Word: mistral
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Amid protests from the U.S. and Georgia, French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed on March 1 that France was negotiating the sale of four Mistral-class assault ships to Russia. The announcement, which came at the start of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's three-day state visit, marks the first such deal between Moscow and a NATO country. While Sarkozy described the deal as an attempt to move beyond Soviet-era politics, nearby nations have raised concerns about the decision to sell the ships--which can carry troops, helicopters and armored vehicles--to a country that launched an offensive against...
...That goes for military deals. On Monday, Sarkozy confirmed that France was negotiating with Russia over the sale of four Mistral-class assault ships worth a total of about $2 billion - the first deal of its kind between a NATO member and Moscow. It's turning heads for other reasons too. A Russian admiral recently said the amphibious vessels - which can carry 15 helicopters or 70 armored vehicles - would have allowed Russia to complete its August 2008 invasion of Georgia in a matter of hours. Little wonder, then, that the deal has prompted deep concern among American defense officials...
...Strategic Relations in Paris. "Sarkozy also knows Europe's defense industry is still largely divided along national lines and appears destined for huge restructuring and consolidation. The nation with the biggest contracts out will get the biggest slice of that consolidated European pie - which is why neither the Mistral deal nor Russia as a military market should be underestimated...
...Jacques Mistral, head of economic research at the French Institute of Foreign Relations in Paris says Thursday's move reflects a last-gasp provocation by the Bush administration, which has never forgotten France's emphatic non before the invasion of Iraq. Mistral - who was economic adviser at the French Embassy in Washington during the stormy period from 2001 to 2006 - says the current swipe at Roquefort will prove less economically threatening than the Iraq-triggered American public boycott of France's wines in 2003 - and shorter-lived than the deportation of French fries from Congress' menu. "Even from this administration...
...seemed to accomplish all its traditional ends. Undergraduates were given the opportunity to experience the irrational thrill of passive out-group derogation firsthand, as a caravan of Yalies almost entirely indistinguishable from ourselves became the target of generalizing groans and Othering invective. The alumni breezed through town, a moneymaking mistral the administration is all too happy to greet. Harvard showed Allston what’s what, Yale lost, and HUPD intervened—decisively and wherever it could. By Sunday morning, Harvard’s imagined community had gotten to know itself again, flaws...