| De Gaulle returned to power in France in 1958 and pursued the De Gaulle Doctrine,which advocated the establishment of an independent nuclear force and a nuclear diplomacy policy.After World War II,France’s national power went into decline,and the great power complex under the de Gaulle Doctrine prompted France to pursue independent nuclear forces.The building of independent nuclear forces in France was deeply rooted in the nuclear monopoly of the great powers in the nuclear age,as the United States,the Soviet Union,and the United Kingdom pursued a policy of nuclear hegemony,crowding out non-nuclear states such as France in order to enjoy an exclusive nuclear monopoly.At the same time,national liberation movements have shaken the French national myth,and the loss of former territories such as Algeria has severely impacted France’s international standing.On top of this,the strong anti-nuclear movement in the world was also a pressure on France to build an independent nuclear force.France’s nuclear diplomacy policy was guided by the De Gaulle Doctrine,which served the general framework of "independence and greatness".De Gaulle’s doctrine is a value of independence and power,embodied in a triple perspective of independent defense,independent diplomacy,and a European view of Europe.In this context,de Gaulleism determines the objectives of France’s nuclear diplomacy policy,with the immediate goal of pursuing and achieving the establishment of its independent nuclear forces and the fundamental goal of restoring,demonstrating,and maintaining France’s great power status.Independent nuclear power provided France with the dual guarantee of freedom of action and bargaining leverage.It was in the context of nuclear diplomacy that limited Franco-British nuclear cooperation,Franco-German nuclear sharing,the pursuit of diplomatic relations with China,and Franco-Soviet great power relations emerged throughout,forming a variety of multilateral relationships with each other.In the limited Franco-British cooperation,the U.S.-British special relationship was the key point,and France proposed the Trilateral Memorandum to obtain U.S.nuclear assistance,which was rejected by the U.S.,and France was forced to establish limited nuclear cooperation with Britain.In the Franco-German nuclear sharing,the "multilateral nuclear force" became a crucial factor,and France opposed the integration of its nuclear forces into the multilateral track,so it signed the Franco-German Friendship Treaty with West Germany,hoping to counter the NATO nuclear sharing rules under the "multilateral nuclear force" with the Franco-German nuclear sharing program.The Franco-German Nuclear Friendship Treaty was signed with West Germany with the expectation that a Franco-German nuclear sharing program would counter the NATO nuclear sharing rules under the MNA.In the Franco-Chinese nuclear consensus,both sides opposed the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty and agreed on nuclear interests that facilitated the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France.France’s strategy toward the Soviet Union was to treat it as a cooperative force,to maintain unity of opinion in opposing West Germany’s nuclear program,and to build a new European vision of "Europe for Europeans from the Atlantic to the Urals" and "mitigation,understanding,cooperation" in the East.In the process of French nuclear diplomacy,the French government has been able to develop a new European vision of "From the Atlantic to the Urals-Europe for Europeans" and an Eastern policy of "mitigation,understanding and cooperation.In the concrete practice of French nuclear diplomacy,there is a relationship between commonalities and specificities,especially the cooperative nature of Franco-British relations,the dependence of Franco-German relations,the innovation of Franco-Chinese relations,and the independence of Franco-American relations.Through a comparative analysis of these cases,and by looking at the characteristics,effectiveness,and multinational interaction of French nuclear diplomacy policy,we find that it was largely successful,based on its initial dependence on de Gaulleism and its goal of achieving French "independence and greatness.France went from being a second-class European country to becoming the third nuclear power in the world.De Gaulle’s nuclear diplomacy policy not only eliminated U.S.intervention,strengthened nuclear cooperation with Britain and West Germany,and established France’s primacy in Europe,but also opened up foreign relations with China and the Soviet Union,and the nuclear diplomacy policy itself was passed on and innovated by several French successors.However,the French nuclear diplomacy policy has certain limitations and vulnerabilities because of its huge economic costs and the decline of people’s real living standards instead. |
