• shirro
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    4 hours ago

    France has always been a bit different. They left NATO for a bit to push back against the US/UK dominance and they developed an independent nuclear deterrent and delivery systems. They are a shit country in many ways, probably more like the US than they realise. They held onto colonialism for too long, have a stupid political system and their police and security services have done some shitty things. But hard not to admire their independence even if some of their motivations for independence (eg maintaining colonial possessions) might have been suspect.

    Many countries caved to the US and became client states, heavily reliant on US defence industry and an extension of the US military, not because we were free loaders as Trump claims but because the US pushed their interests so hard and for so long. We cancelled our own weapons programs and shuttered our factories to support US jobs ahead of our own. Most of us are so dependent on the US it has been hard to conceive of a world without them. Being against the US alliance was basically equivalent to being against national security and being a fool or a supporter of potential enemies.

    Trump is breaking people’s world view. The French leadership were decades ahead of the rest of us.

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      4 hours ago

      A small correction, France never left NATO completely. They left a lot of the joint command structures and stopped hosting NATO’s HQ in Paris, but they never cancelled the treaty or anything like that

      • shirro
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        3 hours ago

        Yes. It is an important distinction. I should have been more clear.