Classic Diplomacy in the Information Age

In June 2000, France's foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, published Les cartes de la France a l'heure de la mondialisation to address questions about French diplomacy. His interviewer was Dominique Moisi, editor of Politique etrangere and deputy director of the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales -- France's equivalents of Foreign Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations, respectively. The statements of Vedrine, who had also been the secretary-general of the French presidency under Francois Mitterrand, are interesting for two reasons: first, they project light on some very controversial policies; and second, they reveal a style of intelligent foreign policy analysis and lucid detachment that is rare among heads of state and academics today. This is one of the reasons why the reader is often reminded of Henry Kissinger. Moisi's questions are probing, and he never hesitates to indicate the disagreements between himself and Vedrine. Thanks to Moisi's polite provocations, the foreign minister's cool discourse often heats up.

The American edition, admirably translated by Philip Gordon, goes even further than the French version. It includes a fresh discussion of events since last year, such as the European Union (EU) summit in Nice last December; Vedrine defends rather convincingly France's conduct at the summit, which came under wide criticism. The American version also contains a spirited (if oblique) reply to Tony Judt's vinegary review of the French edition in The New York Review of Books last April.

The book does not offer a detailed analysis of French diplomacy per se. Rather, it assesses France's situation and objectives in a world in which the state's importance as a global actor has diminished. Two concerns dominate the book: the continuity of French foreign policy and the United States' weight in world affairs. Following the principles drawn up more than 40 years ago by Charles de Gaulle, France continues to insist on the role of a major international actor. Indeed, both the left and the right agree on this ambition, which has made political cooperation between President Jacques Chirac, a neo-Gaullist, and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, a socialist, quite easy in foreign affairs. This continuity also still irritates those "Anglo-Saxon" commentators who believe that France's defeat in 1940 should have cured it of its ambition to retain a global role. Indeed, "Anglo-Saxon" continuity in dismissive irritation is as tenacious as French continuity in obstinate and distinctive ambition.

On the subject of the United States, Vedrine is in fact much more subtle than many other French commentators. He rightly points out that globalization operates in a framework favorable to Americans, thanks to the size of the U.S. economy, the use of English, American free-market principles, America's "mastery of global images," and its "technological and cultural creativity." But he explicitly dismisses the view that globalization is "the completion of an American plan." Although the United States' "soft power" complements its "hard power," he argues, its ability to compel others is sharply limited by two constraints: "the natural indifference of a people who, sheltered by their geography and their power, feel self-sufficient," and a political system "torn between isolationism and hegemony."

Vedrine is more critical of other aspects of U.S. policy such as missile defense, which he views as an irrational American obsession that will provoke a new arms race. He also takes aim at America's cultural preponderance in globalization, including its desire to treat cultural goods as if they were ordinary products or services. "The United States is on its way to becoming a global Microsoft when it comes to the mass culture business," he warns. Nevertheless, he eloquently praises Bill Clinton, and he insists on distinguishing anti-Americanism, which he rejects, from the desire of France and Europe to preserve their distinctiveness -- "allied but not aligned."

THE NEW COLONIALISM?

Vedrine's vision of globalization is original and far from effusive. Globalization may not be good for democracy, he believes, because it is not necessarily adopted democratically. (Colonial expansion, he repeatedly points out, was the first form of globalization.) Its embryonic international civil society is made up not of elected representatives but of active minority interests of the most powerful countries. But even though globalization is not an unmitigated blessing for the poor and the weak, neither is it necessarily a boon for France. Its defining features -- market neoliberalism, mistrust of big government, and excessive individualism -- correspond to neither French tradition nor French culture. With an identity built on its central state, he points out, "France must make an exceptional effort to adapt."

Yet while France adapts, Vedrine continues, it also must act as a "civilizer" that counters the dark side of globalization's free-market ideology and the new threats of the post-Cold War world: weapons of mass destruction, organized crime syndicates, and terrorism. Hence he makes a plea for more rules and regulations -- which can come only from states, not from international civil society -- and greater solidarity and economic fairness among nations. (Here, too, his socialist discourse is remarkably Gaullist.)