It is perhaps timely to remember that France left NATO's military command structure in 1966 and pursued an independent French nuclear deterrent - a direct result of the doubts of whether the US dominance in NATO would meet key obligations in the face of a Soviet invasion of Europe.
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Comments
Great read btw
Hold on here before we all start deep throating baguettes.
Reminder. The U.K has spent VAST amounts of money on the Polaris and Trident deterrent. A shield many NATO states have thoroughly enjoyed at our expense. And up until last year, we’re happy for us to keep funding/1
Courtesy people. It’s an expensive game that most of Europe refused to pay for.
Thanks.
Yeah?
We always made it clear it was an option available to the alliance. And up until Trump getting in, Europe was very happy to enjoy that cover people/2
It is nothing more than “thoughts and prayers”
What further evidence do politicians need to realize this?
They seem to forget everything that explains why the US and Europe are so deeply rooted.
From the independence of the United States to the present day.
https://x.com/p_kallioniemi/status/1896144010114167154?s=46&t=pLjQmffSnKYDb0OW7MSR7g
The French were right.
For other reasons than the situation presented today.
The Baltics & Poland were right.
Too many countries didn't listen.
Peace dividend was nice. The correction is going to be very expensive & accelerated.
(Go, start, spend, do! ASAP)
Because here, we love History. We know it's firstly about people, not money. For family reasons, I can compare school programs on both sides of Atlantic, speaks volumes
This all seems like post hoc rationalization of what was just an old colonial power clinging to faded glory.
I’m glad there is some independent capacity to build on (in part because of what France did), but I doubt it was so intentional.
Napo is past 😉
De Gaulle had huge warnings (and some mistakes like all of us) about Russia. Because its history on our Continent.
ACM were in fact armoured cars, but remains this royal relationship, explaining so much here.
A must-see cartoon
https://tarantula.be/film/cafard/?lang=en
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The decision, however, was not borne out of a vacuum: it came from years of feelings of inequality within the alliance.
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French anger grew when a proposal for equal footing within NATO nuclear strategy failed. France then refused to store nukes from other countries on French soil.
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Good for US casualties, not so good for the concept of an alliance...
"[US] predominance cannot save NATO, but only destroy it... the alliance can only be restored in one way, through restoring the unity of Europe."
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France returned to NATO military structure in 2009.
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NATO never found itself in a situation where the largest contributor was threatening the sovereignty of other member nations, or one indicating friendship to NATO's main adversary, Russia, during a European war.
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