It seems apparent that France rejoined NATO after the Cold War just to undermine NATO and strengthen a European Union military.
The usual suspect is out to undermine NATO:
A $20 billion plan to give NATO more flexibility in facing military threats, climate change and China's rise has hit firm resistance from France, which fears the move could undermine its defence priorities, four diplomats and a French defence source said. ...
France believes the idea - which the diplomats said was to put some $20 billion into common budgets over 10 years - is unlikely to benefit French military priorities and risks diverting attention and resources away from building up weak defence capabilities among European Union member states.
France believes that a Germany crippled by its obsession with not looking like panzer-armed Nazis will support France in dominating the European Union. Guilt-ridden Germany's economic brawn will be directed by France's cynical and nuanced intellect.
Macron really doesn't like the fact that NATO is dominated by America, which provides the bulk of the alliance military power. By weakening NATO, France can hopefully reduce and ultimately eject American influence in European defense matters. Have no doubt the EU sees America as its enemy:
Remember, the pro-European Union apparatchiki want America out of Europe because post-World War II American influence gets in the way of their imperial ambitions to redefine "Europe" from a continent to an empire. And wrecking NATO with the European Union army project is their tool to eject America. When Euro apparatchiki speak of their EU defense capabilities, damaging NATO is a feature and not a bug.
And then France--with Macron's leadership--can wield influence over Europe. Barring events, of course.
If France can then strip the prefix from the proto-imperial EU, France can control Europe.
The fact that Russia will welcome a European empire that lacks the military power that America delivers through NATO is not relevant to French delusions of grandeur, I suppose.
But that plan is probably inconceivable, eh?
UPDATE: Well, partners and critics are right:
[France is the EU's biggest military power.] Yet, European partners accuse Paris of insensitivity to their security needs, of seeking to impose its strategic view and multiply its strength through them. Critics, on both sides of the Atlantic, decry French appeals for stronger European defense as a threat to NATO’s unity or a scheme to prop up France’s arms and aerospace industry.
France seems to be happy that Trump is gone. But the French miss his ability to push European NATO states to spend more on defense while inspiring resentment at America.
Because France absolutely wants Europe to spend more on defense--but through the EU and not NATO.
Macron has said NATO is brain dead. But a CSI: NATO episode would prove Macron's fingerprints all over the knife that matches the stab wounds on the NATO body.
But will Europeans spend more on defense--as they promised in 2014--and funnel it through the EU instead of NATO, with the so-quiet-he's-almost-comatose Biden in office?
Even the French can find nuance hard, I suppose.
