- BitsBlog - https://bitsblog.com -

France Returns to Earth

After a busy weekend, I’m just now starting to get caught up on things.  One of the things I noticed was that on Friday James Joyner posted this: [1]

All signs point to France rejoining NATO’s military structure more than forty years after declaring its independence and kicking the alliance headquarters out of Paris. Norman Polmar [2] provides some background:

France is expected to soon rejoin NATO’s military command after a 40-year absence. The French government withdrew from the NATO military structure in 1966 (although remaining a member of NATO’s political-policy structure). France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has placed strong emphasis on France’s relationship with the United States. And, he recently declared that he would soon undertake “very strong” initiatives on European defense and give France “its full place” in NATO. Subsequently, Defense Minister Herve Morin said that he was “convinced that European defense will make no progress unless France changes its political behavior within NATO.”

It’s important to recall that, despite notable differences, France has remained a NATO ally

Says James:

While the United Nations Security Council remains the preferred vehicle for collective security, for a whole host of reasons, the requirement for unanimity among its Permanent Members, including authoritarian Russia and China, almost always takes that option off the table. Despite its divisions — especially given its rapid membership expansion — NATO is a far more wieldable tool. The full participation of France would make it a more viable one.

Very true.  I regard it as a measure of how much the international position of France has changed for the better, following the most recent election.  It strikes me that if we are somehow stupid enough to put Hillary Clinton into the White House, that France will have a more realistic international policy than the United States .  Certainly, the situation which no one could have predicted four years ago. and so, to address James’ second point, it is in fact a more wieldable weapon.  But wieldable by whom, and to what end? Most certainly that is one of the things that is dependent on the outcome of the next election here in the states.