Wow, this is interesting. I won’t say much, because I really don’t have a good feel on how both sides feel about this. Or how this impacts each nation’s psyche when their defenses are so closely tied to another country’s defense. I mean it is pragmatic, and helps increase the defensive or offensive capabilities of each country. But what happens when France wants to use a British asset for something that Britain wants no part in? Or when the politics change in each country, how will something like this last? –Matt
British Military Expands Links to French Allies
November 2, 2010
By JOHN F. BURNS
LONDON — Britain and France signed defense agreements on Tuesday that promised cooperation far beyond anything achieved previously in 60 years of NATO cooperation, including the creation of a joint expeditionary force, shared use of aircraft carriers and combined efforts to improve the safety and effectiveness of their nuclear weapons.
The agreements signed in London by Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France were a landmark of another kind for two nations that spent centuries confronting each other on the battlefields of Europe. While neither leader mentioned Agincourt, Trafalgar or Waterloo, or French victories that included the Norman Conquest in 1066, both stirred a brief whiff of the troubled history of Anglo-French relations into the mood of general bonhomie.
The agreements envisaged a new combined force available for deployment at times of international crisis that is expected to involve about 5,000 service members from each nation, with land, sea and air components, and rotating French and British commanders. The pacts also foresee each nation alternating in putting a single aircraft carrier to sea, with the vessels operating as bases for French, British and American aircraft in times of need.
The nuclear agreement was in some ways the most surprising, since it committed the two nations to sharing some of their most carefully kept secrets. Although the two leaders emphasized that France’s “force de frappe” and Britain’s similar, submarine-based ballistic missile force would remain separate and under the sole control of each government, they agreed to establish joint research centers, one in France and one in Britain, to further research on their stockpiles of nuclear warheads.
The cooperation pact was set to last 50 years and could transform the way the countries project force, fight wars and compete for defense contracts with the United States. One goal appeared to be to give the two militaries greater buying power to support the struggling European defense industry.
Mr. Cameron, who has navigated deep hostilities to European integration and deep skepticism toward France in his Conservative Party, emphasized the budgetary benefits, saying the agreements would contribute savings of “millions of pounds” to Britain’s plan to make deep cuts in its $60 billion defense budget.
Previous efforts at military cooperation between the countries have more often faltered than succeeded. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair, then Britain’s prime minister, and Jacques Chirac, then France’s president, promised deeper defense cooperation, but the understanding was undone by differences over the Iraq war. In both countries, there are significant political forces arrayed against anything that smacks of too close a military partnership with the age-old foe.
