I’m sorry. If you aren’t smart enough to realize that I was using the current description of an alliance that has had multiple names over the years, I guess I will have to take notice of that and try to dumb it down in the future.
Most people who are familiar with the history of Europe will be smart enough to realize that you’re talking about a somewhat different entity which would come to cover roughly the same geographical area. It just sounds jarring, as if you said that Napoleon invaded the Soviet Union in 1812.
Mate as of 86 through say the EU treaty it is EXACTLY the same geography. It doesn’t sound jarring at all. It’s commonplace to refer to the EC actions 72 forward as EU. This is just tiresome and empty pedantry. 8 was the Single Europe act for example.
It wasn’t just Europeans who thought Reagan was a cowboy. I thought the bombing raid was ill thought out aggression by an idiot. At the time I thought it would lead to us taking a more actively violent role and lead inevitably to war, if not with Libya with some other place accused of whatever annoyed us at the moment.
Does any one remember Europe at this time? Bombings were not unheard of. American were killed in other bombings, such as one of the Frankfurt airport bombings. As someone who flew into Frankfurt airport in 1985 knowing that being bombed was on the menu, I was appalled at the Libya raid, as I am by the cowardly, overblown, ill thought out, so-called increased security response to 9/11.
And of course we could have chosen not involved the Air Force. Reagan wanted to play with as many of our toys as we could.
It does sound jarring, and silly to us old timers who were there at the time.
I lived in West Germany, which was in Europe, not Germany, part of the EU.
As I was “there at the time” and not merely “in passage” I’ll say to me it sounds neither jarring nor silly. EC in 86 versus EU in 92 was not a large leap. Referring to pre 72 as EU sounds silly, but not post.
It is no more jarring or silly than referring to the territories of France and Germany as such before the modern era.
France withdrew from NATO in 1966.
No they did not. They withdrew from the joint command jurisdiction. They remained a Treaty member and in fact behind closed doors continued coordination. The Joint Command is not synonymous with NATO.
As Wikipedia correctly notes:
ER can I just mention that the Libyans had and have oil ?
DON’T HIT ME !
I’ll keep quiet in future.
And?
The reason was simply there was no advantage for the French or Spanish. No matter how limited the backlash unless there is something IN IT for them, they had no reason TO DO it.
If the USA had ignored them there was precious little either Spain or France could’ve done. Military confrontation wasn not an option. France has a modern air force but is no match for the USA and a confrontation with the USA would’ve resulted in French defeat and that would’ve been a bigger disaster than letting the US get away from it.
Since the Suez fiasco of 1956 both France and the UK were established firmly as third rate powers.
The bottom line was France and Spain refused co-operation as there was nothing in it for them. The USA respected this cause there was nothing in it for the USA to lose the support of France and Spain.
In dipolmatic relations it’s all about “what can I get out of it,” and failing that, “what is the best of a situation with no good outcome”
No, France and the UK are not and were not “third rate powers”.
The US and USSR were “first rate powers”. China, France, and the UK were second-rate powers. But only in comparision to the superpowers.
What?!?!
You think the US could have started and won (to achieve the mission) an air war over France with the bloody French?
Jaysus bloody Christ!
No, the French are a leading airpower and while they do not have the force projection of the Americans, an actual face off (you imply fighting) over theown bloody airspace would have had most certainly a disaster for the Americans.
This is daft madness.
A military confrontation was not an option because it is sheer idiocy for two allies to fight each other over a difference of opinion.
:rolleyes:
As I already noted, but you evidently could not be troubled to read, the French were in fact directly engaging Libya at that very time (well it was actually a pause / ceasefire at the precise moment), projecting a significant expeditionary force thousands of km across the continent. That is not a ‘third rate’ power except through bizarre jingoist eyeglasses.