Purchase of French submarines for the Royal Netherlands Navy is in danger of falling through: ‘America does not want to share secret technology’

Aankoop Franse onderzeeërs voor Koninklijke Marine dreigt in het water te vallen: ‘Amerika wil geheime technologie niet delen’



by Zhukov-74

23 comments

  2. Article in Dutch.

    Are these the same subs that were recently awarded to the Naval group?

  4. Basically, American missiles require some sort os secret tech that they want to keep as closely guarded as possible. It sounds more on the competitive sales side rather than the secret weapon side. That is to say, they are worried the french could see how they do what they do and apply it to their own defense industry potentially undercutting US sales. Sorry im wrong but thats what I gathered from the translation.

  5. French state and lobby fought very hard for this deal. French support for Rutte for NATO sec position, billions in state subsidies since naval group is state owned. Lobby convincing the dutch to ease requirements to keep naval group in the competition. Spying on SAAB and thyssenkrupp to undercut them.

    [https://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/nederland-versoepelde-eisen-om-frankrijk-in-de-race-te-houden-voor-bouw-onderzeeboten~bf724561/](https://www.volkskrant.nl/politiek/nederland-versoepelde-eisen-om-frankrijk-in-de-race-te-houden-voor-bouw-onderzeeboten~bf724561/)

  8. same thing happened during france-egypt rafale deal, pentagon decided to block a small component in the integrated weapons system. reality is as the two largest arms dealers in the world, france and US are trade competitors and the [US](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S0aD6QLTxQ) has a vested interest in hamstringing france’s arms export. it’s very bullshit and makes the popular american sentiment that europe needs to divest from US military dependency very duplicitous

  9. I mean, yeah? not like the French are champing at the bit to share their secrets with the US either….

    it’s always funny how the French defense industry is happy to politick when it’s to their advantage (see: how Naval Group ended up with this contract in the first place) and then cries foul whenever anybody does the exact same thing to them. kinda gotta pick a lane on that one

  10. For those wondering why the Netherlands doesn’t use French missiles instead:

    Per the article, the cruise missiles that can be launched from the submarines are very important and in this case, the American ones are more technologically sophisticated *and* significantly cheaper. So it just doesn’t really make sense to buy these French submarines if they can’t use their cruise missiles, and it doesn’t make sense to replace the Tomahawks (US cruise missiles being used) with more expensive, inferior ones from France.

  12. Come on man. Two oldest US allies that helped gained its independance and still cant get the tech.

  13. Unfortunately Reddit isn‘t allowing me to post the translation.

  14. Sweden to Netherlands: “How would you feel about snapping upskirt pictures of an American aircraft carrier?”

  15. Annoying but understandable the US military industrial complex doesn’t want the french undercutting them

  16. That’s how the business goes. France and the US are rivals in the arms industry and it’s very cut throat. You can’t expect America to just enable themselves to be undercut when the ability to take an advantage exist. That’s lost revenue that can be invested to benefit American jobs and supplement furthers weapons development to maintain the level of quality that the U.S. wants in its military.

    If France want to compete with that it need to have a niche, an advantage it can leverage to get a piece of the pie. This is what it is to compete with another country, if France is serious about wanting to position itself as an alternative to the US then it needs to be able to do things like this. Not just with the US either but with China, South Korea, Russia, Pakistan, India, the UK, and every other country involved in the arms trade.

    This is just business.

  18. Hey! Same exact story of Türkiye buying buying air defence from Russia!

  19. I feel like it’s gonna take a hell of a lot longer than 10 years for these subs to be ready for service.

  20. Can’t wait for WW3, since Einstein said that all the wars after it would be fought with sticks and stones. Talk about leveling the battlefield…

  21. Before people scream AUKUS again, neither UK or US have an alternative bid for a replacement sub. Only alternative would be Swedish or German built. And it would be awkward if the US would be like” we trust the Swedish/ Germans more”.

    Or the new NL government would have to change their request towards nuclear propulsion instead of diesel, then it would be AUKUS 2 ( which would lead to UK favorism since the Dutch navy has ties with the Royal navy for their sub training etc..

  22. Maybe EU can demand interoperability or face a penalty equal to a percentage of global sales. Treat them same as they treat Apple and Google. 🍿

  23. America does not want to share

    I feel such shock /s

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