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[Previous entry: "Britain, meet Godwin"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Strategic ambiguity"] 13 June 2003: "The 'Congo Test' and Operation 'Artemis'"
The New Yorker website has an excellent piece of commentary, "The Congo Test," by Philip Gourevitch. Gourevitch is the author of We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families; if you're going to read only one book on the Rwandan genocide, I would recommend that one.
To be sure, [De Villepin] added, “There are two visions of the world”—the multilateralist, U.N.-centered vision of collective security under international law touted by France, and the unilateralist, imperial vision represented by the United States—“but we need to work together.”Those "two visions" are paraphrasings of De Villepin's words; France does not act in the multilateral interest, it acts in its own. At the very minimum, it takes part in peacekeeping operations to justify its permanent membership of the Security Council. To my mind, it is highly significant that Operation "Artemis"—as the deployment has been codenamed—is being conducted under the flag of the EU, not the UN. I suppose this has the advantage that the position of force commander is guaranteed to remain in French hands. Reynolds, Wardlow and the rest of you "supranational organisations BAD" bunch, take note. Even if this turns into a massive cockup, at least somebody's trying, and it's not the US. (New Yorker link via Europundit.) |
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