Why the new US-Australia-UK alliance AUKUS translates into nuclear subs & why it’s got China furious

subscribe to our youtube channel and press the bell icon to get the latest updates the global security strategic foreign policy environment is like a universe with a lot of bodies floating into it these bodies are acronyms nato is a good example warsaw pact used to be another one although it wasn't used as a as an acronym but if you see now suddenly many more are coming up we saw the quad come up the quad is actually short not an acronym but quad is short for quadrilateral that is the new alliance or sort of a kind of alliance between india u.s australia and japan for the indo-pacific to share a lot of interest there but an entirely new one has now come up and that will be talked about for a long time so please do get familiar with it that is awkwas a-u-k-u-s that is sort of a clumsily made acronym out of australia united kingdom and the us so august is is an organization that these three countries have now formed these three countries are allies anyway they are already members of what is called as the five eyes alliance that is the five countries that share all their intelligence information the two countries that that are left out of this alliance in this case are canada and new zealand why has this special three country alliance out of a five country alliance been formed also these are countries which already have america's security guarantee they are already tied with america with security guarantees so why one more alliance and why this outcast in fact this name is so awkward by announcing it at the three-way summit meeting between joe biden tony morrison the australian prime minister and boris johnson the british prime minister biden himself said occurs it sounds strange all these acronyms but it's a good one now this is a special or special purpose alliance that these three countries have signed up on with one specific purpose the specific purpose is to enable australia to build nuclear powered submarines remember a nuclear-powered submarine is not the same as a nuclear weapons submarine these are two different categories that's that's when an elementary fact that everybody needs to understand but most people don't the nuclear powered submarine is a submarine where the propulsion system runs on nuclear power it has a nuclear reactor but no nuclear weapons that's called an ssn ss in ssn stands for submersible ship or short form for submarine so ssn submersible ship nuclear run on a nuclear engine or run by a nuclear reactor or nuclear propulsion the other is ssbn ssbn then is literally submersible ship or submarine ballistic nuclear those are the ones those are the big guys who carry nuclear weapons that is something like say ins arihant that india has built those are nuclear powered they have nuclear reactors giving them endless power to go anywhere in the world and to be under water for as long as they wish as long as they have the food available for their crews food and water available for their crews but did ssns don't carry nuclear weapons so once again for clarity australia has been wanting to build now assassins that is nuclear powered submarines and its allies particularly america wants them to build this now the issue with this is that this entails transfer of very very sensitive nuclear reactor technology effectively this also means a transfer of nuclear reactors these are reactors made by rolls-royce british company also bae systems british company but these are based on american technology so america so far has only transferred these technologies to britain no other country and there is a complicated set of reasons why first of all a country like japan believes in its own strategic autonomy so it does not take technology from the americans second other nato allies have all forced foreign nuclear weapons they don't want to keep nuclear weapons in fact most of them are backers or signatories to non-proliferation treaty as is australia so that is the reason america has not transferred these technologies or fissile material to any of its other allied countries japan itself has its own domestic constitutional limitations on anything nuclear new zealand also has its own domestic political limitations on anything nuclear that's the reason for example that new zealand and canada have been left out of this grouping this is to answer the specific needs of this alliance in india pacific in the seas particularly in taiwan strait and south china sea so let me explain to you how this works because therein lies the basic rationale of this new alliance why do you need this new alliance there's so many so many alliances in this region already i told you about quad i told you about nato elsewhere in the world particularly europe america also has individual security treaties with countries there's one with japan there's one with south korea one with australia australia and new zealand themselves have a treaty called anzac that a n z a c or a n z ac depending on what you prefer then already america new zealand australia have an alliance more than 70 years old called anzas australia new zealand the us and that alliance has had a checkered history there was a time when new zealand was frozen out of that alliance for for a bit because new zealand insisted that they will not allow anything with the word nuclear on it in its waters whether nuclear weapon or nuclear power so the alliance then said the americans said that nobody can put these conditions if you're part of the alliance so you better be your membership had better remain frozen then new zealand as usual they made a compromise the other side made a compromise and they arrived at a conveniently hypocritical formulation saying that america as long as american ships that come in they do not carry nuclear weapons new zealand will allow them in their waters how did the americans ensure that americans said all right we never specify whether a vessel has nuclear weapons or not so if we haven't specified how do you know a vessel is nuclear weapons or not so we will not specify you presume we will not say that these ships have or these submarines have nuclear weapons because you don't know you don't have to stop them it does not run contrary to your own politics and your own laws so that is how new zealand was brought back in so australia new zealand america are already already in this tight security alliance then as i told you there are these many others america in fact even has a mutual defense assistance agreement that persists with pakistan even yet pakistan is still one of the non-nato key non-leader allies of the us so in all this mishmash one more acronym has now come in now everybody knows and anybody know who knows a little bit of the of how the navies work or how marine power works or anybody who knows how the strategic power is now flaunted in the world and how it's countered knows that today's battle today's cold war if you might say is on the seas naval power determines a country's status or an alliance's status or clout also how far can you exercise your enable naval power from your own shores because america is very far china is here the new polarization is america and china now china china has its areas of opportunity in its neighborhood it has claims on taiwan which it considers as a part of its own country it's like most countries in the world including including america in principle except the one china principle whatever that means and similarly china has maritime territorial claims that over over japan indonesia the philippines a lot of countries in the region now area which is china's area of opportunity and which gives china all all these targets is also china's area of vulnerability because a lot of the chinese chinese shipping passes through malacca street now morocco state the last island in the nicobar group is somewhere near where malacca state begins market state is very narrow it can be easily blocked by naval forces of countries hostile to china that is why the chinese are paranoid about the quad because you know india owns nicobar islands and indian navy is the preeminent navy this side of malacca straits so that is one second taiwan strait that is again a narrow stretch of the sea between china mainland and taiwan if the chinese have to move towards taiwan to take it over militarily or forcibly that is where friends of taiwan will have to stop china otherwise the chinese will be on the taiwan taiwanese island and they are much too big for taiwan second south china sea now south china sea is an area where china has all these maritime claims south china sea and north china sea all these maritime claims over other countries in the region including japan with australia it has no territorial issue australia is too far but with australia it has a trade warfare going on and now it sees australia as an american ally even more so it's been pushing australia around and in some ways china behaves like a colonial power that is we are going to buy this asset in your country we are going to buy this much land in your country or set up a dairy farm the size of a european country right mid-sized europe european country and if you don't let us buy it you are our adversary because you are in the american camp and we will then retaliate against you australia only made one big in discretion that was to say there should be proper investigation into the origins of the corona virus and the chinese have been hitting back at australia since then now everybody knows that china today is also the world's second preeminent naval power the chinese navy actually has more ships than any navy in the world and it's building ship building ships and submarines faster than india can build flyovers unfortunately uh unfortunately for how slowly we build flyovers but china is now expanding its navy big time second china has a very big missile missile force long range medium range and short range and given how narrow these waters are it is not that difficult for the chinese to guard these waters against surface ships so any surface ships going through these waters taiwan state so even south china sea increasingly the chinese missiles china has more than 2000 of these missiles and i will share with you an article from decay that talks about some of this in fact i'll share share with you an article from nikkei one from the guardian one from politico and one from the most famous of all global times it's right you start trembling when you listen uh listen to the name of global times particularly when they choose to write an editorial an angry editorial about something which they've done on occurs i will quote from it and also share a link with you now so the only way the only way the only naval vessels that can survive in taiwan strait and in south china sea aircraft carriers will have a very tough time because china is 2000 missiles maybe your anti-missile systems will stop 19 out of the 20 but only one has to hit an aircraft carrier will at least be non up not operational for a long time if not sunk all together because these are also big missiles and warships also carry a lot of ordnance within themselves so the safest the vessel with the most likely chance of survival and being able to operate is a submarine now whereas somewhere where submarines go there are three kinds of submarines one is your normal diesel electric submarines all of india submarines are like that whether these are scorpion or type 209 germans or the old kilo class soviet made russian made submarines they are all diesel electric diesel electric submarines are good some of those are very quiet in fact russians make some of the quietest ones but they have to keep surfacing every now and then to snorkel because they have to suck in the oxygen to recharge their batteries and to keep things going and that is the time when these submarines are very vulnerable because when they come out to snorkel they are then much higher up much closer to the water level and also they show something outside and they can be detected by those by submarine hunters whether these are aircraft long range aircraft or helicopters or other ships and other systems ssns that is nuclear powered submarines nuclear powered submarines can remain underwater for a long time in fact they can remain under water for as long as they wish as long as they have food and supplies for their crews that's all that is their limitations so they will have to replenish it at some point that means they can't be under water for three years but they can be under water for long periods also they are very silent because energy for propulsion is generated by a nuclear reactor it is not being generated by a more conventional generator which makes its own echoes and sounds so these are the submarines that are most likely to survive australia is a rich country so the allies of australia which is america and britain and also the other western allies would rather that australia also build some nuclear powered subways not nuclear weapons australia has eschewed and given up nuclear weapons australia is also a signatory to npt it is because of that reason that australia does not have a nuclear industry it does not make its nuclear reactors and also that it does not have any fissile material because without fissile material you cannot fire these reactors so with this agreement this is a specific agreement to enable australia to build nuclear propelled not nuclear weapons once again nuclear propelled submarines so they can add those to the number of nuclear propelled submarine silent submarines that can be under water in south china sea around that area in larger indo-pacific and thailand straight for long times because right now the americans have quite a few but how many can they spare for this region the brits have some the brits have built these with american help and now if they get a third allied country to do this and the third allied country which is closer it's still not that close to china but closer to the region it's an indo-pacific country then it is good for all so this august is purely targeted at enabling australia to use its money australia is a very rich country very rich country with shared strategic concerns with the us with britain with other western allies so that they can add their own might to this nuclear propelled submarine fleet to give trouble to the chinese so this is a finger in the eye of the chinese and sure if the chinese are upset it's a different matter that this one action is also got the french upset because with this australia's ongoing negotiations with france to build some 75 000 crores worth of uh summaries conventional submarines that's a nine billion dollar project that has completely gone out of the window because if you are now investing money in nuclear powered submarines why do you need conventional submarines so the french are upset but that is for different reasons the chinese are upset for good reasons chinese are upset and i will tell you how upset they are in a minute now why is britain here and why is nato not here that also tells you that this is a fundamental shift now also in the british view of british strategic worldview let me put it like that and the guardian actually gets it right the guardian story says that this is britain's first post brexit foreign policy move first big post post policy move so britain now feels free to make these moves independent of the rest of europe because america has struggled to get the rest of europe to take the same tough view on china although at the last nato summit they included china as one of the threats for nato but for them russia is still the preeminent threat and they don't give the same importance to china also because everybody has vested interest in china everybody has some fish to fry there and everybody also does not want to take pangas with china because chinese are the big daddies so not many of the european countries don't have the stomach to take on china so this guardian story in fact quotes a senior american official as saying that this submarine deal is a down payment on the concept of global britain that after brexit britain wants to be a truly global power so submarine deal america is authorizing the export of technologies and fissile materials and the british will now enable australia to build this nuclear submarines and that is a big change now reaction in china is understandable because what what the chinese sees one day there's squad one day there is something else one day you do something with japan one day you do something with australia and now you have this entirely new thing which is which has a stated purpose of enabling australia which is a country which is forced for all nuclear technologies remember when india tested the nuclear weapons in poker and program 2 australia imposed the toughest sanctions on india indian officers at australian military academy studying during a reciprocal basis the australian officers in india indians there they were pulled out of their classrooms and lectures and told to go home that country is now going to build nuclear submarines to balance china so the chinese are upset so first of all usually suspect there is a tweet from lizzian zhao a chinese spokesperson who says that this forging of close and exclusive clicks targeting other countries runs counter to the trend of the times and it's not what countries in this region want then there is an editorial in global times which i'll be sharing with you and you can see the screenshot but i'm sharing the link with you you can read all of it that this new step the formation of our awkwards will now launch a nuclear-powered submarine fever across the globe and the temptation for nuclear-powered submarines will not become global because once the americans start exporting this technology then every country would want these so for me there are some standout lines in this global times editorial so i'll quote some to you one is however australia arms itself it is still a running dog of the us now when did you last hear that term running dog it used to be running dog of capitalist isn't it so however australia arms itself it is still a running dog of the us then it goes goes on to say that if australia becomes a part of the u.s effort to intimidate china then china will show it no mercy china will strike back with no mercy that's the language that global times which is an official newspaper of the chinese communist party that is using about china and then it goes on to say it will make australia a target for chinese counter measures as a warning to others and then goes on to say thus the australian troops are also most likely to be the first batch of western soldiers to waste their lives in south china seas so prepare for the worst australia and it goes on to say we noticed that australia has been talking about missile defense which is a good idea australia actually needs to build missile defense because if if they do all this stuff then and our entire armada of missiles will be targeting australia so they better get their missile defense system ready so this is really a threat and then this editorial closes with a very ominous statement very ominous statement but also a threatening statement that says america is now through these policies is trying to unleash global chaos america is embarrassed after its defeat in afghanistan it's trying to make up for that by doing some of these things this is the last line so it is something that everybody understands that everybody needs to think about that who has the more resilience to survive global chaos thus unleashed is it america or is it china which means push comes to the shop we can handle it baby yoga absolutely [Music]

Channel: ThePrint

Views: 484,671

Keywords: ThePrint, shekhar gupta, theprint india, theprint hindi, What is AUKUS, AUKUS explained, AUKUS agenda, AUKUS and CHina, CHina and US relations, Nuclear powered Submarines, Indian Submarines, US and Australia Submarines

Id: -OUy---aLrs

Length: 22min 8sec (1328 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 16 2021