Britain’s Former Ambassador to NATO Warns AUKUS Sub Deal Could Sink Alliance

Paris has accused its US, UK and Australian allies and partners of ‘stabbing France in the back’ over last week’s announcement by Canberra that it would scuttle a French-Australian submarine deal worth tens of billions of dollars in favour of a plan to build the subs at home using American and British nuclear reactor technology.

Peter Ricketts, a veteran diplomat who served as Britain’s ambassador to France and as permanent representative to NATO, has warned that Australia’s US and UK-backed decision to scrap a $65 billion contract for 12 subs with France will “damage” the Western alliance, and could push Paris and Europe as a whole to seek alternative sources of security.

“I think this move certainly undermines French confidence in NATO and NATO allies, and therefore reinforces their feeling that they should be driving for European strategic autonomy,” Ricketts said, speaking to AFP on Monday.

“I think that can only be damaging to NATO, because NATO depends on trust. The repair work needs to begin urgently,” the former diplomat urged.

Ricketts expects the spat over subs to “be remembered in France” for a long time to come, similar to the rift in ties between Paris and Washington that took place in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. “I think it will tend to reinforce the feeling among Europeans that America is now a less reliable ally than it was," he added.

French Exit From NATO?

The submarine crisis has prompted some senior French opposition figures, including Xavier Bertrand and Jean-Luc Melenchon, to suggest that Paris should consider withdrawing from the NATO alliance in response to the snub.

On Sunday, Bertrand, a former minister in the Sarkozy government, called for an emergency NATO summit to be convened, where he said France must “ask the Americans…do you respect us? Where is the alliance going?”

“If the answer does not satisfy us, I wish to put on the table the question of France’s participation in NATO’s integrated command,” he urged.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has assured that France’s membership in the Western alliance was not under debate at this point, but did promise that “the next NATO summit in Madrid” would “work on a new strategic concept” for the alliance.

The submarine crisis –brought about in the wake of the US, UK and Australian creation of a new trilateral security pact known as ‘AUKUS’, has sparked a crisis of confidence in Paris in its allies and partners. In a historically unprecedented step, France withdrew its ambassadors from Australia and the United States. Other US partners – such as India, Europe and Canada, also expressed concerns over the implications of the pact or felt that they were left in the dark, while China and North Korea have warned that the new alliance might upset the strategic balance and spark a new arms race in Asia.

President Emmanuel Macron and US President Joe Biden are expected to speak by phone in the coming days to discuss the matter. Earlier Monday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought to smooth over tensions by stressing that London was “very, very proud” of its relationship with France, and called the “very friendly” ties between the two countries “absolutely vital for us.”