DaKardii wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:01 pm
I just realized that the UK is also a party to the sub agreement. Now France's response makes a bit more sense to me.
Relations between France and the UK have been slowly deteriorating since Brexit, as the UK resets its foreign policy to the pre-WWII doctrine of preventing Western Europe from being dominated by a single power while France's clout over the EU is significantly increased due to the lack of an internal British counterbalance.
Thus, it would make sense if France responded the way it did because it sees this agreement as part of a British plot to undermine France's influence around the world, with the USA and Australia collaborating with the UK out of some sort of "Anglosphere superiority complex." And in this specific case, the USA and Australia did most of the dirty work, which is why France retaliated diplomatically against them but not the UK itself.
Of course, this is just my personal speculation again.
On a side note, the idea that a major power's resentment -- over what it sees as being sidelined within in a (potential) coalition by other major powers -- would be enough to drive that major power to "switch sides" in the general geopolitical conflict, shouldn't be discounted. Because that's exactly what happened with Italy after WWI.
Mussolini came to power due to the Italian population being angry with Britain and France over what they saw as Italy being sidelined at Versailles. But even after he came to power, he was still interested in allying Italy with Britain and France against a resurgent Germany. But then again, after Britain and France condemned him for invading Ethiopia, he again felt that Italy was being sidelined, and decided ally with Germany just to spite Britain and France, even though such an alliance was against Italy's national interests.
Could Macron -- who has a big ego himself -- be arrogant enough to ally France with China, just like Mussolini was arrogant to ally Italy with Germany?
