The Monarchist 1.0
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[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'

[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)

Sunday, November 05, 2006
France blocks Nato bid to create a global terror force

This is in this Sunday's Independent that opens the article with
Plans to boost Nato's co- operation with countries such as Australia and Japan in an effort to forge a partnership against terrorism have been blocked by France.
This strikes me as the inverse of what happened when it was the British in the early 20s who dashed French hopes of a worldwide army to act as an effective deterrent force.

It is instructive to understand the basis for French objections to extending NATO's growth and reach- "France has made it clear that it opposes a move it sees as part of a campaign to extend US influence." France sees the organisation, which it helped found through the Treaty of Brussels and then NATO itself the next month in 1949, as being dominated by the US.

To be honest, I don't know how much of this is more smear-tactics of the sort the British in particular used when they took Chirac's words completely out of context in the leadup to the war against Iraq. As America finds itself being pulled further away from Europe towards the Pacific, I can understand the French wishing to maintain "the fundamental nature of Nato which must...remain an euro-atlantic military alliance" and not "risk diluting the natural solidarity between Europeans and North Americans." Still, it seems strange that they value the organisation to that degree while criticising it at the same time as being a tool of the Americans. Besides, the French saw no problem joining SEATO after the Korean War...

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