Tag: France

What AUKUS Means for U.S.-China Great Power Competition

Chin@Strategy

This is a hallmark of great power competition: Competitive initiatives like AUKUS provide visible ways to counter or balance or complicate China’s military activities but don’t necessarily help allies meet defined objectives. More often, competition becomes an end in itself — an open-ended imperative that assumes everything an opponent dislikes must be good policy. Another common feature of competitive policies is that officials tend to overlook their costs. For one thing, AUKUS carries significant diplomatic costs at a time when the United States is in desperate need of credibility with…

In Biden’s Foreign Policy, Friends and Foes Claim Echoes of Trump

Chin@Strategy

They include Mr. Biden’s continuation of Trump-era trade tariffs, which Democrats roundly denounced before Mr. Biden took office but his officials quickly came to see as a source of leverage in their dealings with China. Similarly, Iranian officials complain bitterly that Mr. Biden has not lifted any of the numerous economic sanctions that Mr. Trump imposed after he withdrew from the nuclear deal. Early in Mr. Biden’s presidency, some European allies urged the administration to lift some of those restrictions as a way to jump-start nuclear talks, but Biden officials…

At U.N., Biden Calls for Diplomacy, not Conflict, but Some Are Skeptical

Chin@Strategy

President Biden, fighting mounting doubts among America’s allies about his commitment to working with them, used his debut address to the United Nations on Tuesday to call for “relentless diplomacy” on climate change, the pandemic and efforts to blunt the expanding influence of autocratic nations like China and Russia. In a 30-minute address in the hall of the General Assembly, Mr. Biden called for a new era of global action, making the case that a summer of wildfires, excessive heat and the resurgence of the coronavirus required a new era…

The Secret Talks Behind the U.S. Deal That France Called a ‘Betrayal’

Chin@Strategy

According to French officials, Mr. Blinken also stayed silent on June 25 when his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, welcomed him back to Paris — where Mr. Blinken spent his high school years — and extolled the importance of the French submarine deal. And as recently as Aug. 30, when the French and Australian defense and foreign ministers held their annual “consultation,” they issued a joint communiqué that said the two countries were committed to deepening cooperation in the defense industry and “underlined the importance of the Future Submarine program.”…

The Sharp U.S. Pivot to Asia Is Throwing Europe Off Balance

Chin@Strategy

There are deeper questions about America’s future reliability as a security partner, especially if the conflict with China turns kinetic, which is part of Mr. Macron’s argument, Mr. Lesser acknowledged. “For all the U.S. commitment to Europe, if things go wrong in the Indo-Pacific, that would change the force structure in Europe pretty fast.” In Poland, a strong American ally in the European Union and NATO, the reaction to the new alliance was more positive, focusing not on a pivot away from Europe “but on the U.S., with the British…

In Submarine Deal With Australia, U.S. Counters China but Enrages France

Chin@Strategy

PARIS — President Biden’s announcement of a deal to help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines has strained the Western alliance, infuriating France and foreshadowing how the conflicting American and European responses to confrontation with China may redraw the global strategic map. In announcing the deal on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said it was meant to reinforce alliances and update them as strategic priorities shift. But in drawing a Pacific ally closer to meet the China challenge, he appears to have alienated an important European one and aggravated already tense relations with Beijing.…