Lets say you have a repeat offender.. say murder of thousands of innocent people. He has gas and chemicals that can be held in a suitcase or thermos or plastic container and kill thousands with so much as unscrewing the lid and flushing down a drain. Now lets say that he has no problem selling to the highest bidder, and has in the past.
Lets also pretend that this yet unnamed repeat offender is scowering the world for delivery vehicles. Lets also say he had billions to pay for such technology.
If such a man existed. wink wink. How long are you going to pray that your babysitter wont miss the ONE time that you aren't looking and deliver on past promises and threats. You only have to be wrong once and you loose.
France CANT field any resistance. Their military is in such disarray that the only opinion they could hold is one of non-participation.
Allow me to refer to a recent article I found on this..
Quote:
A confidential report by the general armed forces board, leaked to the economic magazine Capital, concluded that more than a third of Leclerc tanks - which at a cost of £10.4 million each were intended to be the pride of France's ground forces - are currently out of use. A shortage of spare parts meant that the army was having to cannibalise part of its fleet to keep the rest in action.
Around half of France's Puma, Cougar and Gazelle helicopters are grounded awaiting repairs and only a fraction of the air force's planes are fit to fly, defence experts say. "While the air force has 517 fighter planes, only 12 aircraft are ready to take off within two minutes in order to defend our country in the event of an attack," wrote Thierry Fabre, Capital's defence correspondent. "The others might take hours or even days to get up in the air. A large part of our aircraft are in fact nailed to the ground because of insufficient maintenance."
While admitting that it had budget problems, the French ministry of defence contended that "reports of a crisis are exaggerated". "Of course only 12 planes are on standby to fly as part of the air defence mission. No country has all its entire air force on red alert 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," a spokesman said.
However, Pierre Dabezies, a military expert and adviser to Jean-Pierre Chevenement, the former interior minister, said that at the military air base at Metz "half the planes aren't able to fly".
The navy is faring little better, with only 32 of its 76 ships reported to be in a state of seaworthiness. An alarming cross-party report by MPs Charles Cova of the Right-wing RPR party and Jean-Noel Kerdraon of the ruling socialist party blames "staggering delays" and disorganisation at French shipyards for holding up vital repairs.
"It would be better to carry out small repairs in other European ports. The minesweeper Verseau was repaired in several hours in the United Kingdom compared with the four weeks minimum it would have taken if the boat had gone to Brest," the report said.
The Rafale fighter plane is another example of the style over substance extravagance. The air force should have taken delivery of 137 aircraft, commissioned in 1988, almost a year ago. To date only five of the 294 planes ordered have been delivered by the manufacturer, Dassault.
Hopes of recovering some of the vast cost through exports have been dashed because the plane will compete for sales against the Eurofighter, being developed by a European consortium that includes Britain, and America's Joint Strike Fighter combat plane being produced by Lockheed Martin. Each rival is three times cheaper.
Jean-Paul Hebert, a military economist, believes that the French defence ministry gave in too quickly to pressure from private manufacturers when negotiating defence contracts. "It has never tried to reduce the final bill by threatening to purchase from abroad as the English have done," he said.
The most expensive folly in French military history remains the Charles de Gaulle, commissioned for the French navy in 1986. It was the pet project of the country's then president, François Mitterrand. The carrier was intended to be a potent symbol of military might but was so riddled with faults it proved to be more of a humiliating French farce.
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France itself couldn't defend against a suburb of LA if it had too. I guess that makes it easy to refuse any support or stand clinch fisted against any assistance for any reason, at any time. Makes me wonder why they signed on at all to the UN's last resolution authorizing force if Saddam didn't comply. I guess they were joking right? Either that or lying. Your pick. Yes, I think money plays a big part in this. Its easy to sit on the sideline when you know you couldnt join the field if you had to. France doesn't care because they don't belive themselves to be a target. However, deals with the devil don't last long.
And bigben2k.. you don't see the point. If you have to keep 300k troops for there to be no threat, there is a fundamental problem with that. Don't ya think? An ounce of prevention.. (oh you know the rest) Should we wait anther year or two until we can be gassed at will before we react? What city are you willing to give up before we say, "oh.. those chemical weapons sure do suck". Guess we should have done something sooner. To err on the side of caution is a much better defence than playing tag with armed missles flying at you, or tourists with anthrax thermos' that were purchased at the local pawn shop.