Maple Mistrals? Mais Non

David Pugliese has fun in his new post, basically raising a possibility and then dashing it: that Canada could take the French Mistals that they had built to sell to Russia.  Now that selling amphibuous assault ships to Russia seems politically incorrect, people are looking for Canada to take on these beasts.  Seems like a win-win since Canada would get some bitchin' platforms and France would not have to worry about giving Russia the ships.

But pleeeeasssse!  This is about as realistic as any of Canada's procurement projects coming in early and under budget.  Why not?

First, Canada would have to pay up front a couple of billion dollars.  The National Shipbuilding Procurement Strategy keeps taking longer and longer, which is actually cool for this government since it can defer and defer the spending and thus have a balanced budget.

Second, everyone ignores the costs that go with these ships.  Canada has had a tremendously hard time just getting new helicopters for its navy--for the handful of frigates and destroyers.  These Mistrals would need a squadron of helos each to be functional, not to mention landing craft (which Canada does not have), and so on.  Operating these ships has to be more expensive than operating frigates.  And the Canadian Navy is already stretched when it comes to operations and maintenance.

Third, what would Canada do with an amphibious assault ship?  Yes, folks have tweeted at me that this would be handy for some humanitarian emergencies, but those are pretty rare.  So, you would be spending billions on something that is rarely needed.

Fourth, ships built elsewhere are explicitly not in Canada's future.  Why?  Because being built elsewhere would mean jobs/votes for people in other countries, not for the politicians in Canada.  The emphasis here has been on industrial benefits, which, for me, seems like a codeword for pork.

The idea that NATO would buy them and then base them in Canada is perhaps even less realistic. Looking at NATO's AWAC program ignores the dark sides of that effort--that deploying the planes anywhere leads to debates in France about whether they support such efforts since they don't like paying the costs and debates and votes in Germany about whether to deploy them.  Oh, and remember that the Germans did not support the Libyan mission so that posed big problems for the NATO AWACS effort.  Not to mention that some NATO countries opted out of the AWACS flying over American cities after 9/11.  Finally, this idea suggests that NATO has a big bag of cash laying around, when, again, this would be the product of the members agreeing to do this and agreeing to share the costs.  Yes, share the costs.

I feel bad for the French, but they are stuck and neither Canada nor NATO is going to bail them out.

NATO potpourri: Consider Me Confused

Just a fun day to be thinking about NATO.  Actually, every day is a fun day to be thinking about NATO as I start to reach the end of the Dave and Steve book.

Anyhow, just a couple of stories today:

• The former Hungarian Ambassador, Andras Simonyi, addressed the future of NATO as the Chicago summit is on the horizon.  He blasted those countries that did not share the burden adequately and admired partners (Sweden in his Libya example) that did more than members.  This comparison is not surprising except that it comes from an Hungarian official. 
•  Hungary was such a lightweight in Afghanistan that the New Zealanders in the neighboring province would send patrols into the Hungarian sector to find out what was going on since the Hungarians were heavily restricted.  Oh, and the real punchline--the Kiwis had 220 or so troops, so sending a patrol into the Hungarian area of responsibility was not a minor task even if the NZ sector was one of the easiest in Afghanistan (remote, ethnically distinct from Pashtuns, bad past experiences with Taliban. 
• So, the real question is what is Simonyi doing?  Attacking his own country for not doing much in Afghanistan besides showing up?  For not showing up at all during the Libyan campaign?  
• I am seriously confused.  It would be like a Bush administration official snarking at another country for acting unilaterally.  
• The second story is that Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan spoke about the threat of war with Syria.  Refugee flows and possible attacks across the border are causing Turkey to become more assertive.  This has raised the idea of Turkey invoking Article V of the NATO Treaty--an attack upon is an attack upon all.  Of course, asking and getting are two different things:
• Invoking the article is a political act requiring a decision of the members of the alliance--not just one member saying it was attacked.  Only time A-5 was invoked was after 9/11.  Getting the rest of NATO to agree or enough to agree and the rest to stay silent is mighty hard.
• Indeed, France would likely oppose A-5 for Turkey as the two countries have heaps of tensions over a variety of issues.  Greece, of course, would oppose anything Turkey wants.  Other countries in NATO would likely side with France as they would not want to appear to be obligated to help Turkey while being financially constrained at home.
• Which gets to the second part of A-5: an attack upon one is equal to an attack upon all, and each country responds as it deems necessary.  That A-5 has a huge opt out clause that one can drive a country through [this is where caveats are inherent in NATO].  Some countries did not join in A-5 associated efforts in 2001-2002, such as participating in NATO AWACS planes flying over major American cities/events.
• So, what is Turkey up to, knowing that asking for A-5 is likely to split NATO?  Perhaps pushing NATO to act in a way that would not prompt the same kind of crisis that a debate about Turkey and A-5 might?  

So, today, we have two puzzling cases of actors asking for stuff that they cannot get and the mere asking is pretty controversial.  I don't quite understand.  Do you?

Turkey Out-Rummy's Rumsfeld

France passed a law focused on the Armenian genocide, deliberately antagonizing Turkey.  Among Turkey's responses: denying France overflight rights for planes serving the Afghan mission as well as access to its waters.  This reminds me of Rumsfeld since he sought to block all cooperation with the French military after Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003.  He sought to turn off all military to military interchanges/exchanges, but the US uniformed folks pushed back a bit, making Rummy realize that the French actually were very helpful in Africa.  That the US is using a base in the former French colony of Djibouti (the recent SEAL rescue) is just a bit of evidence of the reliance the US has on France in building bridges in places the US has had little experience.

Anyhow, I was just struck by the Turkeys rummy-ing France.  Does xenophobia explain France's positions on Turkey or is there something else going on?

Let's Blame the French

I have had heaps of fun over the years making jokes about France and its defense policy (why do the streets in Paris have trees on the sides of the roads? so the Germans can march in the shade), but we have to take a huge grain of salt with any criticism of the French decision to mosey out of Afghanistan in 2013.  I already blogged about this over the weekend, but I spotted some tweets about the French causing the Afghans to question NATO with the quick departure.  My simple response: 2014-2013= one year.  Simply put, how much does one year matter? 

Am I happy that France is getting out faster than expected?  No.  I was not pleased that Canada raced out the door last year.  Not great for alliance relations, but we need to put things into perspective.  I am pretty sure that leaving one year early is not as bad as hanging around for a few years and not doing that much (Italy, Spain) or anything (Greece) or yanking key troops out of significant billets this past summer during the Libyan operation (Germany).  Perhaps France did more damage by pushing the alliance too hard and too fast last winter.  But now?  Not a huge deal.  Sarkozy is desperate for votes. 

Oh, and in terms of Afghanistan, I am pretty sure that Karzai has done far more damage to NATO's image than France has.

Putting France and 2013 Into Perspective

In Together, Out Together.  That was the mantra in most talking points, documents and the rest for when the US was in Bosnia with its NATO allies in 2001-2002.  A couple of years later, the mission was transitioned to a European Union one (from SFOR to EUFOR), with the US and Canada leaving Bosnia before their European allies, and re-labeling covering the broken promise of in together, out together.

Now, President Sarkozy is making heaps of news by promising to get French troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013.  What does this mean?  Well, it means many things, but it is probably not quite as a big of a deal as folks suggest.  Why?

• In Together, Out Together is dead and has been for two years.  The Dutch left Uruzgan in 2010 after their government collapsed over the extension of the mission.  Yes, the Netherlands did deploy a much smaller set of folks to do police training, but only in relatively safe areas (not Southern Afghanistan).  Canada left Kandahar last summer as the effort to extend the mission in 2008 had built in the seeds of a commitment to leave in 2011.  And, yes, Prime Minister Harper pulled out of nowhere a commitment to return to Afghanistan to train folks, again in safe places--Kabul-centric and behind the wire.  [I am presenting a paper in April at the International Studies Association meeting comparing these two cases.]  These two countries were leaving a couple of the most important provinces in the country.  The big difference is that the US is getting smaller as well, as backfilling with US troops will be harder this time.
• As part of this process, Kapisa, where the French have led and faced significant combat, will be turned over to Afghan authorities, even if it is not ready.  Does this somehow alter the transition process?  Not as much as portrayed, as Helmand, which has been the most dangerous province, is being already turned over and as Mazeer el-Sharif was transitioned even though it was the site of anti-international community riots in the aftermath of the Koran burning in Florida.
• An important thing to keep in mind is that during this transition process, the NATO forces are not leaving entirely but are trying to give the Afghans leadership responsibilities in various places across the country.  Transitioning Kapisa in the next few months does not mean that French combat forces will be gone, but that there will be a greater effort to have the Afghans out in front, ready or not.  Given that other folks have been pushing for the same accelerated calendar, Sarkozy is not that far out of step, even if the announcement was fairly unilateral.
• France is only moving up the schedule one year--out by end of 2013 rather than 2014.  Given that the choice of 2014 had little to do with a realistic schedule of progress on the ground but much more to do with political calendars in Kabul (Karzai's second term ends) and in Washington, DC (a promise that could be made before 2012 election), 2013 is just as arbitrary and just as political.  Will it make the difference in Sarkozy getting re-elected?  Um, maybe.
• The piece cited above also addresses the "who is going to pay for the Afghan security forces" as if this is going to be that hard.  Really? I am pretty sure that for the medium-term the big savings that countries will have from not deploying troops to the very distant Afghanistan (or just having far fewer) will more than cover the costs of funding the ANA/ANSF.  Explaining to the public that underwriting the Afghans is the price to be paid for leaving without abandoning (unlike the 1990s) will not be that hard, compared to the costs of sticking around.  If you asked the average Brit, German, Italian, American or Spainaird, how many troops and how much money were still being dedicated to Kosovo, I doubt that they would have an answer approaching reality.  Non-events are non-events.  Training would only make news when casualties occur, and $$ spent on the Afghan military will not be a hot political issue.

Does it matter that Sarkozy made this big announcement with only President Karzai in the loop?  Certainly.  Is it time to panic?  No, we should have been panicking (at least, acting like things were uncertain and needed much more attention) in 2002.  Sarkozy is just trying to get a comfy spot on the train out of Afghanistan in one of the leading cars.  He is certainly not off the tracks at all.

Late Summer Tour of NATO

Happy NATO Day!  Okay, this is not an anniversary of anything NATO-esque.  But heaps of posts a-twitter about NATO, its members and so on.  So, some semi-random shots at some semi-random NATO members and NATO in general.

First, France is the best-est ally ever!  Lots of people linking to this article.  Yes, the Libyan adventure certainly raises France's profile as an active contributor, assertive military and the rest.  But to be fair to the French (yes, completely out of character for me, given how easy it is to make jokes in my big lecture class), the Libyan crisis is not the first time that the French have been assertive. 
       During the Afghanistan war (which, by the way, is still an on-going NATO mission), France moved from being relatively restricted to being quite willing to take risks.  When Sarkozy replaced Chirac, we all got a NATO-friendly (to say the least) President.  Sarkozy moved some and then nearly all of French combat forces from the safety of Kabul to the more dangerous areas of Kapisa. 
        Postwar French have never been pacifists--they just have been known for pursuring their own interests.  A lot of those interests were in Africa, with Qaddafi serving as a critical obstacle to French ambitions.  So, the French are so very bold now, taking the lead in the effort, even willing go without NATO.  Still a fun time and an interesting contrast to:

Second, the Germans look more feeble than ever, when the Foreign Minister (for at least a few more days) Westervelle* said that Qaddafi is falling due to economic sanctions.  Now, we have German politicians across the spectrum from Helmut Kohl to Joshcka Fischer saying that Westerwelle is as bad a foreign minister as Colin Powell Condi Rice they can imagine. 

*Unless you are Italy, having a Foreign Minister named Guido is always going to raise questions about credibility.

Here is Fischer's first question and answer:

SPIEGEL: What is it about Germany's current foreign policy and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle that bothers you?
Fischer: Pretty much everything. As the former foreign minister myself, the lack of fundamental convictions pains me. This is fundamentally much worse than losing your compass. We are being governed by those who have lost touch with reality and are denying what's obvious to everyone else.

I am sorry, but Fischer is being oblique.  I really wish he could open up and say what he is really thinking.  Fischer then goes on:

No, the behavior of Germany's government during the Libya conflict, its abstention in the UN Security Council (vote in March on whether to impose a no-fly zone in Libya), was a one-of-a-kind debacle and perhaps the biggest foreign policy debacle since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany. Our country's standing in the world has been significantly damaged.

Okay.  Now, Fischer is being a bit less opaque.  Actually, this entire interview makes me want to vote for the guy.  Anyhow moving on:

Third, I found this on twitter: "Dutch Defence Minister calls for pooling and sharing military capabilities in Europe."  Sure, smaller means working harder and smarter.  Sharing and pooling would be smart, but we can only pool and share with countries that will release the forces (troops, planes, ships, whatever) to the multinational effort with few conditions.  That is: NO CAVEATS and few requirements for phone calls home for permission. 
Maybe it is not wise to write here one of the conclusions for the forthcoming book on NATO and Afghanistan, but one of the implications of the Afghanistan experience (and of the Libyan one and so on) is that countries will rarely give up national control of their militaries even when they are delegated to the most institutionalized, robust, interoperable alliance on the planet.  So, if you build a military so that it can only do certain things and needs to depend on others to fill critical gaps, you have to gamble that when you are deployed, you will be partnered with countries that have pretty loose rules.  Otherwise, you might be asking for, say, helicopters to extract your troops from a battle but the helo pilot has rules about not being close to the battle or it being night-time or whatever.  You cannot pool if the other guy cannot be counted on to pool right back. 

No wonder Napoleon apparently said: I would rather fight a coalition than be in one.  On the other hand, he lost to a series of coalitions, right?  So, there is really no alternative for the Dutch or the Germans or the Canadians or, with their latest cuts, the French and the British, to working together.  But don't expect it to be easy, simple or efficient.

Defense budget cuts make sharing and specialization sensible.  The politics of participating in alliance warfare make sharing and specialization very, very problematic. 

Giving the French Their Due

On a day where the French women's soccer team lost a big game to the US team, I feel that we should give the French their due.  When folks talk about NATO and Afghanistan, the French get lumped in with the Germans, Italians and Spaniards as a heavily caveated contingent that didn't see much combat.  That label fit in 2007 but not now.  Today, four French soldiers lost their lives in Eastern Afghanistan, and this is not that unusual, as President Sarkozy re-deployed the French contingent from safe Kabul to dangerous Kapisa (even though they are close to each other on a map).  This comes on the heels of both Sarkozy's visit to the troops and an announcement that France will be cutting its commitment by one quarter by the end of 2011 and may be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2013. 

We have very conflicting images of the French--aggressive to the point of recklessness in Libya and passive in Afghanistan.  The truth, as always, is in between with the French clearly now among the burden bearers (as opposed to merely consuming rations) in both Afghanistan and Libya.  The question remains--is this Sarkozy or is this a significant change in how France sees NATO?  Given the budget cuts facing the French military and given how unreliable the Germans (and the EU as a NATO substitute) have been, it may be the case that even a less Atlanticist French President will see that there really is no alternative to NATO. 

And, I will repeat, NATO's demise is exaggerated. 

Xenophobia to the Rescue?

When one develops a set of lenses to see the world, it is hard to see the world without those lenses.  So, Bill Ayres and I wrote a book that argued xenophobia (fear/intolerance of "others") inhibits the quest for more and more territory as it would be the equivalent of a large wave of immigration.   As a result, I now see xenophobia wherever I look, including the Libya situation.  That Italy and France are now teaming up to sweep the Med of refugees from the various North African conflicts (mostly Tunisia and Libya these days) is hardly a surprise to me. 

When studying the Yugoslav conflicts, I came to the conclusion that some of the early stands were taken by those who wanted to prevent/reverse the flow of refugees, including Germany's recognition of Slovenia and Croatia and the European willingness to buy into partition of Bosnia  The basic idea is this: end the conflict no matter how it affects larger principles/precedents so that the unwanted refugees go home.

So, when it comes to Libya itself and the role played by France, it might be the case that Sarkozy has pushed ahead of the rest because of the desire to avoid another wave of immigration--that xenophobia is pushing intervention.  One of my tweets on this provoked a conversation about this idea--why we should care and whether this is a good thing.

First, we should care because it is easy to consider either selfish concerns like xenophobia pushing countries into intervention in Libya's conflict, and it is also easy to think that it might be countries finally buying into Responsibility to Protect.  We need to know which one (if only one) really matters here as that will tell us much about the future--what will be the next conflicts that engage outsiders like this or not.  My money would be on the former and not the latter, in large part because R2P can apply everywhere so it has limited ability to explain selectivity/discrimination.  Why apply R2P to Libya and not Bahrain or Syria? I would argue, that among many considerations, for the Europeans only the former poses a significant threat of refugees.

Second, the question remains whether intervention motivated by xenophobia is a good thing.  Excellent question (H/T to blencowe).  Sweeping the seas to push back the refugees or kicking them towards the rest of Europe is not such a friendly thing to do.  Moreover, such motivations may lead to interventions that are half-hearted at best.  Sure, the French were quick to act, striking tanks in Libya even before the campaign to take out the air defenses began.  But xenophobia's inherent selfishness means that no one is willing to commit to putting significant troops on the ground (just like another half xeno-motivated campaign--Kosovo), which means that the effort may do just enough to keep the conflict going rather than give the rebels a real chance to defeat Qaddafi.  It is too soon to evaluate the Libyan effort (we don't know the outcome), but it is not looking good.  It may be that xeno-intervention might be a particularly bad form of outside interference because it produces slow train wrecks rather than fast ones.  What do the readers think?

Those Wacky French

French President Sarkozy is getting heaps of flak for pushing the US, NATO and the rest into a  war without clear goals.  Lots of folks are drawing parallels between his low popularity and the mission to Clinton and Kosovo and Wag the Dog.  The blame is now falling on his ties to, dare I say it, French intellectuals.  Of course, with Bernard-Henri Lévy appearing all over the place and taking heaps of credit, this is not entirely surprising.  Still, most French folks support the mission:

Yet for all that, few who are familiar with the French president—whether friend or foe—question Sarkozy's concern for the Libyan people. "Even among the Socialists, everybody recognized that he did what should be done," says a leading party operative on the left, ordinarily no fan of Sarkozy's. But outside the bars and lounges of the five-star hotels in Paris, the French on the street are not so kind. Even though two thirds of the public approve of what Sarkozy has done in Libya, his personal numbers remain abysmal. "The French people do not like him," says a veteran of the presidential press corps. "They just do not like him."

As George HW Bush found out, even a very successful war has only a fleeting impact on the polls.  I do not know the man all that well, but it seems to me that there are several components that together make some sense of this:

• The North African revolutions increased the threat of more Muslim immigrants coming to France at a time where such folks are increasingly unpopular.  One way to handle such flows is to end the conflict  a la German recognition of Croatia and Slovenia in in 1991-92.
• Asserting French leadership and trying to marginalize NATO are much more traditional French positions to take than Sarkozy's embrace of NATO in 2007.  Competing against an extreme right wing party, it makes sense that how Sarkozy pursues this effort would fit better France's Gaullist foreign policy patterns.
• Any chance to alienate Turkey?  Sarkozy seems to grab it.

The funny thing is that  it is not so much the decision to intervene that seems to be so troublesome for observers but how.  That is, France is not alone in opposing Qaddafi.  Yes, it pushed, but others went along for their own reasons, including pretty widely shared views about responsibility to protect, immigration prevention, anti-repression promotion (not quite the same thing as democracy promotion, but in the same ballpark), regional concerns (impact on Egypt and Tunisia), the nuisance that Qadaffi had always been, and so forth.  But the French moves to go first, to try to keep NATO out of it (US insisted NATO or go alone), and doing their best to alienate the Turks made their effort to stand out so very successful.

This is the France I remember--making sure that all noticed its great power-ness even though it has not been one for quite some time and now cannot even afford to budget its defense without British coordination.  Remember, it was Mitterand who flew into Sarajevo in a grand gesture to open up the airport in 1992.  So, Sarkozy is hardly the outlier that he appears to be ... at least among French Presidents.

Canadians, French, Americans, and Libyans? Oh My!

Yesterday was a big day for the international dynamics of the Libyan Civil War.*  I was able to track but not blog about it since I was at a workshop on "Nationalisms and War."  Mostly the focus was on war among countries, not within, but, of course, you can imagine there was more than a little overlap between on-going events and the conference.  My paper, that I am presenting later today, relates to much of what is going on.  Or at least I would like to think so.

* The usual definition of a civil war involves a certain number of battle deaths, with both sides inflicting a significant number, to distinguish from a mass killing.  It appears to me that we are over the usual 1k threshold of killed in action, with the question remaining whether the rebels have done significant damage to the government. 

I only have a bit of time before I have to drive back downtown for the second day of the workshop, so here are my quick thoughts about the latest news (and how my current book project with David Auerswald is quite relevant):

• Starting with Canada, the striking thing is that the government fell to a confidence motion at exactly the same time that a Canadian general was chosen to lead the new NATO mission.  Why a Canadian? Because the Turks are upset at the Brits, apparently.  
• The Canadians are a good compromise for Turkey and France, who are on opposite sides of the arguments about how much force to use for what.  Leadership of key posts for NATO missions usually depends in part on how much does the country contribute.  
• The exercise of allotting such slots is called flags-to-post, and that was one of the things I tracked during my Joint Staff days.  In Afghanistan, this exercise is not just about total numbers (or the Germans would have heaps of command positions) but a more complex calculation as certain kinds of units have different point values.  We learned this during our research last month (such a long time ago) at the various NATO HQs in Belgium and the Netherlands. 
• What is abundantly clear here is that the choice of a Canadian was very political and not very related to how much Canada is deploying to the effort.  However, this might explain in part why Canada sent a couple of maritime patrol planes in addition to the six F-16's--that the dis-proportionality of the commitment to the leadership role would appear to be less severe.
• Of course, that it is a Quebecker, LTG Charles Bouchard, does not hurt the Conservatives at a time when an election is nigh.  I am not saying that this particular general was chosen by the Canadians (because he was already in place at the relevant NATO HQ in Naples), but that the Tories might have been more willing to have the Canadians be more visible in part because it would have some secondary effects back home in Quebec.  Just speculation, but that is what I am paid to do.  Or not so much since I don't get paid to blog.
• Good piece here showing that the Canadians are not thinking that seriously about what this will involve.   Why should they be any different?
• Updated: For a good perspective on Canada and this mission, see Stephanie Calvin's duck post.

Hysterical History

Who would have thunk that the French would get all politically correct about their history?  I guess it is late in the day to begin a museum of National History, so there are folks who will contest what is included and excluded.  Not too surprising really, given controversies we have seen elsewhere (such as how to describe the atomic bombings of Japan at the Smithsonian Institute), but one would expect the French, of all folks, to be pretty confident in identifying the subject.  That would be ... France. 

Given its conscious state-building history, it is actually surprising that France does not already have such a museum.  It is less surprising that Sarkozy's declining personality has tainted the project.  Given the identity politics of the current time frame (with lots of Muslim-bashing along the way with Sarkozy trying to out-bid the more xenophobic/nationalist party of Le Pen), one could be suspicious about the content of such a museum.

France, dare I say it, is not unique in this process.  The Orban government in Hungary, a party on the Right side of the spectrum, built a museum dedicated to recent Hungarian history--the House of Terror.  Located where the Nazis and then the Communists tortured people, the idea would seem to be to remember the victims of the past. The museum in some ways tried to identify the major opposition party, the Social Democrats, as the direct successor of the Communists and implicate the present individuals for past crimes.  So, this history is more than just a bit political.

Indeed, history, like warfare, is inherently political.  Still, there is heaps and heaps of French history that is probably not so contested today, even if debates about the Frenchness of today's immigrants is problematic.  The various Louis's, the Revolution, Napoleon, that Joan fellow, the World Wars (might want to forget about them, I suppose), etc.  Of course, Algeria and Indo-China might be controversial, but then that provides fodder for historians to trot out the different interpretations and let the visitors assess. 

Historians may look back on the brouhaha as playing straight into Mr. Sarkozy’s hands, pleasing far-right constituents who clamor for the restoration of French identity, such as it is, while making opponents look like academic snobs. If the Maison de l’Histoire serves its propaganda role before it opens, and the president then claims noblesse oblige and allows the museum to evolve into the scholarly, independent institution its organizers promise, Mr. Sarkozy might even someday be included alongside his predecessors as a cultural patron.
That certainly would be a new identity for President Bling-Bling. As Mr. Offenstadt put it, “identity is just a construction.”

Not entirely random, but a political construction.  That the French are having problems defining who they are is both more and less striking than it appears.  All countries have some form of identity crisis pretty much all the time. The content of French nationalism--what it means to be French--has many strands and different actors will vary in which ones they really care about and also which ones are most convenient for their political/social interests.  Just as Canadians disagree about what it means to be Canadian, and as Americans question their identity.  These things never get resolved despite how tidy it sometimes appears in the history books and in the museums.

Those Wacky French Presidents!

French President Sarkozy has apparently stirred up a little crisis by suggesting to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that he ought to replace his foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, comparing him and his extreme right-wing credentials to those of Le Pen.

In my week in Paris, I gained a better appreciation for how powerful the French President is, compared to Presidents elsewhere. And the individual inclinations of each President seem to matter a great deal, which has meant a sea change in French foreign policy when Sarkozy replaced Chirac, despite occupying similar spots on the political spectrum.

I cannot wait to see what he does next.

World War Notes

My trip has been chock full of good and bad timing. It was good timing to go to the Musee d’Armee a couple of days after the 65th Anniversary of D-Day. The most striking part of the French presentation of les Mondiales du Guerre was its span of time: 1871-1945. I am used to thinking of 1918-1945 as a single war with a somewhat peaceful interregnum. But to include the loss of Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War/German war of unification in 1871 is quite interesting. Some of the displays are somewhat contradictory. Some of the text suggests that the German invasion in 1914 and the Schlieffen plan were failures, but others demonstrate how close the Germans came to Paris.

There was an interesting wing of the museum dedicated to the resistance fighters, and the price paid by these folks and the cities in which they resided became abundantly clear. I tend to be a Charles De Gaulle skeptic, but he was the focal point of the effort during the war. His being difficult with Eisenhower and the others was probably necessary. [His being difficult to the Anglophones of Quebec not so much].

It was noted in one of the displays that the future of Europe was drawn up by FDR, Stalin, and Churchill at Yalta sans France. The favorable coverage of the Soviet Union in the displays was a bit surprising, not because of the Soviet role in the war (see below) but just that these displays were a bit more favorable than ones I have seen elsewhere.


D-Day Clarification—A Bit Late But Still Relevant
This past weekend was the 65th Anniversary of D-Day and a particularly meaningful one, given the age of the surviving veterans. My picky point has to do with the way the invasion has been portrayed—yes, it made history, but not by saving Europe from fascism. Stalingrad and the overwhelming wave of Soviet forces doomed Nazi Germany. Without a successful invasion, it is most probable that the Soviet Union would have defeated Germany on its own. D-Day made a big difference, not via the defeat of Germany, but by dividing Europe for fifty-four years and perhaps even fostering the end of Communism in 1989.
France would have been liberated—but from the south via the invasion from the Mediterranean. This effort was important, less for liberating France, and more for providing an additional route for fuel, ammunition and other supplies. If the invasion of Normandy had failed, this might have become the main effort. But, this would have delayed the arrival of Allied forces upon the German frontier, leading to a division at or near the Franco-German border.

This would have meant a united Germany under Soviet rule, and Austria would have been in similar shape.

The question then is would this have prolonged the Cold War, given the absence of a robust West Germany in the Western camp? Or a shorter cold war, given the costs of occupying the rest of Germany?

This is all hypothetical. The main point is that the emphasis on D-Day ignores the reality that the Soviet Union kept far more Germans busy in the Eastern front, killed far more of them, and bore a great deal more casualties. Indeed, while some in the West wanted a rush to Berlin, Eisenhower and others were content to let the Soviets pay the price and gain the prize.

Last World War II Note

While checkout in Napoleon's tomb, I realized that the old men near me were D-Day vets. A quick glimpse of the passes they were still wearing indicated that I had guessed right. With Obama back in DC, this was my proximity to greatness du jour.

Last WWI note:

Near Napoleon's tomb was a monument/statue for Gen. Ferdinand Foch, leader of the French army during much of World War I. Given how poorly the allies performed for most of the war, I am not sure any of them deserved monuments. Likewise, there was a display that referred to the Mutinies among the French soldiers in 1917, and the references in the displays were pretty fair to the mutineers, except downplaying it with something like "only 40 plus were executed." Oh my.

Update I: Read some about Foch, and can see why the French lionize him. Preventing defeat is a huge task, something that his WWII successors failed to do, despite this picture. So, mea culpa.

Update II: Finally got a chance to upload the pics from today, and it reminded me of a display about the performance of the French Army in May/June 1940. It suggested that the French army dealt the Germans some significant blows, but given that the French army with the British outnumbered the Germans and had equal numbers of tanks, I am not sure this is very impressive. I am sure that individual units fought hard and honorably, but the larger tale of military performance (and civilian leadership) in 1940 was of a tragic collapse.