Masopher's Mind

In early 2010 Russia and NATO badboy France tentatively agreed a deal where an amphibious assault ship made in France would be sold to the Russian Navy. The ship and the ability to make copies of the ship, (transfer of technology) was agreed to be sold in the background of France and Europe’s continued frustration in selling military technology to a market saturated by American products. America is literally a no fly zone for EADS planes and France is having a hell of a time getting countries like Kuwait and Brazil to accept their perfectly good contender, the Raphael, which is going up against the faithful but old American F-18 Super Hornet. Because the French Government is so intimately tied to its arms industry this would be a great case of real politik: If we can’t sell to the Americans and they keep nicking our other customers then we’ll sell to the Russians!

This represented the first time that a NATO country would sell military technology to NATOs natural enemy. Later the deal hit a few snags where France wanted to water down the product and Russia wanted a fully operational weapons platform.

France has had a very close relationship with Russia even before Communism. France and Russia had very strong pacts defending themselves against Germany which was the global threat of the 19^th and 20^th Century. When Communism rose and Lenin Stalin and Trotsky were fighting against Russian imperialism, France served as a natural escape for much of the Romonov aristocracy. There they stayed in exile until this day, though some have returned meekly to Russia. During Germany’s second bout of belligerence Jews fled to Russia and France from Germany and despite the bad conditions for Semites in these countries they managed to establish themselves.

France has always cast a suspicious eye on the United States, even while American boys were dying to liberate it from the Germans. In my readings I think General DeGaulle suspected that America had reverse-imperialist intentions and hoped to colonize France! Whether this will ever be verified is moot, the Anglo-American connection has always been a sore spot. During the cold war too, France was antagonistic to NATO and was known for reaching out to Moscow.  With an eye to forming a third pole in the polarizing world, Charles De Gaulle left the NATO alliance in 1966 and managed to build his own nuclear power. France has now become a first class supplier of nuclear energy and sovereign owner of its own stockpile, something that Britain failed to do. When the Berlin wall and Iron Curtain fell, France rebuilt its ties with East Germany, and with Moscow. During the Georgia war of 2008, it was Sarkozy and France that stepped in and mediated between the arrogant Georgians and surly Russians. The invasion of Iraq was again, another place where Russia, France and Germany stood off against American intentions and English acquiescence. Together, France and Germany have risen as the true drivers of the EUs success while Britain limps behind, barely out of recession and only able to supply spies and tabloid headlines to this remarkable political experiment.

The laissez-faire, liberal and leftist lean of “le France” compels it into a natural embrace with a very leftist Russia. France’s revolutions and thinking produced many hard left socialist regimes including the one that existed in Moscow.

Will France sell a fully functional Mistral to Russia? I see no reason why not.

A statement so flawed that it, like many other “news items”, is scarcely worth my time. But I’ll rant for a bit because I am glad to see the current successes of Operation Moshtarak and hope for much more. That is the way that wars are ended by achieving goals.

In 2007 an Irishman called Michael Semple was thrown out of Afghanistan when the Kharzai government found out he was talking to the Taliban, trying to broker a deal between the British government and the second tier or Pashtun warriors. While Mullah Oman and his cohorts are considered to be official enemies, beyond conversation Britain planned to undercut the Talibans leadership and in fact undercut the Kharzai government by dealing with the men with real power in Pashtunistan.

This didn’t work because the real Taliban and real mujahadeen gave them the same answer they gave the Soviets. They will not stop fighting until every NATO troop leaves in either body bags or C130s (or Antanovs etc.) I spoke on this as well; there is no talking to the Taliban, they want to mistreat women, kill infidels, harbour murderous jihadis, sell opium, run a backward society and they want the world to be run the same way. There is no compromise with right and wrong.

News media talk about perceptions as if they are divorced from the bad perception NATO has. Ever dead soldier becomes a newsflash every coward and whimpering simpleton becomes a news story. In the Pacific, and on the French shore and countryside hundred of thousands of young men died fighting a war that they were thrown into and they received our support. Now a few hundred die and the pusillanimous  voices that have been allowed to grow too loud want to “talk” because the “Taliban” are seen to be winning. They are seen to be winning because the press actively makes it look that way. This is done easily by promoting the nay sayers highlighting the faults, overshadowing the supporters and ignoring the successes.

Talking is a defeat firstly because it it works it confirms that the Taliban are already gone, because the Taliban don’t talk. If it doesn’t then it is just another defeat for the United States not only against extreme idealism but against the liberal pinko press.

If simple tenants such as the use of force can no longer be used by modern governments then other governments and ideologies who can act without the restraints of its soft headed, self-doubting, self-destructive media will begin to lead the world down very dark and confusing paths.

The darkness and confusion is already present. Three years ago,talking was off the table, now it is back on the table and with gusto. The media is allowed to guesstimate and exaggerate based on reports from Afghani commanders instead of their own countrymen. Withdrawing in disgrace from another inferiorly armed country has become not only an option but a standard and signature maneuver. Helplessness to the “power” of China is a theme played out while we demand the inferior and entirely disposable products it produces. The communist tenants of equality stark against the real inequality and poverty is what these “intelligent” people hope for. They are not seeking equality, they are hoping that instead of a society run by manufacturers of wealth, producers of goods and forgers of new paths, the society will be run by soft headed thinkers of grand ideas and ignorers of reality. They are seeking a society ruled by themselves.