Foie Gras with Ketchup: Understanding Differences and Improving Military Cooperation with the French

摘要

This study assesses the prospect of improving U.S. military cooperation with the French through an examination of why French cooperation is desirable, how the French view the United States, the historical basis on which those views are founded, and the manner in which four additional factors complicate the U.S.-France security relationship. The assessment of France in terms of military, economic, and political strength reveals a French capacity to disrupt American defense policy and underscores the desirability of French military cooperation. The negative component of ambivalent French views of the United States appears to be based upon historical events in which American action abroad impressed the French as inadequately deferent, obstructive of their aspirations to reclaim their prestige after World War II, and unilateral. These events are the uneasy relations between the United States and France during World War II, and U.S. reluctance to recognize the leadership of Charles de Gaulle; the French defeat by Vietnamese in the Dien Bien Phu Valley; the Suez Canal crisis and resulting expansion of war in Algeria; France's withdrawal from NATO; Operation El Dorado Canyon; and the debate over who would lead Allied Forces Southern Europe (AFSOUTH). Also complicating the security relationship are four additional factors, namely, vestigial philosophical differences, misunderstanding of the tertiary status of the French Ministry of Defense, the language divide, and questions regarding mutual trust. Inductive reasoning leads to six suggestions that American defense spokespersons should implement to improve the likelihood of military cooperation with the French. These include consulting France early and in proper sequence, treating France as a skeptical audience, considering ahead of time potential French responses, involving the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidential Palace, bridging the language divide, and observing proper etiquette. (54 refs.).