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France weighs expanding role on the ground
DOUG SAUNDERS
Globe and Mail Update
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November 13, 2007 at 8:20 AM EST
PARIS — Among Canadian officials and NATO leaders worried about an Afghanistan war that is falling short of soldiers, France has become a last great hope.
Because the Netherlands and Canada, two of the four countries holding down the conflict-scarred south of Afghanistan, are suffering large-scale casualties and are considering withdrawing their soldiers from the United Nations-mandated North Atlantic Treaty Alliance war in Afghanistan, pressure has fallen on the French to make up the loss -- and to provide a military partner that might encourage those countries to stay involved.
Since conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president in June, the French have entered a heated discussion on the possibility of building their role in Afghanistan, and military and diplomatic officials have taken this as a signal that France might provide much-needed extra forces in the war. In expectation, Canada has recently given its embassy in Paris a role in Afghanistan-related matters.
It could be a difficult mission. In interviews, senior French government officials say that a larger military role might be possible -- but it won't likely happen soon, and it will probably be part of a larger strategy to remake NATO and European military forces to be less reliant on the United States.
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"There is a willingness, and we're very clear on that, to have a stronger involvement in Afghanistan,"said Eric Chevalier, a senior adviser to foreign minister Bernard Kouchner. "But the question of having more troops is only one piece of a stronger involvement, and we're looking at it …. We are also pushing for a more coherent approach from the international community on Afghanistan."
France currently has about 1,100 of the 40,000 NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, most of them in command of the region of Kabul, the capital. By agreement, none of them are to be involved in combat operations. In addition, since Mr. Sarkozy came to power, it has committed a group of fighter-bombers to support ground troops in Afghanistan, and has added 50 troops to train Afghan counterinsurgency forces.
While this is small compared to the 2,500 Canadian or 3,500 British NATO troops fighting there, France already has large NATO and UN military commitments in Kosovo, Lebanon, the Ivory Coast and elsewhere. And Mr. Sarkozy's government is torn between its pledge to renew NATO and its equally strong desire to build a European Union defence force independent of NATO.
Since the late 1960s, France has not been part of NATO's military command, which it has seen as being unduly influenced by the U.S. Officials have also raised hopes that it will fully rejoin the organization.
In Washington last week, Mr. Sarkozy raised expectations that France might play a larger role in Afghanistan during a speech to both U.S. houses of Congress in which he spoke of closer ties between the countries.
"France will remain engaged in Afghanistan as long as it takes, because what's at stake in that country is the future of our values and that of the Atlantic alliance," he said, contradicting an election promise to withdraw France's troops from Afghanistan.
Mr. Sarkozy also suggested that France might soon be playing a full role in NATO: "The more successful we are in the establishment of a European defence, the more France will be resolved to resume its full role in NATO."
Within NATO, these remarks were taken to mean that France will increase its forces in Afghanistan, and perhaps enter active combat, assisting the Canadian, Dutch, British and U.S. troops who are currently holding down the country's conflict-ridden south.
But some French observers said that such an expectation would be unrealistic, and that it might be enough for France simply to stay in Afghanistan.
"My interpretation is that 'greater commitment' means that in the recent past there was a temptation to withdraw French forces from Afghanistan, and now there is the realization that we should maintain some troops in Afghanistan," said Yves Boyer, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research, a military think tank.
"But not, probably, in the south like the Dutch or the Canadians or the British -- in political terms, you will find it very difficult to sell in France the idea that we should increase our presence in Afghanistan. We are already very committed in Africa, we are committed in Lebanon and in Kosovo, and we are really at the limit of what we can do as far as extending troops there."
Members of Mr. Sarkozy's government seem divided between those who would rather build an independent EU defence force first, and those who see a stronger, less U.S.-dominated NATO as a greater priority.
Mr. Sarkozy has walked the fence, suggesting in late August that "the two go hand in hand, an independent European defence and an Atlantic organization in which we would assume our full role."
However, a report on France's military role commissioned by Mr. Sarkozy and written by former foreign minister Hubert Vedrine suggests that the country should not rejoin the NATO command or increase its troop commitments unless the organization were reformed to have largely European command, with less US influence.
"France's rejoining a NATO which has been reformed thanks to its own skillful management of its availability for rapprochement would look very different from, and would mean something other than a 'return to NATO'," he wrote.
But Bernard Kouchner, the Socialist defence minister, has been an outspoken proponent of a greater French role in NATO.
However, he told a French TV interviewer last week that France ought not to increase its role in NATO until next summer at the earliest, because this might seem like submission to the US.
"First, we'll have to discuss this. I think there'll be a real debate, otherwise it would be seen as a political gesture of submission to the United States, and that's not at all the case," he said.
Stretched too thin?
France has balked at making a greater contribution to the NATO mission to Afghanistan, although Canada has almost three times the troop commitment abroad for the size of its force than France.
CURRENT DEPLOYMENTS
CANADA:
1 Afghanistan: 2,545
2 Bosnia-Herzegovina: 8
3 Haiti: 4
4 Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea: 250
5 Golan Heights: 2
6 Sinai: 28
7 Jerusalem: 8
8 Cyprus: 1
9 At sea: 211
10 Democratic Republic of the Congo: 10
11 Sudan: 45
12 Sierre Leone: 11
FRANCE:
1 Kosovo: 2,000
2 Bosnia: 300
3 Ivory Coast: 2,600
4 Gulf of Guinea: 100
5 Lebanon: 1,750
6 Chad: 1,100
7 Central African Republic: 400
8 Afghanistan: 1,900
9 Sinai: 20
10 Sudan: 2
11 Ethiopia-Eritrea: 15
12 Cameroon: 50
13 Democratic Republic of Congo: 30
14 Haiti: 40
SOURCE: CANADIAN DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL DEFENCE, DEFENCE MINISTRY OF FRANCE
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To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
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