FT: The French are right about the Americans

[Santander]

Biden-Johnson is basically the inverse Bush-Blair at this point. Embarrassingly bad diplomatic "leadership". Biden is actually making American international relationships worse than Trump, both with allies and adversaries.

[Santander]

I find it very funny how Americans are just looking on the whole thing with mild bemusement while the French just absolutely lose their s--t. Calm down, mes amies. Just because you have a military parade to celebrate the ancient times of Napoleon when you WERE actually formidable does not change the fact that you have been coasting -- hell, surviving -- on US military power since before the end of WW2. (You know, when you absolutely blew it and surrendered.)

The French military has the best power projection of any military in the world after the US, and until Sarkozy, had arguably the most capable foreign intelligence service in the world. So maybe you need to calm down.

[Santander]

France has a bigger empire than the UK (permanent military presence on every continent and ocean except the Arctic) and has Charles de Gaulle, which makes it one of only two truly blue-water navies in the world. Plus, from a technology/arms exports perspective, France is by far the leading European country behind Russia. Britain basically only has BAE.

China is of course by the bigger geopolitical power based on economic weight alone, but their military is still rather poor, and they have no power projection outside East and Southeast Asia.