De Gaulle Against NATO

...France needs allies, but its Army must maintain its own physiognomy...

...but should do so without losing its own characteristics, its own face...

...But he is much more of a modern realist than de Gaulle...

...No army...

...Meanwhile...

...The French President has formulated both of these ideas with equal sincerity and conviction, though the second naturally lacks the mysticism associated with the first...

...In the negotiations with Stalin, the Soviet dictator sought in every way to get de Gaulle to recognize the Moscow-controlled Lublin Committee as the provisional government of Poland...

...At first it was thought that his purpose was to use these measures to pressure for a stronger French position in NATO's political command...

...second, on its military strength, and finally, on its alliances, especially with the United States...

...The second trend is his evident conviction that the world is evolving in the direction of an international order based on what he has called "grands ensembles...

...An example is France's role in the "Europe of the Six," as the Common Market is called...

...The first involved the conflict between de Gaulle and Allied Headquarters during World War II, when the Supreme Command ordered the evacuation of Strasbourg under the impact of Field Marshal von Rund-stedt's 1944 winter offensive in the Ardennes...

...This means that whoever resists integration is blocking NATO's organizational progress, which is precisely what is happening now...

...The real problem in this approach is in its application to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization...

...This means that the fledgling German Army not only has a better economic base, but is also better armed as a result of Germany's smooth relations with the U.S...

...French President's policy could lead to dissolution of Western alliance, isolation of France and German hegemony on the Continent De Gaulle Against NATO By Sal Tas PARIS NOW THAT the Algerian problem seems to be approaching a decisive phase, the moment is near when President Charles de Gaulle will have his hands free to conduct diplomatic offensives in the grand manner...

...Germany, for example, wants to be a good ally of France on the Continent: it also wants to join France in a grand ensemble like the Europe of the Six...

...And once the Algerian war is over, this passion of his may presage a number of new and perhaps even larger concerns for the entire West...

...From this he draws an obvious conclusion: France should of course enter grands ensembles...

...Three episodes recounted in this book impressed themselves particularly on my mind...

...It is obvious that foreign policy is de Gaulle's primary and nearly all-absorbing interest...

...It must be inferred, therefore, that NATO should be reformed by making it an alliance without integration...

...he said, "will fight unless it is fighting under its own flag, for its own country, and under the command of its own national leader...

...Since de Gaulle came to power, the French have braked or blocked every measure of progress in NATO...

...The second episode deals with his visit to Moscow toward the end of the war...

...Germany is concentrating, first, on its economic strength...

...But nothing new is on the horizon, except some serious storm signals...

...It would be useful for every diplomat who has to deal with that hard customer, de Gaulle, to read carefully the third and last volume of his memoirs...

...The NATO Command has long since realized that NATO's only chance of coping with the tremendous, monolithic Soviet power is to develop a nearly equal power at the service of the free nations...

...he withdrew the French Army from the allied command and ordered it to remain in Strasbourg...

...He just takes his risks (and yours also...

...So the Army's modernization has been delayed...

...Le Salut, for it presents clearly all the lineaments of his mode of thought and action...

...it may be said, in fact, that this was the most effective stimulus to his return to political life...

...By the same token, its national leader should not lose an inch of his freedom of action and maneuver...

...It has helped to formulate and shape the Market, and it has surely cooperated with all the measures that tended to reinforce the protective shutters that were let down around the Market...

...It is perhaps willing to be dissolved into Europe, but it is not willing to become France's protected military satellite...

...At present, NATO's entire organizational pattern is integrated...

...France's participation in the Common Market has consequently been wholehearted and full of good will...

...The consequences of this approach are curious indeed...

...But to join Europe alongside France does not mean that Germany is willing to be led by France...

...While de Gaulle is obsessed by military traditions, these count for very little with Adenauer...

...He knows he is likely to win because he is aware that his partners, generally speaking, lack his audacity in taking risks...

...It is the story of his conflict with Winston Churchill over the apportionment of political influence in wartime Lebanon...

...For strictly national-political reasons, de Gaulle flatly refused to evacuate the city...

...Everyone, however, who has heard him speak about the French Union and the idea of associating the young Frenchspeaking, former colonial countries of Africa with France in a grand ensemble has sensed the inspiration with which he views the dimensions of this conception...

...economic and social power and genuine political influence...

...But the third episode in the book is no less instructive...

...For him real power is not necessarily just miliary power: it is, first of all...

...Almost the whole French military budget, as well as the Army, has gone into the Algerian war...

...In fact, Adenauer is even willing to go farther: He would even give the Europe of the Six a certain political status and function, for he is much less obsessed with national sovereignty than is de Gaulle, and much more interested in economic growth and power...

...And that is whv the latter is so much more flexible and realistic in his approach to international affairs...

...De Gaulle has withdrawn the French Air Force and Mediterranean fleet from the NATO Command and has steadily refused to allow atomic warheads to be stored in France...

...But recently the President, in a speech to young French officers, clarified his purpose by making what seemed to amount to a doctrinal attack on the very concept of integration...

...In such a situation, there is little chance of getting him to compromise...

...This can be interpreted to mean large international collectives or federations of a political, military or economic character...

...And there, de Gaulle had to give in...

...Adenauer is certainly a nationalist and is trying to make Germany as powerful as possible...

...By becoming as strong as possible economically and by behaving like a good ally, a nation can gain the kind of political power that is much more real and effective than any amount of diplomatic maneuvering based on either phony military strength or juridical contracts...

...Germany, becoming stronger, better armed and closer to its allies, increasingly becomes a center of attraction...

...A retrospect of de Gaulle's life and writings reveals two main trends in his thinking about international affairs...

...You can beat him in the diplomatic game on two conditions—(a) if you are in a stronger position than he, and (b) if you are willing to exploit that strength to the full...

...It should be remembered that French industrial leaders by and large favored the Common Market because it promised to provide them with a greater field of operations at the same time that it enlarged the domain in which French protectionism could effectively apply...

...This lesson, if taken to heart, can be beneficial for the free world, for NATO, and even for France itself...

...De Gaulle seems to combine these two trends by his notion of a large federative organization of which France is naturally the center and the heart, by virtue of the strength of its cultural prestige, its tradition, its geographical position, and not least, the unique value of its national leader...

...Just how impossible de Gaulle's way of thinking is became clear when German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer visited him early in December...

...At the same time...

...True, certain technological progress is being effected...

...That incident points up a lesson in dealing with de Gaulle...

...But de Gaulle steadfastly refused: He risked breaking off negotiations in Moscow, and in the end Stalin gave way on this point...

...Since none of the Western allies desires France's isolation or German hegemony, these grave dangers require the most alert consideration...

...There, the British had more troops than the French, and de Gaulle was confronted with an opponent who was just as audacious as himself...

...This is all the more so as Germany is little impressed by France's military might...

...what is left is spent on the effort to explode an A-bomb...

...At the same time, however, de Gaulle has refused to participate in any enterprise that would give this economic structure some political weight or value...

...Thus, the various types of arms that have already been adopted in common are constantly being improved, and in this sense NATO's fire-power is slowly but steadily growing...

...And the only way of achieving this goal, in a 15-nation alliance, was to integrate all the available military forces...

...If de Gaulle persists in the course he is now following, he risks France's isolation in Europe...

...This ambivalent approach to the Common Market has been beneficial for Europe in every way, for this particular ensemble is still in its first years and needs a great deal of protection...

...Both of these stories demonstrate one decisive fact: De Gaulle is willing to take every risk, even coming close to the severance of relations with his allies, when he wants to win a diplomatic battle...

...Even before de Gaulle came to power, France had in principle entered the Common Market, and the President subsequently gave assurances that he would not go back on France's word...

...In sum, what de Gaulle is accomplishing with his policy of disintegrating NATO is to prepare the way for German hegemony in Europe...

...The first is his strong, almost mystical French nationalism, about which so much has been written—his unique faith in France's future, his self-identification with Joan of Arc, etc.—that nothing further need be said here...