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2003-02-18 - 10:07 p.m.

Nick said at the weekend that he thought that the levels of complexity in the current situation made it difficult to see a way ahead. Occasionally one reads a piece which throws light on some facet of the situation � for example the idea that there is a basic conflict under way between order and chaos. There was a good article in the New York Times about the role of the media in the USA and the rest of the world especially Europe � essentially saying that the difference in public attitudes in the two zones reflected differences in how TV works. It was actually damning of mainstream US TV journalism but it managed not to say anything as explicit as that. It was a nice piece of writing. Apparently most people in the USA now think the pilots of the planes who who did the twin towers were Iraquis.

There was a similar article � in the sense that it was analytical but highly critical � in the Economist on Saturday. Basically it said that too many leaders were playing for too high stakes with insufficient fallback � especially in Europe.

It helps to have a world economic ranking in mind. So after the USA, it goes Japan, Germany, UK then France. The Japanese and German economies have been in serious trouble for about a decade. The Uk�s hasn�t and it has pushed France from 4th to 5th place. In matters of war, Japan and Germany are let off for obvious reasons � their institutionalised anti-militarism is what we ask of them and that�s that.

It was noticeable that after the diplomatic insanity of the two weeks running up to last weekend you could see the professional diplomats kick in to try and ameliorate the damage. There was an interesting article in the Times yesterday by Malcolm Rifkind. We once shared a ferry with him to the Outer Hebrides and for some reason ever since then I have rather liked him � he was SOS Defence at that point but there was no special treatment � he just enjoyed the view and cracked jokes like everyone else. Anyway his article effectively said that a lot of the damage could be sorted by professionals but the Blair was barmy.

And during yesterday you could hear the professionals in NATO during just that. I have probably explained that in 1995 I had to make up my mind about NATO. I wont bore you with the details but I inherited some NATO responsibilities and I had to decide how to play the utterly barmy woman who was at that point in charge of the interface. Anyway I went to a meeting in Brussels and I came the conclusion that the thing about NATO was that it obviously worked. You didn�t have to do much to before your instincts told you that it was full of people who were good at what they did.

So the line on NATO was that it would be stupid to break it � being that good at that kind of thing had taken years to acquire. Never mind that the main aim had shifted. It was NATO, for example that sorted Kosovo. If you believe that the big game is between Order and Chaos then NATO is part of the future. Everyone seems to like Robertson a lot. Anyway you could hear the US Ambassador to NATO in Radio 4 yesterday doing the professional thing and keeping the show on the road.

What really interested me was the bureaucratic wheeze that they used to marginalize the French. Having decided that we would keep our stake in NATO I let the people who knew get on with it until my first trip to the US � an opportunity I was right not to resist. This included an excellent dinner at the Department of Commerce where because of my extraordinary pre-eminence I was on the top table � sitting next to a French guy.

He was interesting because he had an aerospace background and I could do that topic based on my father�s experience � he was an aeronautic engineer and one of the pioneers on Anglo-French co-operation eg on the Mirage. Anyway as the wine flowed the bottom line began to emerge. This went roughly as follows. Everyone with any sense knew that France had to be part of NATO and so the guys two or three levels down from the top got on with it. Although French overt foreign policy might be holding back from NATO during the 60s and 70s under De Gaulle and Giscard � this was what Bagehot would call dignified rather than efficient. At the efficient level France was completely integrated.

What amazed me at that point was that the French Constitution allowed that to happen. In the UK culture of Government that would be beyond the pale. That�s not to say that people two or three levels down never buck the system � but its going out on a limb and often ends in tears. But in France it seemed to be a way of life � at least on that issue.

WELL what interested me yesterday was the way that Robertson and Co threw the switch to sort the Turkish situation � they found a committee which France had exempted itself from in the 60s and ran the problem through that, Very smooth very professional � these guys are not going to fade away. Who knows maybe there were rafts of French operatives helping the show along.

One of the rules of chaos is �Every day is different�. And sure enough � today we have some dramatic events in the European domain. One account would be that Chirac has dumped European integration � wider integration. Roughly a line on this might go � France and Germany liked the old cosy Europe where they could sort issues out between the two of them. Britain liked the integration of former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe because it broke that pattern. Note that these countries were not slow to join NATO. Chirac seems today to be rather upset at the consequences.

Thus the Herald Tribune on the latest spasm:

�PARIS President Jacques Chirac's warning to the new Europeans of EU and NATO enlargement that they cannot side too much with America and fit his definition of membership in the family of Europe has exposed, with an outburst of pure rage, a profound, long-term contradiction that could tear the EU apart from within.

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While Europe has bandaged for the moment its wounds over NATO and Iraq at a Brussels summit meeting Monday night - offering up on paper a statement of unity that bears little resemblance to real policy - Chirac essentially told the East Europeans who will swell the EU's membership to 25 over the next three years that they risked being blackballed if they did not demonstrate more loyalty to a conception of Europe's role in the world that suits the French and German governments and not the United States.

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The violence of the remarks acknowledged openly for the first time one of the basic reasons that Iraq has become such an existential issue for France, and in its manner, Germany.

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Confronting the United States, and marking out a line where European-Atlantic coalescence must stop, involves an attempt to re-establish their leadership in a Europe whose institutional future points toward the French and Germans being submerged by a new wave of entrants refusing to define Europe's raison d'�tre in a foreign and security policy automatically opposed to the United States. �

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SOOO � this is why the current crisis is a crisis. Because major participants see it as instrumental to other objectives and agendas which are very close to their heart. My guess is that it is a kind of grudge match between Blair and Chirac. This wouldn�t be too bad if the other participants had a grip. But instead you have two blocks of people who aren�t very good at diplomacy � the Bush elite who have an absolute gift for playing to the worst preconceptions of people who are not sympathetic to them and Saddam who misread the signs in the early 90s and precipitated the Gulf War � which he almost certainly wasn�t expecting. Just as Galtieri wasn�t expecting Thatcher to go for him.

So you have a nasty set of disorderly factors � on one axis both Bush and Saddam are playing right at the margin of order � but at least they know what game it is. Across this within Europe you have the transition from old narrow contra Warsaw Pact Europe rubbing up against the new broader more democratic community of states. Of course I am a fan of the Czech Rep and indeed Slovenia and Slovakia.

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