After just reading http://www.havokjournal.com/national-security/our-major-ally-against-isis-is-the-french-we-are-so-screwed/ I felt compelled to comment....
The denigration of the French military is about as fresh as Hogan's Heroes. To assert it in the first place identifies the source as not just being a boor, but identifies someone with a complete lack of knowledge and understanding about the historical contexts involved.
Yes, their performance in WW2 was pretty bad, but I submit that any force facing the Wehrmacht in 1940 would have performed about the same. The French during Fall Rot performed almost comically badly, sure - but then so did the US army when it first met German forces YEARS later at Kasserine (and the Germans were already on the strategic defensive and facing supply shortages). Even El Guettar, noted as the first time the US Army "defeated" the Germans was Pyrrhic, with US forces losing more than the Germans AND failing to secure any strategic gains (other than basically occupying abandoned Axis positions). The Germans in 1940-1941 rolled EVERYONE they faced.
Looking at the rest of the 20th century, France's poor military performance in the post-colonial era was...about as bad as the US in Vietnam. Going backwards, the French in WWI fought magnificently, as they did throughout much of their history. The "other" quick French collapse - the Franco-Prussian war - was again hardly the fault of their soldiers; it was essentially a 1,000,000 Germans using nearly-WWI tech vs 400k French equipped and trained to fight Civil-War-era combat (breech-loading Krupp 6# guns, for example, vs bronze muzzle loaders for the French).
So really, please, from an American that's about as patriotic as they come: stop with the easy jokes about "cheese-eating surrender monkeys". It's an amusing line, sure, but the French are a noble, humanist, western culture that we should be proud to have on our side against the modern-day barbarians clamoring at the gates. They deserve better.
