France is expected to soon rejoin NATO’s mil­i­tary com­mand after a 40-​​year absence. The French gov­ern­ment with­drew from the NATO mil­i­tary struc­ture in 1966 (although remain­ing a mem­ber of NATO’s political-​​policy struc­ture). France’s new pres­i­dent, Nicolas Sarkozy, has placed strong empha­sis on France’s rela­tion­ship with the United States. And, he recently declared that he would soon under­take “very strong” ini­tia­tives on European defense and give France “its full place” in NATO.

Subsequently, Defense Minister Herve Morin said that he was “con­vinced that European defense will make no progress unless France changes its polit­i­cal behav­ior
within NATO.”

Then-​​general Dwight D. Eisenhower estab­lished NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) as the prin­ci­pal com­mand of NATO’s mil­i­tary forces in Paris in early 1951. The head­quar­ters remained in the Paris area until in February 1966, when French President Charles de Gaulle stated that the changed world order had “stripped NATO of its jus­ti­fi­ca­tion” for mil­i­tary inte­gra­tion and that France was there­fore jus­ti­fied in re-​​asserting its sov­er­eignty over French ter­ri­tory. Consequently, all allied forces within France’s bor­ders would have to come under
French con­trol by April 1969.

Soon after­ward, France stated that it was with­draw­ing from the NATO mil­i­tary struc­ture and that the NATO Headquarters, the NATO Defence College, and SHAPE and its sub­or­di­nate head­quar­ters must leave French ter­ri­tory by April 1967. (NATO Headquarters was based in Paris, in the Palais de l’OTAN, cur­rently occu­pied by the Universit Paris-​​Dauphine.)

Subsequently, NATO’s mil­i­tary head­quar­ters were relo­cated to Casteau, north of the Belgian city of Mons.

Despite hav­ing with­drawn from the NATO mil­i­tary struc­ture, French naval forces con­ducted bilat­eral exer­cises with other NATO navies, includ­ing the U.S. Navy. And, cer­tain U.S.-French weapon agree­ments were under­taken, espe­cially for upgrad­ing American-​​built tanker air­craft and ship-​​launched mis­siles. The French joined other NATO forces in the Bosnia con­flict as well as the 1991 assault on Iraq to free Kuwait, which Iraqi forces had taken over the pre­vi­ous summer.

Although the pre­vi­ous French gov­ern­ment was not sup­port­ive of the 2003 U.S. inva­sion of Iraq, the French did send forces to Afghanistan. However, ear­lier this year France with­drew its 200-​​strong spe­cial forces from Afghanistan; those ground troops were par­tic­i­pat­ing in the U.S anti-​​terror oper­a­tion code-​​named Enduring Freedom. The then-​​Defense Minister Michele Alliot-​​Marie said, “There is a gen­eral reor­ga­ni­za­tion of our [troops].” However, the 1,100 French troops engaged in the sep­a­rate, NATO-​​led International Security Assistance Force remain in Afghanistan.

U.S. forces have also worked with French forces in Djibouti in north­east Africa. (Djibouti is a small, impov­er­ished repub­lic just north of the Horn of Africa on the strait of Bab el-​​Mandeb. It is bor­dered by Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, an area of great polit­i­cal and eco­nomic turmoil.)

The United States has used the French military-​​air base in Djibouti for sev­eral com­bat and sup­port oper­a­tions in the region. Indeed, the case can be made that­de­spite its pub­lic stance?the French have been most help­ful to sev­eral U.S. mil­i­tary activities.

– Norman Polmar

Well, the story of the Israeli incur­sion into Syria is begin­ning to get some gran­u­lar­ity. It now appears that Israeli com­man­dos may have been involved as well. What a totally gutsy move. And, if true, it also shows that Israel took the tar­get seri­ously enough to send in ground forces.

Our friends at Stratfor passed this along to us syn­the­siz­ing the lat­est infor­ma­tion threads:

Another leak appeared via the Sunday Times, this time with enough gran­u­lar­ity to con­sider it a gen­uine leak. According to that report, the oper­a­tion was car­ried out by Israeli com­man­dos sup­ported by Israeli air­craft, under the direct man­age­ment of Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. It had been planned since June, just after Barak took office, and had been approved by the United States after some hes­i­ta­tion. The tar­get was in fact nuclear “mate­r­ial” pro­vided by North Korea, accord­ing to that leak.

All of this makes per­fect sense, save one thing. Why the secrecy? If the Syrians have nuclear facil­i­ties, the Israelis should be delighted to make it pub­lic. Frankly, so should the United States, since the Bush admin­is­tra­tion has always argued that nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion to rogue states, includ­ing Syria, is one of the key prob­lems in the world. The Syrians should be spin­ning the story like crazy as well, deny­ing the nuclear pro­gram but scream­ing about unpro­voked Israeli-U.S. aggres­sion. The silence from one or two par­ties makes sense. The silence from all par­ties makes lit­tle sense.

Looked at dif­fer­ently, Israel and the United States both have gone out of their way to draw atten­tion to the fact that a highly sig­nif­i­cant mil­i­tary oper­a­tion took place in Northern Syria, and com­pounded the atten­tion by mak­ing no attempt to pro­vide a plau­si­ble cover story. They have done every­thing pos­si­ble to draw atten­tion to the affair with­out reveal­ing what the affair was about. Israel and the United States have a lot of ways to min­i­mize the impor­tance of the oper­a­tion. By the way they have han­dled it, how­ever, each has cho­sen to max­i­mize its importance.

Whoever they are keep­ing the secret from, it is not the Syrians. They know pre­cisely what was attacked and why. The secret is not being kept from the Iranians either. The Syrians talk to them all the time. It is hard to imag­ine any gov­ern­ment of impor­tance and involve­ment that has not been briefed by some­one. And by now, the pub­lic per­cep­tion has been shaped as well. So, why the dra­matic secrecy designed to draw everyone’s atten­tion to the secret and the leaks that seem to explain it?

Let us assume that the Sunday Times report is cor­rect. According to the Times, Barak focused on the mate­r­ial as soon as he became defense min­is­ter in June. That would mean the mate­r­ial had reached Syria prior to that date. Obviously, the mate­r­ial was not a bomb, or Israel would not have waited until September to act. So it was, at most, some pre­cur­sor nuclear mate­r­ial or equipment.

However, an inter­ven­ing event occurred this sum­mer that should be fac­tored in here. North Korea pub­licly shifted its posi­tion on its nuclear pro­gram, agree­ing to aban­don it and allow inspec­tions of its facil­i­ties. It also was asked to pro­vide infor­ma­tion on the coun­tries it sold any nuclear tech­nol­ogy to, though North Korea has pub­licly denied any pro­lif­er­a­tion. This was, in the con­text of the six-​​party nego­ti­a­tions sur­round­ing North Korea, a major breakthrough.

Any agree­ment with North Korea is, by def­i­n­i­tion, unsta­ble. North Korea many times has backed off of agree­ments that seemed cast in stone. In par­tic­u­lar, North Korea wants to be seen as a sig­nif­i­cant power and treated with all due respect. It does not intend to be treated as an out­law nation sub­ject to inter­ro­ga­tion and accu­sa­tions. Its self-​​image is an impor­tant part of its domes­tic strat­egy and, inter­nally, it can posi­tion its shift in its nuclear stance as North Korea mak­ing a strate­gic deal with other major pow­ers. If North Korea is pressed pub­licly, its will­ing­ness to imple­ment its agree­ments can very quickly erode. That is not some­thing the United States and other pow­ers want to see happen.

Whether the Israelis found out about the mate­r­ial through their own intel­li­gence sources or North Korea pro­vided a list of recip­i­ents of nuclear tech­nol­ogy to the United States is unclear. The Israelis have made every effort to make it appear that they knew about this inde­pen­dently. They also have tried to make it appear that they noti­fied the United States, rather than the other way around. But whether the intel­li­gence came from North Korea or was obtained inde­pen­dently, Washington wants to be very care­ful in its han­dling of Pyongyang right now. 

– Christian