Maurice Vaïsse: France and NATO: A Historical Account

France was a cofounder of the Alliance, but in 1966, it adopted a position that reflected its failure to reform NATO from within and which guaranteed its independence. The recent decisions to rejoin NATO’s command structure followed from three factors: the geopolitical upheavals that have redefined the role of the Alliance; increased rapprochement in managing crises since the 1990s; and the wish to construct a common European defense policy, which can only be complementary to NATO.