astuteman wrote:stratable wrote:bikerthai wrote::scratchchin: If the scope of AUKUS is for nuclear and ultra highly secret technology like the B-21 or NGAD, then why would Canada need to join?
They surely don't have the budget for any of that.
bt
Hehe, we wanted nuclear subs before we got our current conventional ones, but the US refused to allow that for fears that Canada could become too independent minded and block the Artic.
I think this was not a matter of nuclear tech, Canada had and has that, it was around mutual defense agreements and the US having certain veto rights.
Canada claims the Artic waters along its coast belongs to Canada (the possible navigable passage is literally meters off the coast), while the US maintains it is essentially an international waterway.
I'd be interested to know if you have a source for that.
I haven't. But my memory of the Canadian Nuclear Subs bid is that it was scuppered by the end of the Cold War, rather than anything more overtly political.
But as I say, I can't evidence that.
Rgds
Around 1987 Canada, with substantial civil nuclear expertise and Manhattan Project contributor (not that this would mean a damn once the thing was shown to work), was considering either the Trafalgar or Rubis Class.
Rubis, cramped, the noisiest by far Western SSN of the time, with then a poor fire control system too, was not aside from Québécois lobbying, the favored one, the Trafalgar Class were.
However, they fell under the 1958 agreement with the US, considering how much flak Canada had taken since the late 1960’s for its slashing of defence, which by the early 80’s had become acute, you would think that such a boost in Canadian capabilities would be welcome in Washington.
It wasn’t, they objected, presumably because the then production Los Angeles Class was not in the running?
Then the Cold War ended anyway, even before that with the issues above, always unlikely to succeed as the equally investment starved ground forces, less so the RCAF which had just got its CF-18’s, would claim the RCN were getting a disproportionate amount of funding for one capability.
30 years later the RAN and Australian government go with a French SSN that isn’t, so none of the advantages but a SSN-SSK adaptation?