"France ... the new leading European power in Nato." Topic

"France could replace Britain as the leading European power in Nato after Brexit, it emerged today.

A briefing paper by the military think tank the Royal United Services Institute said there is 'some discussion' within Nato over the future of Britain holding the No 2 position in the organisation.

France is understood to want to exploit Britain's decision to leave the EU, arguing that the deputy leadership of Nato should be an EU member state…"
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Amicalement
Armand

I suspect others might have something to say about that.

NATO is not the EU. It's based on military capabilities of the countries involved – and the UK out-muscles France in that area. The EU might say 'combined we are' – but then it might boil down to the US/UK saying 'yes, but but combined we are' I think that the US looks more to the UK than anyone in Europe or the whole of the EU put together as far as military goes.

but NATO is dead weight not a bargain…i suppose that with a new President after the April/May elections nobody more in France will be interested in that Jurassic park called NATO

The French have a bigger militarily force overall than the UK ? link Or so I have heard. Or even Germany for that matter ? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. And at last word, AFAIK, the Turks have the 2d largest military in NATO … Behind the USA …

Depends what you base 'military force' on.

On your own reference, UK higher than France or Germany in total forces, France slightly ahead on expenditure and deployable forces, UK ahea on total forces including reserves.

But… PDF link has UK aheads on expenditure, plus UK sells more arms than France link and is better integrated with the US – for a start, BAE, one of the 3 main US manufacturers, is British as far as US regulations allow.

Turkey may have a big army, but recent purges and outdated equipment, together with political instability, would not suggest anyone would consider them number 2 in NATO.

Actually, it would probably be difficult to split the UK and France in a statistically meaningful way, but also worth considering they only rejoined NATO as a full member in 2009 I'm not sure whether they would be considered as fully committed to NATO yet either. France has always gone for a more independent line. Bit like a military version of the UK in the EU.

Interventionally speaking, France has been taking a more active role than Britain recently like their campaign in Mali and leadership in pushing for the no-fly zone in Libya. They are also more vocal than Britain (where anti-interventionist sentiments are high) in advancing the liberal world order around the world, such as calling for Assad's removal in Syria.

With a catapult-launching carrier equipped with naval Rafales they can also project power better than Britain at the moment. So France is in a perfect position to take over the mantle of Nato leadership from Britain.

Good points guys … but we'll just have to wait and see …

France also has a colonial past with Syria and parts of North Africa (not Libya). Public support for French action is also due to the recent terrorism in France

The FFL has been busy in those regions for a while and will continue to do so.

The naval projection is a valid point but I really don't see why this is a contest about who is next top dog.

Russia's aggression in invading neighboring Ukraine has made NATO more relevant then ever to protect those countries that have been subjected to Russian control post WW2. They didn't like it and have chosen a different path away from that experience because let's face it if it was that good they wouldn't be looking for protection from it.

Russia's aggression in invading neighboring Ukraine has made NATO more relevant then ever to protect those countries that have been subjected to Russian control post WW2. They didn't like it and have chosen a different path away from that experience because let's face it if it was that good they wouldn't be looking for protection from it.

Wrong. Nato expansion is the cause and not the effect of Russian aggression. Nato has expanded relentlessly eastward over Russia's futile protests since the collapse of the former Soviet Union not because Russia was a threat – which it wasn't because it's too economically weak – but because it can. Russia's geopolitical concerns, insecurity and sensitivities to being encircled by Nato members were dismissed as irrelevant and hence ignored. The result was push-back in Georgia and Ukraine.

Moreover, the closer military and economic ties of the former Soviet client states to US/western Europe did not occur in a vacuum. US and western Europe launched a charm offensive to woo these countries away, which Russia could not compete with due to her economic woes. For instance, the 2014 Maidan Revolution in Ukraine which led to the ouster of President Yanukovych and Russia's aggressive response (i.e. annexation of the Crimea) was aided and funded by western non-government organizations (NGO's) as part of the State Department's "soft power" policy.

This is globalism at work in the New World Order of the 21st Century and Francis Fukuyama's 'The End of History and the Last Man' writ large.

i agree…in fact we can speak more of Ukraina agression towards Russia..and against their own citizens…beginning with a US/Strong Powers planned coup d'etat disguised as a popular revolution that forced the elected President to flew away

Not often I agree with ITALWARS, but have some sympathy with that version.

Nonsense to all three, Yanukovich pivoted away from closer ties to the EU and that's when the Maidan started. Having sold Ukraine a bad gas deal so Russia coukd keep Sebastapol. It's no surprise Russia stole Sebastapol by force after Yanukovich fled shooting his own citizens.

Those countries sought NATO membership having lived under Soviet occupation.
If the Soviet system was so great they wouldn't have ran away from it the first chance they got.

If the Soviet system was so great they wouldn't have ran away from it the first chance they got.

Sounds about right to me. Not too many in the West wanting to defect to Russia …

"Wrong. Nato expansion is the cause and not the effect of Russian aggression".

Ha! Pure Russian propaganda.

Membership in NATO is for purely defensive purposes, and not being a Russian/Soviet puppet doesn't threaten Russia in the least.

The real issue is Putin pines for "the good old days", when the Soviet Union was a major superpower.

Now it is just a minor, 2nd-rate country that happens to still have nuclear weapons. If they didn't have oil and natural gas, they'd be a third-rate country.

He can't stand that, and has as much as openly said so.

Anyone who thinks NATO aggression was the cause of the Ukrainian war needs to do some actual research rather than hanging about on radical websites…

Putin has a long-established pattern of behaviour.

He invades countries if they annoy him.

He kills people who ask awkward questions.

"Membership in NATO is for pure defensive purposes"

like for example the defensive campaign that to the attack on Lybia with the obvious result to let the country in the hands of ISIS and other criminal factions..

or the unlogical bombing of Belgrade a European country with same cultural identity and interests ecc..of those who bombed

Let's not kid ourselves. Nato has evolved from a purely defensive umbrella organization of the Cold War into an offensive one, a mechanism for coalition-building whenever interventionism or regime changes (Iraq, Libya, etc.) are deemed to be "necessary."

It is a blunt instrument of globalism and the new world order.

Oh look Belgrade has been brought up, that staple of the St Petersburg trolls who refuse to understand that command and control buildings are legitimate military targets.

NATO is not invading Russia and it is a defensive organisation. Where the confusion lies is that those member countries also cooperate in areas of joint interest such as anti piracy as they are used to cooperating through their NATO ties.

Anti-Nato views are not all Putin propaganda. Here's an interesting article from a conservative think tank on what Nato has been doing in the post-Soviet era and the responses it generated:

link

Bringing up Belgrade is a Troll tactic I have experienced on several other sites, usually in connection with Kosovo which Putin is still upset about as they were backing Serbia.
Putin still refuses to recognize Kosovo's independence and occasionally you see it brought up in the argument about self determination as cover for the sham that happened in Crimea.
At some point in time the Falklands gets brought up as well as another failed comparison in an effort to legitimize what was a military invasion and annexation of Crimea.

Utter tripe in your referenced article. the idea that Russia peacefully retreated and the Warsaw pact quietly went away is nonsense.
The populations of those countries turned on the communist regimes and retook authority from them.
That is why there was fighting in Romania in 1989 and Ceausescu was overthrown that is the same year the Wall came down.
Poland had been under Martial law in 1981 in response to Spoladarity and other protests. When partial elections were held in 1990 time frame Lech Walesa won.
Hungary had been facing internal pressure to change through the late 80s with the Communist party in Hungary ceasing to exist in 1989 and subsequent elections held shortly thereafter.
The Czech Republic underwent a velvet revolution between November – December 1989 with democratic elections happening in 1990.

Those changes happened by internal pressure from the population of those countries that were rejecting what Moscow had to offer. They were not wooed as they had been under Soviet control for the prior 50 years and were rejecting it outright.
The revisionist history you linked to has absolutely failed to recognize what happened historically in those countries and that those countries have taken steps never to be subjected to that type of regime again.

Italwars – you seem to have forgotten the Serbs were conducting a campaign of genocide and got everything they deserved.

But they were killing Muslims which I guess means a lot to some people.

US-Russia relations post Cold War has been one-sided and characterized by what the US wants for its new world order rather than Russia's needs. The US held all the cards in the global power relationship and Russia was powerless and in no position to argue. Is it any surprise that we're seeing increasing nationalism in Russia after decades of being dictated to? The outgoing POTUS did not even consider Russia a regional power.

We should have listened to experts like the great George Kennan who called Nato expansion a "fateful error" link and respected elder statesman Henry Kissinger, who advised that our foreign policy should derive from pragmatism rather than unquestioned idealism link

Out of curiosity, what is it we should be giving the Russians that they didn't get?

We didn't stop the wars in Chechnya, we didn't interfer in Georgia and we didn't stop them taking Crimea.

Give them Latvia?

That's because the people who had lived under what Russia wanted have no desire to live under that again.

That was their choice, not Russia's and not the US' choice.

The Eastern European countries applied and were accepted maybe if Russia had focussed on improving itself internally it would be in a better place.

Russian nationalism is on the rise due to Putin's propaganda. He needs an enemy to unite people around as an excuse for his own failing or else they will look inside and realise what is going on. When their was a movement lead by Boris Nemtsov he was killed.

It's not that Russia is being dictated to, the workld is seeing what Russia has to offer and is rejecting it. Putin can't accept that.

Out of curiosity, what is it we should be giving the Russians that they didn't get?

Russia wants Nato to back off since the time of reformers like Gorbachev and Yeltsin long before Putin came to power. We ignored them.

link

Even the above article acknowledges that while "The West does not need to back down from its view that the inclusion of Central and Eastern Europe into NATO and the EU promoted strategic interests and values. It does need to understand the roots of the sense of insecurity in Russia, not as part of a blame game, but to assist both sides as they seek to grope for a way forward to a more stable relationship between the West and Russia."

The Nobel Peace Prize recipient Gorbachev called it "western triumphalism." Which is what we might call rubbing it in after we soundly beat an opponent to gloat.

link

Ironically, Nato expansion might have pushed Russia toward the nationalism which helped bring Putin to power. Good job.

@28mm: Let me remind you that Poland and the Baltics all asked to join NATO.

NATO did not ask Poland and the Baltics if they wanted to join it.

NATO expanded eastwards because all the former Soviet client states wanted protection from becoming a Russian client state!

I think Yeltsin and his "shock doctrine" did a lot more to enable Putin than anything we did.

What should the Poles have done instead?
What should the US response have been to their requests? Please be specific.

Putin came to power through old fashioned KGB type activities with his contacts in that organisation.
The KGB/FSB planted bombs in muktiple apartment blocjs to kill Russian citizens as a pretext to invade Chechnya. He used that war to consolidate power and hasn't relinquished it since.

We've come a long way from the days of "Freedom Fries", je pense.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

28mm Fanatik – by what right does Russia get to dictate the foreign policy of neighbouring states?

Many have been asking that for decades …

it's funny that this obsolete tactics, typical of leftist trolling, is still used..that is accusing somebody to be exactly what is fighting against…for example Putin trademark is the restless war vs soviet/comunist/leftist corruption..as soon as he came to power he cleaned the room…sending in jail or obliging other gangsters (enriched trough soviet/leftist corruption) to fly and take refuge abroad..including UK as we all are aware of…it amuse me a lot reading those absurd comparisons and imagine the red angry faces of those who try to convince us against every evident truth…