Sunday, May 31, 2009

"Non, je ne regrette rien" pas de deux

Whew! Sometimes the gainful employment thing just gets in the way of regular blogging, I hear some people do it for a living but I know that's crazy talk.

I showed my daughter a video send up on Bonnie Tyler's immortal classic "Total Eclipse of the Heart"on Write Enough. I thought it was hip, funny and original but her reaction served as an convenient update of how out of date and passe I really am.

At any rate some days the fish just jump into the barrel and invite you to go dynamite fishing, that would be the case of this item of interest. The French it seems have ventured out side their borders and set up their first new military base in fifty years. I imagine their last one was on some unfortunate Pacific atoll as they've been reducing island paradises in that region to radioactive rubble since about then.

Their new base for La Force Frappe is in Abu Dhabi which I am reliably informed is named after what Fred Flintstone said when he started his car, it will increase their presence off the pirate ridden Horn of African at least until some Somali buccaneers capture their navy. This action begs the question why would such a risk averse military ( And lets face it they have very good reasons to keep their army and navy away from potential adversaries.) venture so far from the protection of Belgian Army?

With the French emphasis on speed and flexible response, I believe that by pre-positioning their men and material at, as it were, the sharp end of the spear, they serve as a force multiplier for bulky conventional arms mixes that can be called up from allies or even Metropolitan France. By maneuvering in tandem they can advance on multiple axis until they are cut off, left without supplies and forced into a degrading, humiliating surrender. In other words it keeps them from having to wait for some Persian Panzer column to make its way from Tehran so they can rollover.

The outcome of this effort will probably be either they sink one of our ships accidentally or we sink one of theirs not so accidentally, having the French as an ally is a lot like having Barney Fife for a deputy, he has a badge but you don't want to give him more than one bullet.

3 comments:

Ling Carter said...

The problem with French military deployments is the high suicide rate from cheap wine and depressing literature.

But that may not be a problem.

JP Mac said...

Does "flexible response" refer to the art of raising one's arm in surrender position without breaking the crease on the uniform sleeve?

Dutch said...

I apologize again for my appallingly misinformed and idiotic post. I've been sick recently and I suffered a toxic medical reaction to the hallucinogenics I habitually take and the volumes of Laudanum my doctor encourages me to ingest. Of course that is no excuse, in penance I will give my net worth to a homeless person and have him thrash me with a vehicle antenna.