posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexist at 07:48pm on 23/03/2003
alexist at 07:48pm on 23/03/2003http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,919969,00.html
It helped clarify something I'd been feeling but hadn't been able to articulate. I don't believe that the US should just act unilaterally, but at the same time, I think that France shouldn't view opposing the USA as a goal in itself. It's bullshit power politics, and it doesn't do anything for me. I'm all for independent thought, but France's actions (in this case) seem to be less about principle and more about political maneuvering. If they really valued principles, they wouldn't have told the Eastern Europeans to shut up and that they were jeopardizing their position in the EU. The EU's job is not to line up behind what France (or any other particular country) thinks.
If France really wants to create some kind of multilateral world, it's going to have to look beyond power blocs.
It helped clarify something I'd been feeling but hadn't been able to articulate. I don't believe that the US should just act unilaterally, but at the same time, I think that France shouldn't view opposing the USA as a goal in itself. It's bullshit power politics, and it doesn't do anything for me. I'm all for independent thought, but France's actions (in this case) seem to be less about principle and more about political maneuvering. If they really valued principles, they wouldn't have told the Eastern Europeans to shut up and that they were jeopardizing their position in the EU. The EU's job is not to line up behind what France (or any other particular country) thinks.
If France really wants to create some kind of multilateral world, it's going to have to look beyond power blocs.
full