Stepping up to reintegration: French security policy between transatlantic and European defence during and after the Cold War

Letter from President Johnson to President de Gaulle, 22 March 1966, FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. XIII, Western Europe Region, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 1995, p. 349. General de Gaulle’s staff then included General Catroux, Admiral Muselier, René Pleven, Professor René Cassin, Pierre-Olivier Lapie, Maurice Schumann, Louis Vallon and Captain Andre Dewavrin. De Gaulle believed that an agreement with London and Moscow would also allow France to act as a bridge between East and West. J. Cathala, 14 October 1945, ADMAEF, Z-Eu 1944–1949, band 4, 110–111. The mutually reinforcing perception of Atlantic and European endeavours was also a consequence of US insistence on making a long-term American commitment to Europe conditional upon the allies’ readiness to do what was necessary to ‘make this defence of Europe a success’. Minutes of foreign ministers’ meetings, September 12–13, 1950, US Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS] 1950, III (Washington, DC: GPO, 1977), 1192, 1208. Quoted in Marc Trachtenberg and Christopher Gehrz, ‘America, Europe and German Rearmament, August-September 1950: A Critique of a Myth’, in Between Empire and Alliance: America and Europe During the Cold War, ed. Marc Trachtenberg (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), 1. Before the Washington Treaty was signed, the French delegates obtained Italy’s immediate inclusion in the Alliance in order to consolidate security in the Mediterranean theatre and extend NATO’s Article 5 guarantee to the Algerian departments of France. See Irwin M. Wall, ‘France and the North Atlantic Alliance’, in NATO: The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe, eds. Frances Howard Heller and John Gillingham (London: Palgrave, 1992), 53. Ralph Dietl, ‘Suez 1956: A European Intervention?’, Journal of Contemporary History, 43, no. 2 (2008): 259–278. Helga Haftendorn, ed., The Strategic Triangle: France, Germany and the United States in the Shaping of the New Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), 2. After de Gaulle’s demands for NATO’s reform were not met, in 1961 and 1962 the French proposed to the other members of the European Community two draft treaties for an intergovernmental ‘Union of States’. The treaties, that were named after the French ambassador to Denmark and head of the French negotiating delegation Christian Fouchet, called for intergovernmental cooperation, among others, in the areas of foreign and defence policy, with the aim of increasing French influence in Europe. France’s European partners feared, however, that the plans might disengage the USA from Europe and negotiations between the Member States floundered in 1962. The text of the Fouchet plans can be downloaded at https://doi.org/www.cvce.eu/obj/draft_treaty_fouchet_plan_i_2_ november_1961-en-485fa02e-f21e-4e4d-9665–92f0820a0c22.html. Chief amongst the reasons explaining this step were France’s refusal to integrate its air defences within the NATO system and its opposition to the positioning of nuclear missiles launch sites on its territory. While de Gaulle rejected a supranational Europe and argued for an intergovernmental approach to European integration, his decision to withdraw from the integrated military structure of the Alliance left a deep transatlantic scar. After de Gaulle announced his decision and ordered the withdrawal of US soldiers from French soil in March 1966, President Lyndon Johnson let US Secretary of State Dean Rusk ask the general if this also included the American soldiers buried in French cemeteries. US officials received no answer from the French President. Thomas J. Schoenbaum, Waging Peace and War: Dean Rusk in the Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1988), 421. Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson told Johnson that he had said this to de Gaulle. FRUS, 1964–1968, XIII; and FRUS, Western Europe Region (Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1965–1968); 452. US President Johnson sought to minimise the psychological consequences of de Gaulle’s decision, hinting that ‘as our old friend and ally her place will await France whenever she decides to resume her leading role’. FRUS, 1964–1968, XIII, 349. Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: A Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford, New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1996), 234. France continued to host NATO’s Research and Technology Agency, which was head-quartered in a Paris suburb. Frédéric Bozo, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the Atlantic Alliance (Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 211. Under Pompidou the Ailleret-Lemnitzer agreement of 1967 was expanded through the signing of the Valentin-Ferber agreement of 1974. In 1978, the Biard-Schulze agreement further reduced uncertainty about how France would behave in case of East-West hostilities breaking out. According to French historian Georges-Henri Soutou, the fear of the Americans leaving Europe was Pompidou’s ‘main obsession’. Quoted in Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945: From ‘Empire’ by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 196. Leo Michel, ‘NATO’s “French Connection”: Plus ça change…?’, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, https://doi.org/www.ata-sec.org/downloads/articles/Michel.pdf (accessed April 2007). Mitterrand was, however, much more ‘Atlantic’ in his views than his predecessors: at the time of the NATO Dual-Track decision he offered the Alliance his complete support, urging approval of the rearmament effort during a speech before the German parliament in January 1983, which included the dictum, ‘Les pacifistes sont à l’Ouest mais les missiles sont à l’Est’ [‘The pacifists are in the West but the missiles are in the East’ ]. Gisela Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet, ‘France’s New NATO Policy, Leveraging a Realignment of the Alliance?’, Strategic Studies Quarterly 3, no. 4 (2009): 96. See Willem Van Eekelen, ‘WEU’s Post-Maastricht Agenda’, NATO Review 40, no. 2 (1992), 13–7. The EU debacle in the Balkans was an important breakthrough for the French, as it proved both the difficulty of having a reunified Germany welcome French preferences, and NATO’s fundamental role in ending the conflict in Bosnia. In 1994, Paris once again began participating in the meetings of the Alliance’s defence ministers. Mitterrand, however, chose not to take more than limited steps towards rapprochement. Müller-Brandeck-Bocquet, ‘France’s New NATO Policy’, 97. The concept of ‘zero-sum’ game was developed in economic game theory. It describes a situation of pure conflict in which there are inevitably a winner and a loser. The view of international politics as a ‘zero-sum’ game is closely associated with the realist research paradigm. In the realist view, there is ‘a relatively fixed amount of security’ within a fundamentally anarchic international system: shifts in power and security on the part of one state are therefore ‘mirror images of shifts in power and security of other states’. Barry B. Hughes, ‘Realist, Liberal and Constructivist Views’, in Continuity and Change in World Politics (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 41–60. Tomas Valasek, ‘France, NATO, and European Defense’, Policy Brief, Centre for European Reform, https://doi.org/www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/attachments/pdf/2011/policybrief_nato_12may2008–790.pdf (accessed May 2008). Chirac was interested in particular in the position of Commander of Allied Forces, Southern Europe, based in Naples. James Petras and Morris Morley, ‘Contesting Hegemons: US-French Relations in the “New World Order”’, Review of International Studies 26 (2000): 49–67. As was acknowledged later in 2001 by then French Defence Minister Alain Richard, ‘no European country would have agreed to join in the construction of a European defence if it was to lead to a loosening of the transatlantic link’. Speech by Defence Minister Alain Richard to the Wehrkunde, Munich, February 2001, https://doi.org/www.ambafrance-uk.org/Speech-by-M-Alain-Richard-Minister.html. When in 2005 France agreed to expand the mandate to cover all of Afghanistan, Paris did not send ground combat elements from its Kabul-based contingent to reinforce USA, British, Canadian and Dutch troops that were bearing most of the fighting. Michel, ‘NATO’s “French Connection”’, 7–8. Michel, ‘NATO’s “French Connection”’, 4. British and American critics viewed the summit as a frivolous endeavour; the labelling ‘chocolate summit’ carries an obvious reference to the Belgian chocolate industry and to the summit’s unlikely significance for transatlantic and European defence. In mid-2003, French officials would oppose discussion in EU Councils on whether to consult with NATO on the French EU-led operation Artemis in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Similarly, in May 2005, Paris mounted early resistance to NATO’s involvement in assisting the African Union (AU) monitors in Darfur, preferring instead to channel such assistance through the EU. Michel, ‘NATO’s “French Connection”’, 4. Dominique David, ‘France/OTAN: la dernière marche’, Politique Etrangère 2 (2008): 431. Following discussion of operational caveats at the Riga summit in 2007, the French improved their force posture in the region, conducted air strikes to support Allied forces in the south, executed ground operations with Afghan soldiers to block insurgent approaches into the capital, and increased training assistance to the Afghan national army. See Jacques Chirac, ‘Europe Must Shoulder Its Share of the NATO Burden’, The Guardian, November 28, 2006. Jean-Pierre Maulny, ‘Frankreich und seine zukünftige Stellung in der NATO — eine politische, keine militärische Debatte’, [France and its future position in NATO — a political rather than military debate] Frankreich-Analysen der FES, https://doi.org/library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/paris/05002.pdf (November 2, 2007). See the speech given by Nicolas Sarkozy at the Conference of the Ambassadors in Paris on August 27, 2007, https://doi.org/www.elysee.fr/download/?mode=press&filename=embassadeur-27–08–07.pdf. On 2 April 2008, US President Bush acknowledged that ‘building a strong NATO alliance also requires a strong European defence capacity’. See the report published by the Office of the Press Secretary, President Bush visits Bucharest, Romania, Discusses NATO, https://doi.org/www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/04/20080402–2.html. Twenty-two out of the 28 current EU member states are also NATO members. The latest EU member, Croatia, joined the Alliance, together with Albania, at the Strasbourg-Kehl summit in 2009. Author’s translation. Former French Defence Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie hinted at this in a February 2009 article in Le Figaro, when she stressed that ‘the unwillingness of certain European countries to make the necessary efforts to reinforce European defence will be easier to overcome when they are assured that this will not be built up against NATO’. Le Figaro, February 17, 2009. In 2012, this argument was restated clearly by a report drafted under the supervision of former foreign minister Hubert Védrine, which assessed the consequences of France’s return to NATO’s integrated military command. The so-called ‘Védrine report’ argues that France has played a driving role in the definition of the Alliance’s strategy since 2009, contributing to decisions and setting priorities, but also that it needs to assert itself much more in order to wield greater influence in the Alliance. The report also confirms the end of a ‘zero-sum’ approach, and reinforces the expectation of greater European responsibility in transatlantic defence. The English text of the Védrine report can be downloaded at https://doi.org/www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/IMG/pdf/12-2226-Rapport_H_VEDRINE_VEN.pdf. In 1966, de Gaulle made his decision with little consultation, informing US President Lyndon Johnson in a letter first, and then his own Parliament. Steven Erlanger, ‘Sarkozy Embraces NATO, and Bigger Role for France’, The New York Times, March 7, 2009. See also Leo Michel, ‘Liaison dangereuse: Kehrt Frankreich tatsächlich zurück in die NATO-Strukturen?’ [Dangerous connections: Is France returning to NATO’s structures?], Internationale Politik (2008): 35. Frédéric Bozo, ‘France and NATO under Sarkozy: End of the French Exception?’, Working Paper (Paris: Fondation pour l’innovation politique, 2008), 5. Nicolas Sarkozy also made it clear that France would not reintegrate into the ‘old NATO’. While acknowledging the Alliance’s transformation since the end of the Cold War, this position clearly showed that Sarkozy did not want to appear, in the eyes of the French electorate and political establishment, as completely reversing de Gaulle’s 1966 decision. Michel, ‘NATO’s “French Connection”’, 2. Le Figaro, June 18, 2008. The 2008 White paper reversed decades of French security policy, which had focused on a Cold War style invasion scenario as the nation’s primary challenge. Instead, the paper highlighted counterterrorism and intelligence, reintegrated France within NATO for purposes of European security, and arguably drew Paris closer to Washington, in doctrinal terms, than at any time since 1967. See https://doi.org/www.cfr.org/france/french-government-white-paper-defense-national-security/p16615. Le Monde, June 18, 2008 and March 13, 2009.