Trent, they aren't acting in our interests, biut as they understand them, they are acting in theirs.

The French have had an odd mixture of bureaucratic socialism and corporate capitalism since WWII, and probably before then. The key to each is the institutional nature of power, and as I've noted in some of my posts, the despotic and elitist twist which that often takes.

They had their heads handed to them in several wars, and suffered horribly as a result. They have the corner on the market in world-weary pragmatism, which primarily involves focussing on not pissing off those who may harm you (also good advice for bureaucrats) and acting like it.

What you're attributing to moral decay and social collapse may be simply the working-out of an ossifying bureaucracy.

Much of this comes from my grad school advisor, Steve Cohen, who wrote a great book on the French 'mixed' economy; and from my first wife who is French and whose family feed fairly high off the tree over there.

A.L.

I think you're missing their point of view.

It's really simple. All you have to do to understand is give up all notions of honor.

What's the cost of being with the US:
1. They become a target of terror
2. They piss off their own huge and growing Muslim population

What's the cost of being against the US:
Nothing.

They don't expect to sway us or the UN or Europe... They only expect to keep their own country safe while we do all the work for them.

Do they benefit from our war on terror? Absolutely.

Do they benefit from being loyal and helping us with that war on terror?
No.

What's so hard to understand here?
They have no honor... So what's new?

A.L.

The one of the first rules of politics and diplomacy is when you are in a hole, stop digging. In terms of their clash with America over Iraq, the French have just traded in a back hoe for a industrial sized strip mining steam shovel.

The current course chosen by the French maximizes their own disadvantage in the short and long term. The French are destroying the U.N. to prevent its use as a tool of American diplomacy. Doing so will perminently diminish France on the world stage and make the USA actively seek to thwart French diplomacy and business interests where ever they are.

We will know if the French are being driven by existential needs over needs of self-interest if they use their veto in the UN Security Council or America elects to by-pass the UNSC because French diplomacy guarentees we would lose a majority vote there without a French veto.

That will be an unforgivable betrayal for American elites and future American diplomacy and national strategy will reflect this.

Trent:
My growing concern is that the American elites are treating the French as enemies NOW. As I wrote in my blog yesterday, I fear a France that's humilated, bitter and isolated. The French will lash out if they feel they're surrounded by hostile powers and it bodes very worrisome if the Americans start thwartingFrench interests even legitimate one just to spite them. As I advocated in yesterday's blog, our challenge is to help the French find their moral compass; if not get out of the way. Bashing is just to facile and gloating over French misfortunes does nothing to remind them of their moral decomposition
xavier
xavier

xavier,

We cannot save the French from themselves. That is for the French people to work out via replacing their elites.

We can only make an example of the French so others do not emulate them.

I don't understand why everyone assumes that French leaders want to rule the world... I think they just want to stay elected in France. All of this talk is absolute nonsense.

Trent:
You're quite right that the French have to replace their elite by themsleves. However, what worries me the most is the latent shrill moralism that the so called Jacksonians have. It's completely out of place to sermonize and it's their most exasperating characteristic
Making an example of the French strikes me as utterly counterproductive. I opine that castigating (I'm think of the French word for severe punshment- châtier) th French will have the opposite effect- it will galvanize them to lash out; not to reform. Worse I can see other democratic countries being singled out in the future if they should cross America.

I'm still hopeful that the French will reform and find their moral compass. I'll be there to exhort them.
xavier

xavier: Jacksonians don't chat and they aren't moral, they just defend their own interests. See Mead's article in http://www.nationalinterest.org/issues/58/Mead.html

Another point that Mead made: US national leaders are hardly ever monochromatic, but rather blend Jacksonian, Hamiltonian, Wilsonian, and Jeffersonian motifs in varying degrees. So trying to call anyone "Wilsonian" or anything monochromatic deserves a detailed explanation.

xavier:

The French castigate America all the time and Americans are supposed to just shut up and take it while Frech sensabilities are just too delicate to recieve the treatment they dish out.

I'll give the French some free advice on cooking: if the fire is too hot, get out of the kitchen.

xavier said:

>However, what worries me the most is the latent
>shrill moralism that the so called Jacksonians
>have.

The Jacksonians have a code of honor that they judge others inside and outside "their tribe" by. That is hardly "shrill moralism." You are projecting your own political insecurities here.

By the lights of the Jacksonian honor code, the French are the basest of betrayers, and betrayers the French most certainly are. This is the latest from David Warren on the subject:

"The public transformation of Secretary Powell himself from "dove" into "hawk" is a direct consequence of his success in arguing for the involvement of the U.N. It was his bright idea, and thus President Bush left him to salvage it.

At this moment, I doubt there is anyone in the Bush administration as angry with the French, in particular, as Mr. Powell is. It is widely understood that in return for the U.S. concession of a long and enervating horsetrade over Resolution 1441, the French undertook to support the U.S. decisively later on. The key date was Jan. 27th. If Hans Blix was unable to assure the Security Council that Saddam was disarming by this date -- and he wasn't -- then France would help lead the cry for action. President Chirac is believed to have given personal assurances of this to Mr. Powell, in return for specific amendments to the Resolution which the U.S. was resisting. Mr. Powell in turn assured President Bush that this difficult NATO ally would be finally onside. But the political situation changed, Mr. Chirac subsequently came to another arrangment with the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, and, to put a fine point on it, Mr. Powell was betrayed.

The response to this from elsewhere in the Bush administration is much less surprised. They had a low opinion of the French to start with. The line that is now going around Washington is that of a former undersecretary of defence, who observed, "Going to war without the French is like going deerhunting without an accordion.""

Not only have the French been writen off as allies. They have made it very much a vital interest of the USA to make an example of them starting foremost with the American State Department.

i've read every texts of your forum. and it's amazing how it's easy for you to build some proff. you just use your imagination.
for sure chirac receives bribes from saddam hussein. but who do you think you are with your very corrupted president who's related with the scandals of enron. which by the way are the worst economical scandals the world has ever known. so pleased, befor making some shitty theories, think a little bit more. you should interest your selves a little bit more in your president related to the enron scandal. because it seems ( and it is more or less proved) that he received a lot of money. and what happened with the chairman of Enron?

bye