Word: french
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...will France's return actually mean much for NATO and its members? Is France likely to send thousands more troops to Afghanistan? Not really, and no. French activity in NATO has grown broader and deeper over the past few years already. France participated in a growing number of alliance-led missions including Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Those operations erased most of the significant divisions created by de Gaulle's partial withdrawal in 1966, and rendered France's special status largely symbolic. (See pictures of Kosovo...
...France returning? "Although it already plays an active role within NATO in its present status, full membership would allow it both to fully participate in and shape the planning of NATO's future, as well as its military operations," says Bruno Tertrais, senior research fellow at the French Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "That bigger role would correspond better to France's international stature, as well as its status as one of Europe's largest contributors to NATO...
...French officials also hope they will take charge of two important NATO outfits: one in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees alliance reform; and an operational command center in Lisbon, Portugal. Hundreds of French officers will also assume posts in NATO institutions, including its headquarters in Brussels. Tertrais says France also wants to reassure Washington and certain E.U. capitals that France's plans to strengthen Europe's own defense can help the NATO alliance rather than undermine it. "France needs to put an end to questions in the minds of certain allies about whether its desire to construct a European defense identity...
...Sarkozy is confident the French public will see France's return to NATO as both logical and inevitable. "By keeping one foot out," Tertrais says, "France risks in some ways being on the wrong side of history." Gates and others may ask, however, how getting on the right side of history is useful if Europe won't follow through with sufficient troops when alliance forces go into action...
...decision came on a 78-to-1 vote to oust the 1,000 mostly American Forces (French and Spanish NATO-allied troops make up the rest) stationed at the Manas airbase on the outskirts of the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek. The U.S. now has six months to exit the base following President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's signing the bill on Friday. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates quickly said that the U.S. ouster isn't a "closed issue." He has suggested the U.S. might be willing to pay more than the current $17 million annual rent to use the base. Bakiyev telegraphed...