Washington’s Favorite Partner

Germany and France, the countries traditionally at the head of Europe, are following different courses in both economic and foreign policy. This has not escaped the notice of the Americans, who are currently hosting the French head of state and will soon be visited by the German chancellor. During the Iraq controversy, when France and Germany voiced their joint opposition to war, there was a popular thesis that Americans were from Mars and Europeans from Venus. It came from Robert Kagan, the husband of the American diplomat who recently caused a stir with her four-letter expletive about the European Union.

For this reason, the planetary comparison no longer has much to offer as a way of understanding foreign policy constellations; the supposed Venusians in Berlin and Paris are cut from very different cloths. From the U.S. perspective, this can be seen in the complaints that the French and Germans bring to Washington for example. It was the end of the world for the Germans, when the extent of American phone-tapping and surveillance in their country became clear. As emphatic as they were unsuccessful, Berlin’s demands were for an end to the spying; some politicians even considered halting negotiations for a trans-Atlantic free trade agreement as a form of protest. Paris, on the other hand, only protested pro forma against the snooping.

Hollande has had another reason to be outraged recently. The U.S. left him out in the cold when it called off the joint military action against Syria, and in the discussions with Iran about its nuclear program, the U.S. strategy was emphatically too weak for the French government. Now, it is the French — who were still being called “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” in Washington 10 years ago — who are displaying more “Martian” strength than the Obama administration.

Precisely for this reason, Paris has become Washington’s favorite European partner. The two countries are now cooperating well with each other, particularly in African countries in the Sahel region beset by Islamists. Mali, where France intervened with ground troops, and the U.S. was able to restrict itself to helping with logistics and recon, could be a model for America, which only wants to continue being the world’s police in cases of dire emergency.