AUKUS is a game changer that goes beyond a betrayed ally or a betrayed contract. Since 1945 a non written rule banned the sale of nuclear weapons, especially submarines. France, the US, Russia, China, the UK and India respected it. Surely there were deployment of balistic missiles in other countries and sales of double use nuclear technology but all countries did their best to minimise them and hide them under the civil use excuse. In any case, nuclear submarines were clearly off limits and no nuclear power has sold or transfer nuclear submarine technology or finished products, openly or not. AUKUS is changing that with serious implications for Iran, N Korea and the likes. The case of N. Korea is especially worrying as this is clearly how China will retaliate and there is no need to say what a N Korea with nuclear submarines means for world peace and the security of Western nations. A nuclear arms race with an unstable regime is a very dangerous game to start blindly and Japan, S Korea and many other allies in the region will start thinking how to avoid being dragged into it and thus weakening the lose and informal alliance sewed in the region with those countries sharing common democratic values.

A second implication of AUKUS is the confirmation that the US have become an unpredictable and unreliable ally. As a French minister put it, like Trump without the tweets. The US withdrawal from Afghanistan was the first sign even though many doves in Europe claimed that it was, somehow, an unavoidable legacy of Trump´s treaties. AUKUS, however, is fully and only of Biden´s making and, as such, a wake up call. No more and no less. This has serious implications for Europe. Not only should Europe start to build its own defence and strategic capabilities before the next world crisis erupts but it should also start showing "one voice" in the international scene. France is Europe, the heart of Europe, and if stabbing France in the back doesn't make all of Europe bleed then nothing will and, as the dollar says, "united we stand" which means that not united we will all fall. Nothing more needs to be said and one wonders why the EU and its Member States have so far remained silent.

Third and last, AUKUS shows all the contradictions in Western strategic policy to respond to China's increasing economic weight in the Pacific region and in the world with XX century military policies. The US clearly thinks it no longer has or can afford the economic capabilities to dispute China's influence in the region and in the world and Europe's politics and policies were far behind the US and only reluctantly. On more modern military terms, neither Europe nor the US have so far shown anything capable of responding to Russia's cyber warfare capabilities, not to mention China's.

In the end, it all shows Western weaknesses and prejudices. If antagonism with China was about the opposing values of democracy and comunism, the West would be combining the stick with some carrots to help China to transition smoothly to democracy; if it is about racism or some form of geonationalism, then we will see the current picture of only, or mostly, aggresivity and sticks.