Economist.com | French foreign policy: "France's impulse behind its European ideas remains the desire to balance American power. Mr Chirac envisages a future �multipolar� world, in which American power is countered, like it or not, by China or even Russia. Since Europe, he argues, cannot afford to be left out, it needs to equip itself militarily�and not rely exclusively on the American-run NATO. Preparing France for such a world explains why he spends so much time unapologetically wooing China and Russia."