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National Review, June 22, 1992
The FRENCH have done it again, and this time it's serious. The Franco-German army corps that Kohl and Mitterrand have now unveiled confirms the worst fears of those who care about the continued integrity of the North Atlantic Alliance, which is all the more essential in a new era of European instability. The United States has more or less embraced the British/Italian idea of turning the Western European Union into both a European caucus within NATO and a defense caucus in the EC. Yet as American policy has become more conciliatory to the idea of accommodating the famous "European identity," French policy has become worse. The French have flaunted the fact that the new Franco-German corps is outside the NATO command as a contribution to European independence from the United States and as a hedge against the day (which the French seem determined to hasten) when the Americans leave Europe.
Nothing could be more short-sighted. For forty years, the fact that the Bundeswehr was embedded in NATO's integrated command has been a source of reassurance to all of Germany's neighbors. The French are deluding themselves if they think they can be an adequate counterweight to German power by themselves, without the United States. The U.S., to its credit, shows no sign of eagerness to abandon its responsibility to help maintain the balance of power in Europe; what could make that happen some day is precisely the kind of irresponsibility displayed by the French. Weakening NATO is dangerous for the West, and more dangerous for France.
COPYRIGHT 1992 National Review, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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