The biggest strength of their book is describing the intellectual basis of French President Chirac's present Gallic foreign policy. Chirac was a follower of General Charles De Gaulle, whose goal was to restore France former glory. De Gaulle organized resistance to the Germans after France defeat in 1940. He was the energy behind Free France but his goals and objectives differ from his allies. There were times that De Gaulle undermined Allies efforts and he proved a difficult man to deal with. Many in France collaborated with the Nazis and resisted the Allies efforts to liberate them. While we have this historic view of mass French resistance to German occupation, the reality is that Vichy France allied themselves with Nazis Germany. Many French not only tolerated German racist policy but even help enforce them. Another problem with the resistance was that many in the resistance were under the control of Moscow. So France during World War II saw many of their leaders allying themselves with the various totalitarian forces of their day. This would have negative effect in the Cold War as communists played significant role in French politics and many intellectuals adopted anti-American position. Some intellectuals developed a love affair with totalitarian governments or at least a tolerance.

De Gaulle was the one figure that survived the war with his reputation intact and in 1958, came back in power to deal with the crisis resulting from the Algerian insurgency. He ended France involvement in Algeria at great risk to himself and helped build France into a modern economy. As a President, he effectively put France's economic house in order after the chaos and failures of the previous governments in the post war era.

He also undermined NATO efforts in the cold war but as Molesky and Miller observed, De Gaulle was able to get away with his third way foreign policy since he knew that American troops would be first line of his defense in Germany. He understood that America would defend France no matter what, so he could engage in idealistic dream of having France "rule Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals."

Molesky and Miller details the many incidents of France opposition to Americans efforts in the Cold War including when President Mitterand refusal to allow American planes to fly over France during the 1986 Libya bombing raid. Even in the first Gulf War, France proved to be an unreliable ally and as the authors noted, their military efforts were minimal during the conflict. We didn't lose anything not having the French fighting at our side in the recent conflict.