The combination of Western Europe’s continued disarmament and a rapidly evolving strategic situation —the return of Cold War-type tensions with Russia and the rise of ISIS (a.k.a. “The Caliphate”) and allied Islamist movements—has underscored an important development for the U.S. strategic approach toward the North Atlantic Alliance: The key ally in NATO Europe may no longer be the United Kingdom but France, reports Newsweek.
This is good news insofar as it means that the U.K.’s decline as a military power does not leave the United States bereft of a willing and able ally, and the U.S. relationship with France should be recognized and strengthened. The bad news is that the relationship’s stability is threatened by the rise of France’s Marine Le Pen and the far-right Front National party she leads.
France, alone among the big NATO powers, retains the military capability and the political moxie to contribute significantly and aggressively to collective responses to security threats to the Atlantic Alliance. Paris demonstrated this in 2013, when French President François Hollande launched a military intervention in Mali to save it from Islamist militants and effectively assumed responsibility for Europe’s “southern front” in the African Sahel.
Today, more than 3,000 French troops backed by fighter jets are engaged in a U.S.-backed regional “hot” war against Islamist groups in the Sahel, and the French are inching toward greater involvement in the war against the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram. In the Middle East, the French have joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. There, as well as in Africa, Paris sees itself as doing what it can to prevent the various pieces of a potential Islamist caliphate from joining together.
Regarding Russia, the French have been firm in their opposition to Russian aggression at the diplomatic and economic levels, and Paris has gone so far as to block delivery to Russia of two highly capable amphibious assault ships. France also has the greatest ability of any of the European allies to rapidly contribute a significant force capable of handling a clash with Russia, if the need arises.
The French government’s recent decision to freeze defense-spending cuts even in the face of powerful financial pressure—unlike the British government, which appears committed to further defense reductions for an already diminished and shrinking U.K. defense establishment—indicates a desire to preserve that ability.