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After 43 years, France to rejoin NATO as Full Member
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| HardTranceProd |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9031100547.html
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PARIS, March 11 -- President Charles de Gaulle infuriated the United States when he suddenly pulled France out of NATO's military command in 1966, arguing he had to preserve French independence in world affairs.
Forty-three years later, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Wednesday, France has decided to return as a full-fledged member of the 26-nation military pact, the North Atlantic Alliance, which came together under U.S. leadership at the start of the Cold War in 1949 and has served as the basis for U.S.-European security relations since.
Casting aside Gaullist dogma long cherished in France, Sarkozy declared that rejoining the U.S.-led integrated command in Brussels will not diminish the independence of France's nuclear-equipped military and, on the contrary, will open the way for more French influence in deciding what NATO's new missions should be after the Cold War.
"The time has come," he said in a speech to France's Strategic Research Foundation, adding, "Our strategy cannot remain stuck in the past when the conditions of our security have changed radically."
The decision, widely debated even before it was formally announced, marked another significant step in Sarkozy's effort to bring France and the United States closer together after a period of estrangement and backbiting. Since taking over in May 2007, Sarkozy has repeatedly declared himself a friend of Washington and made gestures to warm the chill that had settled over French-U.S. relations under Presidents George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac, chiefly because of Chirac's opposition to the Iraq war and Bush's with-us-or-against-us approach.
"We need a renewed trans-Atlantic partnership between an America that is open and a Europe that is being strengthened," Sarkozy's defense minister, Hervé Morin, said in an address to the same conference.
Sarkozy said he would formally notify France's allies of its return to the NATO command during celebrations to mark the North Atlantic Alliance's 60th anniversary, with President Obama in attendance, scheduled for April 3-4 in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, just across the border in Germany. At Sarkozy's insistence, according to reports in Paris, Obama has penciled in a stop beforehand at the World War II Normandy landing beaches to dramatize the historic underpinnings of French-U.S. ties.
De Gaulle's defiant gesture, which caught Washington unaware, came at a time when U.S.-European security revolved around girding against a possible Soviet attack from the East. It meant in theory that the French military and its nuclear arsenal would no longer take orders from the American general commanding NATO forces. In addition, de Gaulle ordered out thousands of U.S. troops stationed on French soil and at NATO headquarters, then in a Paris suburb.
France never left the overarching North Atlantic Alliance, however, and within a year the practical effect of withdrawing from the integrated command was also watered down. A secret accord between U.S. and French officials, the Lemnitzer-Aillert Agreements, laid out in great detail how French forces would dovetail back into NATO's command structure should East-West hostilities break out.
Since then, the threat of a Soviet attack has melted away and NATO has launched a long study about how it should redefine its mission in the 21st century, including what has become a practice of military operations beyond the borders of member countries. Since the 1990s, for instance, NATO forces have intervened in conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan, none of which fit the NATO mission as originally conceived.
Despite their absence from the integrated command, French forces, the largest in Europe with 259,000 regulars and 419,000 reservists, have been major contributors to each of these interventions. More than 3,000 French soldiers have been dispatched to Afghanistan as part of the International Security Assistance Force and, since Sarkozy became president, they have expanded their role to include combat missions.
Sarkozy argued that, given the level of French participation on the ground, it made no sense for France to continue boycotting the command structure that runs such interventions.
"We send our soldiers onto the terrain but we don't participate in the committee where their objectives are decided?" he said. "The time has come to end this situation. It is in the interest of France and the interest of Europe."
In any case, he added, rejoining the integrated command still leaves France free to refuse to participate in an operation that it judges unwise. For instance, Germany, a full NATO member, refused to get involved in the Iraq war, he pointed out.
Sarkozy said France's return to the integrated command will not bring a radical strategic change for France as a nuclear power because Paris will remain outside NATO's nuclear coordination. As a result, he said, he will still be the only one with his finger on the button of French nuclear weapons.
Former prime minister Édouard Balladur recalled in a recent interview with Le Figaro newspaper that he began negotiations on a return to the integrated command when he was prime minister as far back as two decades ago, under the Socialist president, François Mitterrand. Similar negotiations were held under Chirac several years ago, Sarkozy said. But in both instances, they foundered on the level of participation by French officers in NATO's key commands.
In the agreement shaping up now, reports here said, French generals will be given the command of NATO's regional headquarters near Lisbon and the Norfolk, Va.-based Allied Command Transformation study group drawing up plans for future NATO missions.
The return to NATO's integrated command also will require France to slightly increase its financial contributions, estimated at about $175 million a year, or 7.5 percent of the total. But that represents a small part of France's military budget, estimated at $44 billion this year, and has not been a factor in the debate.
Sarkozy predicted that the country's return to NATO command also will accelerate development of a European defense force, long a goal of French diplomacy.
Previously, he said, Britain and to some degree Germany and other countries were reluctant to cooperate with France on such a force out of fear it would be interpreted as a split from NATO. As a result, the idea of a European defense force was hailed repeatedly at European Union summit meetings but has produced little in the way of practical results.
Since Sarkozy's plans became known in recent weeks, the president has found himself under attack from the main opposition group, the Socialist Party, and from those attached most strongly to the Gaullist heritage within his own conservative coalition. But he said that France over the years has quietly resumed cooperation with almost all facets of the NATO command and that his decision was a final step recognizing the reality of a long process.
Former prime minister Dominique de Villepin, who served with Sarkozy under Chirac, nevertheless called the decision a blunder that would dilute the independence of French foreign policy. Ségolène Royal, the Socialist former presidential candidate, said Sarkozy was identifying France too closely with the United States just as the world was moving from U.S. domination.
In response, Prime Minister François Fillon said he would put the government's foreign policy up for debate in the National Assembly on Tuesday. That will give the Socialists an opportunity to vent their criticisms of the NATO move, observers noted, but will force Sarkozy's coalition majority to swallow its reservations and vote with the government.
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By the way, readers' comments on this article have been very snarky in the online Post. By and large, despite being the USA's first historic ally, Americans really don't like the French. |
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| CGRumler |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
By the way, readers' comments on this article have been very snarky in the online Post. By and large, despite being the USA's first historic ally, Americans really don't like the French. |
It probably has to do with the fact that France is seen as the "flagship" of countries that refused to have anything to do with the War on Iraq. Americans who see them in this light tend to think of them as a " country".
Even though, historically, France is probably the country that has seen the most violence in the history of Mankind.
IMO, of course. :D |
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| Audigy7 |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...9031100547.html
By the way, readers' comments on this article have been very snarky in the online Post. By and large, despite being the USA's first historic ally, Americans really don't like the French. |
It's so ironic, too, in the sense that it can be argued that France's intervention in the American Revolution was the straw that broke the camel's back for Great Britain. Further, until the end of the Napoleonic wars, France's army was quite possibly the most powerful in the world.
It's pretty amazing how ignorant of history most Americans are. Or, how little the past means in relation to the current situation of the world for most Americans. |
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| Magnetonium |
I am sure that now after the American experience of the magnitude of issues arising from "liberated" Iraq, both domestic and in Iraq, including thousands of dead troops, huge financial debt and insignificant improvement in Iraq - over 5 years after French-led opposition to the invasion - they dont think of French as bad as they did in 2003.
Now the American establishment has probably cooled its heads because it realized just how much that war has got them into. Maybe listening to the French would have been a better idea. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by ********
Blah, I'm geussing it was due to two things:
1. French speaking French.
2. France liking Russia.
But I could be way off on that.
I still don't get why NATO thinks Russia is the spawn of all evil?
What exactly did they do that was so bad? Sure Russians killed a whole lot of Jews too, but they never declared war on the US or France, or Britain did they? |
You know it might be that whole Cold War thing that made them not really like NATO... :conf: Just a guess though... :p
Seriously, though, France joining NATO is not really a big deal, they still built weapons and trained to NATO standards, and if there was a war in Western Europe against the Russians that would have fought in the normal NATO chain of command most likely. Them rejoining is more just words than any sort concrete action.
French citizens complain that they will be dragged into US wars now that the are part of NATO, which is crap. France is in Afganistan, a NATO operation (which NATO shouldnt be doing, but thats a whole other story). Germany is a NATO member, arguably one of the most significant since NATOs main goal was defense of Western Germany, and it did not go to war in Iraq.
The only thing that NATO members are bound to do is defend another member nation from attack. Thats the argument for NATO operations in Afganistan, and really it makes sense that France is there too, because like I said they would more than likely join arms with other NATO members due to shared values.
Iraq was not an attack on a member nation, it was a member nation making an attack and so the bounding rule did not apply to other member nations.
Also the US needs to get its head out of its ass, a lot of them do think France is stupid and thats a really sad view. The French, honestly for the most part think of the US and a kindred nation that both faught revolutions in the same sort of spirit. They appreciate what the US did for them in WW2 as well.
Most intelligent people in the US also support and like France for what they have done for them in their nations history. |
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| VictorJukov |
NATO is a failing organization, the world has moved on and left poor USA and Western Europe far behind.
I can predict that once NATO dissolves, most of Eastern Europe will be returned back to mother Russia. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by VictorJukov
NATO is a failing organization, the world has moved on and left poor USA and Western Europe far behind.
I can predict that once NATO dissolves, most of Eastern Europe will be returned back to mother Russia. |
What signs do you have that NATO is a failing orgnaization?
If anything it might play second fiddle in European matters to the EU defense treaties, but other than that it remains a viable military force.
Remember Russia has two spheres of influence to contend with in Europe now, the EU and NATO. NATO is a soley military organization. The EU is both political and economical and a military organization.
If anything will drive countries back to Russia it will be a bias and a unwillingness from the major Western European powers to accept former Soviet Bloc countries into the EU that might affect their economies. |
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| VictorJukov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
What signs do you have that NATO is a failing orgnaization?
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Simple facts.
Majority of NATO countries are becoming less powerful and less rich. They will not be able to bully the world for much longer.
Russia leads the rest of the world that opposes NATO and the rest of the world if justly growing in wealth and power.
Your time is up. |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by VictorJukov
Simple facts.
Majority of NATO countries are becoming less powerful and less rich. They will not be able to bully the world for much longer.
Russia leads the rest of the world that opposes NATO and the rest of the world if justly growing in wealth and power.
Your time is up. |
They werent really bullying anyone in the first place.
If you are counting operations like the Balkans in '99 than I do agree, NATO is a defensive/offensiv military force, not a peacekeeping operation.
The infighting that has resulted from Afganistan is an example of this. NATO was meant to defend against a Soviet attack into Western Europe and then carry the fight back into Eastern Europe. |
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| VictorJukov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
They werent really bullying anyone in the first place.
If you are counting operations like the Balkans in '99 than I do agree, NATO is a defensive/offensiv military force, not a peacekeeping operation.
The infighting that has resulted from Afganistan is an example of this. NATO was meant to defend against a Soviet attack into Western Europe and then carry the fight back into Eastern Europe. |
you stupid guy read the history book again and keep in your ty head that the colonization took place centuries ago while the balkans war was in the middle of 20th century, after establishing of the NATO, and there were plenty of instruments to solve the problem, different from the fascist yanka war. And the liberation war against US fascists will never stop, did you read the news yesterday? |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| quote: | Originally posted by VictorJukov
you stupid guy read the history book again and keep in your ty head that the colonization took place centuries ago while the balkans war was in the middle of 20th century, after establishing of the NATO, and there were plenty of instruments to solve the problem, different from the fascist yanka war. And the liberation war against US fascists will never stop, did you read the news yesterday? |
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| VictorJukov |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
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I just brought my viewpoint that counters your VP. Argument against argument. Your next step would be right if you tried to disprove my VP using the next level of arguments (comparing historical data sources, etc.) But you preferred to call my words "LOL WUT" bull and retreat. This is a well-known britkin-dialogue, thanks for updating my statistics. It's not my rules, it's the rules of dispute. Your VP does not exist without arguments. Our paradigmes are different, but it is still possible to find a common reference points through step-by-step de-ideologization of terms used in describing past events. For example, to define what is world, history, etc. |
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