By Steve Hynd
Wow, what changes being broke can force in lifestyles - even at the level of international defense.
The BBC reports on new defense treaties between France and the U.K.:
The nuclear treaty will establish a centre in the UK to develop testing technology and another one in France to carry out the testing. Warheads will be tested by technical means to ensure their safety and effectiveness, without having to test them by explosion.
The other treaty will allow the setting up of a "combined joint expeditionary force", thought to involve a brigade of about 5,000 soldiers from each side, which will operate under one military commander to be chosen at the time.
The UK and France have also agreed to keep at least one aircraft carrier at sea between them at any one time. Each will be able to use the other's carrier in some form, certainly for training and possibly operations.
Mr Sarkozy described the agreement as "unprecedented". He said the treaties would deliver "a truly integrated aircraft carrier group" but dismissed suggestion that they would infringe on either country's sovereignty.
The two leaders faced questions about what would happen if one country backed a military operation and the other did not. Mr Cameron said there would have to be "political agreement" for the joint taskforce to be deployed.
Mr Sarkozy said it would be unlikely that Britain would face a crisis so great that it needed an aircraft carrier without France being affected: "If you, my British friends, have to face a major crisis, could you imagine France simply sitting there, its arms crossed, saying that it's none of our business?"
Gallic indifference has been all too easy to imagine in the past. France didn't join the U.K. in responding to Argentina's takeover of the Falkland Islands - instead, Argentinian planes used French Exocet anti-shipping missiles - nor did it send any troops to Iraq, described as a major crisis by the British P.M. of the time, Tony Blair (even though it wasn't). British ambitions and willingness to blindly follow U.S. policy have certainly changed since 2003, and perhaps Sarkozy's implicit promise to get Britain's back signals a new French determination on that account - but it's surely significant that the U.K. is committing what will be, after the Defense Review takes effect, its entire out-of-area deployable land force to these treaties while France is committing only one fifth of its own. It's pretty clear who is in the driving seat on defense in Europe nowadays.
The NY Times quotes Sabine Syfuss-Arnaud, an editor at the economic magazine Challenges in Paris:
�The most cynical observers in Paris stress that, if London hadn�t been trapped by a monumental deficit, this rapprochement would perhaps not have taken place,� Ms. Syfuss-Arnaud wrote.
While that's probably true, these new treaties point towards important changes in Europe's defense structure. Sarkozy is leading the way now, and his preferences seem to be for a more integrated European defense force which would, contra some French fears, begin to sideline the existing NATO structure in time. By signing these treaties, he's made it very much easier for Britain, traditionally the spoiler in attempts to form a truly intergrated EDF, to climb onboard. He has also made it easier for the U.K. to say "Non" to any future American out-of-area adventurism, by simply claiming that their new French treaty-partners might not agree to use of their assets by Britain on such an adventure.
P.S. Just a thought, but there's no doubt in my mind that these treaties are the biggest change to Western defense structures since the formation of NATO post-WW2. Even so, the signing seems to be flying under the radar of most U.S. based defense and foreign affairs analysts and pundits so far. Would it be cynical to suggest that announcing and signing the treaties on U.S. election day was a deliberate move designed to accomplish exactly that?
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