Tom McTague writes:

A new world is beginning to take shape, even if it remains disguised in the clothes of the old.

The United States, Britain, and Australia have announced what is in effect a new “Anglo” military alliance. The basics are these: In 2016, Australia struck a deal with France to buy a fleet of diesel-powered submarines, rejecting an Anglo-American alternative for nuclear-powered vessels. In March this year, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison (or, “that fellow down under,” as Joe Biden referred to him), began talking with Washington about reversing its decision. Then, last night, in a live three-way public announcement, Biden, Morrison, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed that the Australians would scrap their agreement with France to team up with Britain and the U.S. instead, forming a new “AUKUS” military alliance in the process.

The French response has been apoplectic. The country’s minister of European and foreign affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, called the decision a “knife in the back.” Benjamin Haddad, from the Atlantic Council, in Washington, said it had set relations between the U.S. and France back to their lowest point since the Iraq War. Bruno Tertrais, of France’s Foundation for Strategic Research think tank went even further, calling it a “Trafalgar strike.”

Yet behind the soap opera of French anger and the quiet crowing of les perfides anglo-saxons, sits something much more important: the faint outlines of a new world order, or at least an attempt to start drawing one.

As Karl Marx observed, leaders who try to create something new “conjure up the spirits of the past to their service.” Old language, slogans, and costumes are deployed to present the new scene in time-honored disguise. As such, President Biden went out of his way to praise France and to claim that it remained a “key partner” in the Indo-Pacific. He was also at pains to point out that the submarines that would eventually patrol Australia’s coastline were not nuclear-armed, but nuclear-powered. The U.S., Biden stressed, was not breaking its nonproliferation commitments, but simply strengthening existing alliances.

Indeed, in one reading, the formation of an AUKUS military alliance has a sense of deep continuity. As Biden pointed out, the three nations have fought together for most of the past 100 years and are core members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, alongside Canada and New Zealand. For France, in particular, the announcement only reinforces its belief in the difference between Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world. So much, so similar. (A senior Biden-administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said last night that Britain and Australia were America’s “oldest allies.” That might be news to France, which was allied to the nascent U.S. as it fought for independence from … Britain.)

But to view the emergence of AUKUS as a sign of continuity—as its architects have presented it—is to miss the point. Although Biden twice name-checked France in his remarks last night, the country on his mind was the one not mentioned at all: China. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports:

Boris Johnson has been challenged by his predecessor, Theresa May, as to whether the newly signed Aukus defence pact between the UK, US and Australia could lead to Britain being dragged into a war with China over Taiwan.

The intervention came during a Commons debate on the three-country agreement, under which the US and UK will share sensitive technology with Australia to allow it to develop its first nuclear-powered submarines.

The former British prime minister asked Johnson: “What are the implications of this pact for the stance that would be taken by the United Kingdom in its response should China attempt to invade Taiwan?”

In reply, the prime minister was careful not to rule anything out. “The United Kingdom remains determined to defend international law and that is the strong advice we would give to our friends across the world, and the strong advice that we would give to the government in Beijing,” he said. [Continue reading…]