We Should Be in the French Moment

And Why We Are Not

Hello All,

This week I was lucky enough to be invited to Paris to give a talk, along with Professor Eliot Cohen, about our CSIS report: The Russia-Ukraine War: A Study in Analytic Failure. We spoke at what was a packed out event at the French Institute for International Affairs and received some of the best feedback and questions we have so far encountered.

As part of my stay in France, I was able to ask some people who would know why France seems so hesitant now. This should be a moment where France could realize a particular vision of French leadership in Europe—and its not. These were the answers I received.

Background: The French Vision

In 1960 US intelligence articulated what it saw as a distinctly Gaullist trend in French Foreign Policy. It claimed that France in many ways wanted to move away from the USA, to claim leadership of a European bloc that would both amplify French influence and at the same time counterbalance US control over Western Europe. According to the US report, French President Charles De Gaulle’s policy had these three great goals.

1) to develop French economic and military power, particularly nuclear weapons;

2) to assert French independence of external control, whether from “Europe,” NATO, the United States, or the United Nations; and

3) to broaden the base of French power by sponsoring blocs in Europe and Africa willing to accept French leadership in the formulation of their foreign policies and thus to magnify France’s influence in the world.