The United States, the United Kingdom and Australia recently formed a new trilateral security partnership, known as AUKUS, under which Washington and London will provide Canberra with nuclear submarine technology.
The Sept. 15 announcement caught the rest of the world by surprise, since the negotiations had been kept strictly secret.
It was also no surprise that the new partnership sparked outrage from France, as it signaled the cancellation by Australia of its 2016 contract with France for 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines.