear aspect of the whole deal to the power system of the submarines.

And we have obviously moved a long way from John Howard's declaration that we did not have to choose between our history and our geography.

Once ideas which are so entrenched we almost forget about them start to be torn down, it is not that big a leap into a debate about nuclear power for other purposes. Which of course might appeal to some as an answer to future energy questions.

In the meantime, we remain no closer — and in fact further away — from having any submarine capacity of our own. But we have opened the way, effectively, for US submarines to be based here to help fill the gap for the next 20 years.