From My Way News:
France has blocked a U.S. bid to deploy NATO's new strike force to safeguard Afghanistan's elections, stoking tension between the two allies that fell out over the Iraq war, diplomats said Tuesday.
"France, and to a lesser extent others such as Spain, are suspicious about using the NATO Response Force (NRF)," said one envoy at the alliance summit in Istanbul.
"It says the force is not ready for this kind of environment and should not be used simply as a sticking plaster for troop shortages on routine operations."
France's opposition to a proposal that could help resolve NATO's problems finding troops to make the September polls safe exasperated Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who pushed the idea hard at a meeting of allied defense ministers.
Matt's Chat
Two things come to me upon reading this...(1) France is becoming the new "cold war" enemy that the Soviet Union once was...we need to be prepared to meet that challenge head on soon.
(2) The problem with a NATO Response Force is that it has to "respond" to something. What we really need is a force that will get out in front of the problem... Rainbow Six seems to be busy though...
