Stardate 20030314.1754

(On Screen): Patrick writes:

Now that France has firmly pitched its tent in the Axis of Evil camp, what would you recommend that the US and UK and others actually do to stifle them diplomatically, politically and economically? How far should the punishment go and what risk of scoring own-goals in the process?

I can't speak for what any other nation should do, and won't try. UK policy is for the British to comment on. With respect to the US, there are some things I'm sure of and some I'm not.

The easiest and most obvious point is this: France must be completely locked out of any post-war commercial deals with Iraq. TotalFinaElf gets no oil deals; French companies should not be permitted to bid on contracts for equipment or to help in rebuilding. This is hardly a new idea, and the current Prime Minister of the de facto Kurdish government says the same thing, regarding the sweetheart oil deals Saddam has signed with the Russians and French:

A new Iraqi government should not honor any of these contracts, signed against the interests of the Iraqi people. The new Iraqi government should respect those who stood by us, and not those who stood beside the dictator.

Another is that it is clear now that the French cannot be trusted with sensitive military information. There are many reports I've seen which make clear that in joint military deployments that the French are never really trusted anyway, and in fact that their presence in some places amounts to a security risk.

I think that they got cut off from high level information a long time ago. For instance, in early October of 2001 someone high up in the French government (I believe it was the defense minister) announced that combat in Afghanistan would not begin for at least three weeks. The actual bombing began a couple of days later. I now believe that he'd been lied to; he was publicly announcing what he himself actually believed to be the case. (Just to make clear, he shouldn't have been talking about it.)

French involvement in the Serbian bombing was distinctly problematic. One of their officers was caught giving classified information to the Serbs. (He was tried and convicted for treason and sentenced to only two years in prison, clearly demonstrating the French evaluation of the seriousness of his crime.) And the French government boasted after the fact about how they'd been responsible for preventing the bombing of a lot of targets; they boasted about how they'd impeded the bombing which ultimately brought the primary conflict in Yugoslavia to an end. (They also were clearly trying to talk about "Europe as an anti-American counterbalance" even then.)

Any remaining military cooperation with the French should be handled along the same kinds of lines as military cooperation with the Russians is. It should be unusual, planned, and extremely careful. Routine visits by French military personnel to American installations should cease, and mid-to-high level military cooperation should also cease. I understand that their pilots train in the US; that also should cease. This isn't so much an attempt at punishment as it is a practical recognition that they've been attempting to use that kind of contact against us.

Equally, any decisions about sharing sensitive military technology with France should be approximately the same as it would be with the Russians.

In the realm of direct reprisals as such, Rumsfeld's proposal regarding military acquisition might be a good one, possibly broadened to the entire government through an act of Congress. The rule would be that in any kind of competitive bidding process for government contracts, French companies would only be considered if there were no reasonable alternatives which were non-French. There are obvious perils in taking a step like this, but it's something to be considered.

I see no problem whatever with individual Americans making their own decisions, and deciding that Spain or Italy are nicer places for that European vacation than France, or that Australian wine is a better deal than Bordeaux. I see no point in any kind of organized boycott, but individuals certainly can make their own decisions in this. Likewise I don't see any problem with American companies reconsidering their own deals with French sources; if an American airline (assuming any of them haven't gone bankrupt by the time this war is over) decide that Boeing is a better source than Airbus, I'd applaud them for it.

Diplomatically, I think that relations with the French should be "cool but correct". Don't snub them, but don't smile at them. With respect to diplomacy, the relationship would become similar to the one we have with China, recognizing that we're not at war with them but don't consider them to be friends and recognize that their interests substantially conflict with ours.

If we remain in NATO, then I think a demand for a reform of that body, deliberately aimed at reducing France's influence, are in order. They blocked deployment of air defenses to Turkey because the Council requires unanimous action; it's clear that's got to change. Either France is outright booted from the organization, or the rules would have to be changed so that they will no longer be able to block