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In all honesty, Eisenhower gave de Gaulle the push. Right after the Second World War, both Britain and France nourished hopes of maintaining their prewar empires. After Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, the French and British moved to retake it, only to be turned back by the 6th Fleet. French military strategy after the Second War was dominated by fantasy. They had the idea that a few elite troops, supported by a handful of aircraft, would compensate with elan, for what they lacked in punch.

The French fought the war in Indochina with a veritable pastiche of weapons, including Japanese and German surplus and castoff USN propdriven aircraft. Fantasy was no match for reality and the French were humiliated both in Indochina and Algeria.

America, more than anyone else, knew that the day of the District Commissioner was over. Deep down, the French knew it too, but they resented America most for not having an overseas empire to lose.

The French riposte to these setbacks was to withdraw entirely into a make-believe world. They acquired a small nuclear arsenal, and pointed it at everybody. They then plotted a return to world power based on the notion of "a French jockey on a German horse", a.k.a. the European Union.

But that world power was based on the flawed premise that they would hold the swing vote in a world finely balanced between two superpowers. That power was to be wielded in the United Nations, which was designed specifically to settle the disputes of several great powers. When the Berlin Wall collapsed, the underpinnings of French strategy and the reason for the UN's existence fell with it.

France is desperately embarked on a strategy to recreate a coalition to check the United States. In this effort, it will find a sympathetic hearing from every other aspirational power. Individually, they are overmatched, but severally, they may present a force. The anti-American coalition must be the most ill-assorted agglomeration in world history, consisting of medieval and modern societies, united only in their desire to stop the USA.

Yet such a coalition will prove unstable, as all alliances founded on the purely negative must become. Thieves part ways once the loot is divvied up. The American effort, by contrast, consists of the core set of societies who share a common set of values.

Excellent commentary.

Thank you for your comments.

Fantasy was no match for reality and the French were humiliated both in Indochina and Algeria.

Yes, humiliated AND and joke to this day

Hmm... I'm comparing your post to the juvenile graphic posted by Byron the Aussie, and I'm having SUCH a hard time deciding which one provides more substance.

"They then plotted a return to world power based on the notion of "a French jockey on a German horse", a.k.a. the European Union."

The French may want to try game theory, to support this outcome?

Also, remember the recent French surrender of the Ivory Coast to Islamofascist rebels.