French spokesmen have charged the US with using high-sounding phrases such as Atlantic community to maintain its hegemony in the Alliance. Leading Americans have dismissed French policy as reflecting the illusion of grandeur of a bitter old man who cannot forget past slights, real or fancied.
The almost absurd caricature of each other’s views reflect above all the different perspective from which the US and France have had to view contemporary affairs. Historically aloof and geographically isolated, the US has treated coalition diplomacy in terms of coordinating the efforts of many geographically remote countries. Roles are assigned on the basis of a division of labor. Allies are supposed to find fulfillment as part of a Grand Design.
France’s problem is more complex. A society which has undergone severe shocks cannot find fulfillment in the Grand Design of others. Before it can decide what it wishes to become, it has to rediscover what it is. Far from being based on an excessive estimate of France’s strength, de Gaulle’s policy reflects, above all, a deep awareness of the suffering of his country over the span of more than a generation.
Victorious in 1918, France knew better than any of its allies how close to defeat it had been. Inchoately, the survivors of that catastrophe realized that France could not stand another trial like the one just surmounted. Deprived of its youth, fearful of its defeated antagonist, feeling misunderstood by its allies, France experienced the inter-war period as an almost uninterrupted succession of frustrations. Domestically, the Third Republic witnessed mounting governmental instability. In foreign policy France was torn between its premonitions and its sense of impotence. Nothing could have expressed France’s feeling of insecurity better than the fact that France began to build the Maginot Line at a moment when its army was the largest in Europe and German’s was limited by treaty to 100,000 men. In other words, at the height of its victory France felt so unsure of itself that it did not think itself able to prevent a flagrant breach of the peace treaty by its disarmed enemy and constructed a defensive line inside its borders for that contingency.
As if paralyzed by seeing her fears come true, France stood by while Germany rearmed and proceeded to abrogate one after another of the restrictions put on it by the Treaty of Versailles. The French collapse of 1940 was as much moral as military. Even though France emerged among the victors of WW2, its leaders were aware, despite all rhetoric and perhaps because of it, that France had been saved largely through the efforts of others.
A certain egocentricity on our part causes us to see many of de Gaulle’s actions as being primarily motivated by a desire to annoy or to humiliate us. In fact, the central concern of de Gaulle is likely to be quite different. For the greater part of his career, he has had to be an illusionist. In the face of all evidence to the contrary, he has striven to restore France’s greatness by his passionate belief in it. His primary task, as he saw it, was to re-establish the identity and the integrity of France. Churchill and Roosevelt could concentrate on the tangible goal of military victory. To de Gaulle, the war had an intangible purpose. Victory was empty if it did not also restore the position, indeed the soul, of France.
More important than any specific policy issue is the rediscovery of a specifically French sense of purpose.
Though de Gaulle often acts as if opposition to US policy were a goal in itself, his deeper objective is pedagogical: to teach his people and perhaps his Continent attitudes of independence and self-reliance. The “folie de grandeur” of which de Gaulle is so often accused is a peculiar kind, for it is tied to a profound awareness of the suffering and disappointment of his country. In 1960 this caused him to speak as follows: “Once upon a time there was an old country all hemmed in by habits and circumspection. At one time the richest, the mightiest people among those in the center of the world stage, after great misfortunes it came, as it were, to withdraw within itself. While other people were growing around it, it remained immobile.”
De Gaulle has chosen to revitalize France by an act of faith powerful enough to override a seemingly contrary reality. The effort to achieve greatness required that France regain — wherever possible — the right of independent decision. France could agree with the decisions of others: but it had to make clear that this represented a voluntary act and not the abdication of the impotent.
Where US spokesmen stress the concept of partnership, de Gaulle tends to emphasize the idea of equilibrium. Many US officials assert that all disputes can be settled by talking things over in a “community spirit.” To de Gaulle, sound relationships depend less on a personal attitude than on a balance of pressures and an understanding of historical trends. A great leader is not so much clever as lucid and clear-sighted. Grandeur is not simply physical power but strength reinforced by moral purpose. Nor does competition inevitably involve physical conflict. On the contrary, a wise assessment of mutual interests should produce harmony: “Yes, international life, like life in general, is a battle. The battle which our country is waging tends to unite and not to divide, to honor and not to debase, to liberate and not to dominate. Thus it is faithful to its mission, which always was and which remains human and universal.”
The US as the leader of the Alliance inevitably concentrates on solving immediate problems. De Gaulle is more concerned with the period 10 or 15 years hence. Precisely because he is sure that the US will protect Europe in the immediate future, he wants to use this respite to establish insurance for the far future. He is looking ahead to a time when present leaders will have disappeared and American attention may be focused on other continents.
However arrogant his style, de Gaulle’s approach to history is relatively humble. He is the leader of a country grown cautious by many enthusiasms shattered; turned skeptical from any dreams proved fragile; a country to which the unforeseen is the most element fact of history. American leaders while personally humble are much more confident that they can chart the future. What cannot be described concretely has little reality for them. Involved, ultimately, are differing conceptions of truth. The US, with its technical, pragmatic approach, often has analytical truth on its side. De Gaulle, with his consciousness of the trials of France for the past generation, is frequently closer to the historical truth.
Churchill’s views were then treated with the condescension now reserved for de Gaulle. His interest in the post-war European balance of power were considered short-sighted and a symptom of old-fashioned nationalism. However, a subtler style, the prestige of Great Britain’s heroic wartime effort and a common language prevented the conflict from being so explicit. Now as before, in our impatience to realize Grand Designs we are often reluctant to admit that a statesman must concern himself with the worst — and not only the best — foreseeable contingency.
On the contrary, he affirms the goal of unity for Europe as passionately as his detractors. But where the American and European “integrationists” insist that European unity requires that the role of the nation-state be diminished, de Gaulle argues that unity depends on the vitality of traditional Europe.
Thus de Gaulle’s proposals for European unity invariably envisage a confederation of states rather than supranational institutions.
He has opposed supranational institutions for Europe because he think such a Europe would be “governed in appearance by anonymous, technocratic, and stateless committees; in other words, a Europe without political reality, without economic drive, without a capacity for defense, and therefore doomed, in the face of the Soviet bloc, to being nothing more than a dependent of that great Western power, which itself had a policy, an economy, and a defense — the USA.
Both programs, in his view, make Europe completely dependent on the US. Europeans would be lobbyists and not partners. De Gaulle considers such a role demeaning for a great power, and he is convinced that it will destroy the moral substance of the “integrated” partner.
They disagree less in their analysis than in the conclusions to be drawn from it. From the point of view of division of labor, the US considers French resources better spent on conventional forces than on nuclear arms. From the perspective of vindicating France’s identity, de Gaulle is not so concerned with the technical aspects of strategy as with the political problem of choice.
When nothing came of these proposals, de Gaulle reverted to his usual, perhaps preferred, tactic of acting unilaterally and trying to force his partners’ hand.
As in most other controversies, each side has accused the other of the same offense: of planning a settlement, if not a the expense, at least to the exclusion of the other.
Above all, they differ about the nature of a stable international order and the role of personalities in relation to it.
The US tends to believe that peace and stability is the “natural” condition. Crises must, therefore, be caused by personal ill-will rather than by objective conditions. As a result, US policy toward the Soviet Union has oscillated between two opposite approaches: During the periods of tension, the US assumes that Soviet policy is conducted by highly purposeful, ideologically inspired men operating according to careful, long-range plans. During periods of detente, American leaders have often acted as if a settlement could be achieved by good personal relations with their Communist counterparts. Either approach leads to an avoidance of concreteness. When the Soviet are aggressive, negotiations are believed to be useless, and when they are conciliatory, there is a reluctance to disturb the favorable atmosphere. In either case, American policy statements envisage a world where all conflict has ended and nations live under “the rule of law.”
De Gaulle’s view is more historical. Peace for him is not a settlement but a new, perhaps more stable, balance of forces. “Now, in the last analysis and as always, it is only in equilibrium that the world will find peace.” An equilibrium can never be permanent but must be adjusted in constant struggles. Tension is not caused so much by the personal attitudes of individual Communist leaders as by the dynamics of the system which they represent. To him, Soviet aggressiveness reflects not real grievance but internal instability. “There is in this uproar of imprecations and demands organized by the Soviets something so arbitrary and so artificial that one is led to attribute it either to the premeditated unleashing of frantic ambitions, or to the desire of drawing attention away from great difficulties: this second hypothesis seems more plausible to me.”
The US, convinced of the importance of intentions in the conduct of foreign policy, is tempted to back the Communist power which professes the most peaceful goals. De Gaulle, believing that an equilibrium is the only reliable basis for stability, is more concerned with weakening the stronger Communist partner. He is prepared, if necessary, to play off its weaker Communist opponent against it.
France and Europe must contribute in bringing about this balance not as the objects of policy but as their author. De Gaulle is thus concerned not only with the fact of negotiations but also with France’s role in them. He would object to any settlement which France did not help to formulate — regardless of his opinion of its substance. The major thrust of de Gaulle’s policy is to make it impossible for the US to deal with the Soviet Union over the heads of France and Europe.
No doubt, this is a heroic posture. But, man is not governed by reason alone. History may appear inevitable in retrospect; but it is made by men who cannot always distinguish their emotions from their analysis. The paradox of de Gaulle’s position is that although he claims to speak for Europe, no substantial following outside of France sees him as a European statesman. He has alienated many potential supporters by his excessive rationalism, his unilateral tactics, and his wounding insistence on intellectual submission to his maxims.
A strong Europe was bound to present a challenge to American leadership. But by couching this challenge so woundingly, de Gaulle has spurred American self-righteousness rather than the objective reexamination of Atlantic relationships which the situation demands.
History will probably demonstrate that de Gaulle’s conceptions — as distinct from his style — were greater than those of most of his critics. But a statesman must work with the material at hand. If the sweep of his conceptions exceeds the capacity of his environment to absorb them, he will fail regardless of the validity of his insights. If his style makes him unassimilable, it becomes irrelevant whether he is “right” or “wrong.”
Though de Gaulle has performed enormous feats in lifting his country’s sights almost by an act of will, there are objective limits which great and strong-willed statesmanship may extend but cannot change altogether. De Gaulle’s insistence that France and the US are equal is true in a moral sense but, if pushed too far, it must bring into the open a permanent disparity of strength. In any collision the superiority of American resources is likely to prevail regardless of the validity of the competing views. By generating so much personal ill will among American leaders, de Gaulle may rend the fabric of illusion on which his policy depends. The irony of Franco-American rivalry is that de Gaulle has conceptions greater than his strength, while US power has been greater than its conceptions.