‘Oh bugger, they're in the tent’: British responses to French reintegration into NATO

Abstract

This article looks at the British response to the French decision to re-integrate into the military structures of the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. It outlines the official Whitehall position, expressed by officials within the British Ministry of Defence, that welcomes the decision as a sign that France has strategically converged onto the British position as outlined in the UK 1997/8 Strategic Defence Review. An alternative view, set out by prominent members of the British establishment and supported by the work of think tanks, notes that the most striking feature is the lack of any coherent British response. This view emphasises the ad hoc nature of contemporary British defence policy, its lack of strategic reflection and the prominence of many unanswered questions vis-à-vis British defence policy more generally. The article ends by suggesting that contemporary Franco-British defence cooperation is likely to be dictated more by the pragmatic requirements of budgetary stringency than power political considerations.

Keywords:

• France
• NATO
• Britain
• power politics
• pragmatism
• strategy

Acknowledgements

Grateful thanks to Sir Adam Roberts and Hugh Strachan for their help in organising interviewsand to Christophe Goussot at the Délégation des Affaires Stratégiques of the French Defence Ministry for his input into the article. Thanks also to Clara O'Donnell and Claire Chick for their help. The anonymous referee provided very useful suggestions on how to improve the article.

Notes

1. Quote from the ‘Yes Minister’ British TV series. My thanks to Thomas Berger for bringing this example to my attention.

2. Up until the coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, the European security and defence policy was known as the ESDP. Today, under the terms of the Treaty, it has been renamed the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). This article will in the interest of uniformity call it CSDP throughout.

3. Access to USA military technology, both nuclear and non-nuclear, is another important reason for continued British emphasis on the special relationship.