Well we “lost” when we allowed the French to have back her colonies in exchange for them agreeing to join NATO.
Ping!
“... we allowed the French to have back her colonies ...”
Bingo! If the story begins in the middle, you can’t ever understand what happened. After having been a “colony” of Germany twice in 25 years, you might think France would get the picture but they made the mistake of trying to go back to being a colonial power after the U.S. once again saved their bacon. Looking at the current situation in France I’m not sure they have yet.