Abstract
The strongest and most far-reaching objections to the McNamara proposals came from France, led by Charles de Gaulle, the dominant foreign and defence policy-maker of the Fifth Republic. De Gaulle presented a consistent and logical critique of the American proposals, rooted in a starkly different vision of the future of Europe and the evolution of the Atlantic Alliance. Indeed, the American and French positions represented the polar extremes in the debate over NATO strategy in the 1960s. The French response was largely shaped by de Gaulle’s singular emphasis on the need for an independent French nuclear deterrent, in contrast to McNamara’s attack on the merits of such a force, and de Gaulle’s goal of creating a strong and independent Europe free of American ‘hegemony’. As such, the Franco-American debate over strategy was a clash over basic premises, or conflicting visions, rather than over specific details, such as the East/West conventional balance.
One cannot demand more soldiers from one’s allies and at the same time forbid them to provide themselves … with the major weapon of our era .1
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Notes and References
Wolf Mendl, Deterrence and Persuasion: French Nuclear Armament in the Context of National Policy, 1945–1969 (London: Faber & Faber, 1970) p. 110.
Paul-Marie de la Gorce, The French Army: A Military-Political History, translated by Kenneth Douglas (New York: George Braziller, 1963) p. 492.
de Gaulle’s account in Charles de Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, translated by Terence Kilmartin (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1971) pp. 83–130.
On de Gaulle’s foreign and defence policy, see Wilfrid Kohl, French Nuclear Diplomacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971) pp. 123–30
Michael Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981) pp. 49–71.
See Pierre M. Gallois, ‘U.S. Strategy and the Defense of Europe’, Orbis, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Summer 1963).
De Gaulle, Press Conference, 23 July 1964, Speeches and Press Conferences, no. 208 (New York: Ambassade de France, Service de press et d’information, 1964) p. 9.
André Beaufre, Deterrence and Strategy (London: Faber & Faber, 1965), originally published as Dissuasion et Stratégie (Paris: Armand Collin, 1964).
General Ailleret, ‘Defense “dirigée” ou defense “tous azimuts”’, Revue de défense nationale, 23 (December 1967) pp. 1923–32, translated and reprinted in Survival (February 1968).
See Alfred Grosser, ‘Doubts About Defence’, Le Monde, 21 December 1967, translated and reprinted in Survival (February 1968) p. 44.
General Michel Fourquet, ‘French Strategic Concepts’, Survival (July 1969); this originally appeared in Revue de défense nationale, 25 (May 1969) pp. 757–67.
Paul Reynaud, The Foreign Policy of Charles de Gaulle: A Critical Assessment, translated by Mervyn Savill (New York: Odyssey Press, 1964) p. 52.
Pierre Messmer, ‘Our Military Policy’, reprinted in part in Atlantic Community Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1963) p. 186.
Messmer, ‘The Atom, Cause and Means of an Autonomous Military Policy’, Atlantic Community Quarterly (Summer 1968) pp. 274, 276.
John F. Kennedy, The Strategy of Peace, edited by Allan Nevins (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960) p. 100.
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© 1988 Jane E. Stromseth
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Stromseth, J.E. (1988). A Different Vision: French Responses. In: The Origins of Flexible Response. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08518-7_6
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