Happy days are here again? France's reintegration into NATO and its impact on relations with the USA

Abstract

This paper's title, invoking as it does the optimism of Franklin D. Roosevelt's theme song during his 1932 presidential campaign, speaks to a growing expectation that a profound change for the better is in store for the Franco-American relationship. That bilateral relationship has long been billed as one between the world's two ‘oldest allies’, with the unstated assumption being that because they have been such longstanding ‘partners’ in international security, they must typically interact in a constructive fashion, advancing in the process not only their own respective national interests but also the interests of the greater community (the ‘West’) to which they belong. The reality of their interaction since they initially became allies (in 1778) is, of course, quite different, and is best characterised by long periods of strategic ennui disrupted by occasional moments of bliss and just as occasional bouts of vehement animosity. Although alliance dynamics have not been the only, or even the chief, source of upset in the Franco-American security relationship, there is no denying that at times the two states have differed bitterly over matters precisely because they have been allies. The Western alliance, for each state though for different reasons, has served as a symbolic referent of the first order of importance. Therefore, the nature of their involvement with NATO could be said to serve as a shorthand means of assessing the nature of their involvement with each other. If this is so, then France's reintegration into NATO's military side might reasonably be taken as a harbinger of long-term improvement in the quality of the France–US strategic relationship. This seems to be what many analysts believe, at least. It is the aim of this article to examine critically this supposition.