INTRODUCTION: France's ‘return’ to NATO: implications for transatlantic relations

Abstract

The paper looks at France's return to NATO, looking at the impact of its ongoing reintegration in the alliance's military structure from a strategic, a political and an operational perspective. We address three main questions: (1) How will France's reintegration affect other NATO countries? This question will be answered from the perspectives of Canada, the UK, Germany and the United States; (2) How will France cope with the transition? French experts will assess the French debate on NATO, the operational dimension of France's reintegration of the command structure and France's role in transatlantic relations; (3) How will the decision affect the future prospects for allied action? This question will be addressed by looking at the nuclear dimension of NATO, burden-sharing, NATO's transformation and the impact of France's reintegration on European defence.

The French return to NATO: Reintegration in practice, not in principle

“…Joint manoeuvres were organised and military issues discussed, including nuclear deterrence. Thus, despite Gaullist rhetoric, France remained militarily more closely linked to its allies than often assumed (Fortmann et al 2010).…”

“…Some of these questions were treated in a special issue of European Security on the relationship between France and NATO (Fortmann et al 2010). The overall conclusion here was that this reintegration did not represent a break with France's traditional Europeanisation strategy: France had been gradually moving closer to the IMSs for some time, so the decision to take the final step was a natural continuation of this process.…”

“…The fact that the resolution to the crisis over the Iraq war, in terms of reaching a decision in NATO on support to Turkey, involved using the Defence Planning Committee (from which France had excluded itself) might also have conditioned French thinking on how its semi-detachment was disadvantageous. The result of this 'creeping integration' is that France now is the largest single contributor to the NATO Response Force (NRF) (Fortmann et al 2010), it is among the top five contributors of troops to various NATO crisis-management operations, and among the principal funders of the alliance (Pesme 2010, p. 48). In addition, the French Air Force has repeatedly, since 2007, ensured the protection of airspace over Iceland and the Baltic countries (De Russé 2010).…”

Domestic politics, news media and humanitarian intervention: why France and Germany diverged over Libya

“…To begin with France, it is difficult to overlook its active role as former colonial Much of the precedent was set by Charles de Gaulle, who put the concepts of 'independence' and 'grandeur' at the heart of his international agenda (Drake 2011). While French presidents are still judged on a Gaullist scale, there has been a remarkable continuity in foreign policy, including during the terms of Mitterrand (Moisi 1988) and arguably Sarkozy as well (Grossman 2010;Fortmann, Haglund and von Hlatky 2010). As a result of its ambiguous relationship with NATO, France had also to provide for itself.…”

Non-American SACEUR: Win-Win for NATO and the United States

“…The desire by France and other European nations is to bring the EU and NATO policy together through a sense of ‗necessary partnership' rather than ‗traditional allies' is hindered by America's dominant role in NATO's operational command structure. 39 A SACEUR who's nation speaks with one voice in both NATO and the EU is likely to open the door toward a more unified security policy between the two partner organizations.…”