The Null Device

Containing France

The Pentagon declares that France is no longer an ally and must be "contained". Pentagon Policy Advisory Board Richard Perle also declared that the UN Security Council, on which France has a permanent seat, is irrelevant. Multilateralism, and the post-WW2 ideal of resolving conflicts through debate and consensus, edges one step closer to collapse. (via die puny humans)

(France is one of the small number of "legitimate" nuclear powers. Perhaps now that France is no longer worthy of trust (in the ways that, say, Israel and Pakistan, are) we can expect the USA and Britain demanding that France abandon its weapons of mass destruction or face military intervention? Won't Ann Coulter be pleased when that happens.)

There are 3 comments on "Containing France":

Posted by: Ritchie http:// Wed Feb 5 12:05:55 2003

This is ludicrous but not entirely unexpected. France withdrew from NATO in disgust after the White House began making noises to the effect that a Soviet invasion of Europe wouldn't necessarily lead to massive nuclear retaliation. De Gaulle decided it was better to withdraw from NATO and build a French nuclear deterrent (they'd already built a working bomb) than to let the Americans decide how much of Europe could be invaded (and, yes, there was also nuclear diplomacy). Needless to say the US took this as a bit of a slap in the face - they had thought their policy would make nuclear war less likely. Instead it kickstarted nuclear proliferation; the very thing it was supposed to counter.

I don't think the US ever got over the fact that another country ('cheese-eating surrender monkeys' at that) had the temerity to tell them, rightly or wrongly, to stuff their nuclear umbrella in a certain orifice. There's a rather dangerous dialectic (series of them, rather) at work here, the most obvious being "if you

Posted by: Ritchie http:// Wed Feb 5 12:06:51 2003

're not a friend, you're a foe".

Posted by: wy__ http://www.bna-bbot.be Sun Feb 9 21:51:01 2003

I've heard that the main reason why Germany and France oppose the war is because they have made oil contracts wth Irak....