America’s Revolutionary War Indispensable Ally: France

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: Hillsdale College Podcast Network Superfeed
Episode: America's Revolutionary War Indispensable Ally: France
Date: March 13, 2026
Host: Larry O’Connor (WMAL)
Guest: Dr. Luke Foster, Assistant Professor of Government, Van Andel Graduate School of Government, Hillsdale College (Washington, D.C.)

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the pivotal role played by France as America's indispensable ally during the Revolutionary War. Dr. Luke Foster discusses the origins, significance, and legacy of the Franco-American alliance, dispels common misconceptions about George Washington's foreign policy, and connects historical lessons to modern American foreign relations, particularly in the context of current U.S.–European alliances.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Reassessing Washington’s Advice on Foreign Alliances

• Myth vs. Reality: The idea that George Washington warned against any foreign involvement is an oversimplification. Instead, Washington advocated for "friendship grounded in recognition of each other's sovereignty and legitimate interests."
  • Quote (Dr. Luke Foster, 02:21):
    "I certainly don't think Washington thought it was a bad thing to have friends abroad. [...] But of course, he wanted friendship to be grounded in recognition of each other's sovereignty and each other's legitimate interests."

France’s Essential Role in America’s Victory

• Population & Power: In 1775, Britain had 8 million people, the colonies 2.5 million, but France, Europe's "heavyweight," had 27 million.
  • This sheer size made France a crucial diplomatic counterweight.
  • Quote (Dr. Foster, 03:18):
    "France is really the heavyweight of Europe at the time, both in population and in its agriculture. So just getting a power that big on your side is obviously a big coup."
• Military Expertise and Aid:
  • Beyond famed figures like Lafayette, the French provided not only thousands of regular troops but also a model of military discipline and tactics that shaped the early U.S. Army.
  • Early West Point and Civil War generals were influenced by French military manuals.
  • French Navy’s Impact: The French fleet’s presence at Yorktown, led by Admiral de Grasse, was decisive.
    • Quote (Dr. Foster, 04:44):
      "[...] in the 18th century, that's not at all how people looked at it. Right. They thought, this is the best land army in the world. The British had the best navy, but the French had the best army."
  • The need for a capable navy prompted the new U.S. government to prioritize naval development—one reason the Department of the Navy was one of the first federal departments.

Aftermath: Shaping American Foreign Policy

• Transition from Alliance to Caution:
  • John Adams, as president, realized the limits of friendship with revolutionary France during the radical phase of the French Revolution.
  • The U.S. chose not to ally blindly with former friends when their actions conflicted with American principles.
  • Quote (Dr. Foster, 06:33):
    "You actually don't go with your friends when they're doing evil. Which is a hard choice to make."

The Realpolitik of France’s Motives

• French Self-Interest:
  • France’s primary motive was to weaken Britain, not to champion democracy.
  • The assistance was as much about geo-political rivalry as about enlightenment ideals.
  • Quote (Host Larry O’Connor, 09:01):
    "[King Louis] helped us out because he knew it would weaken Britain."
  • Dr. Foster acknowledges a mix: "[...] there was some affection for. Hey, these are people who want freedom. Great. But certainly [...] this is part of, you know, power politics." (09:27)

Modern Implications: Lessons for Today’s Alliances

• Rubio’s Munich Speech & Application to Today:
  • The dynamic of alliances has changed—America is now the great power, not the underdog.
  • Foster connects Washington’s approach to the recent calls for greater European sovereignty and defense readiness.
  • "Independence is not just something you have, but also something you do." (Dr. Foster, 11:00)
  • European countries, especially France, are contrasted with others that have let military readiness deteriorate.
    • France remains an exception, maintaining naval and military capability, allowing it to make independent choices.
  • Example: French deployment to the Persian Gulf demonstrates capability and willingness to act beyond American leadership. (12:45)
  • The U.S. should seek genuine allies—"friends, not flatterers"—rather than subservient partners.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On French Military Influence:

  • "For the first century or so of US Military, the French are standard discipline, which is very important."
    (Dr. Foster, 04:44)

• On the Franco-American Alliance:

  • "After Saratoga, Louis XVI commits to a formal alliance and recognizes independence of the United States, one of the first countries to recognize us."
    (Dr. Foster, 08:16)

• On Foreign Policy Choices:

  • "You actually don't go with your friends when they're doing evil. Which is a hard choice to make."
    (Dr. Foster, 06:33)

• On Modern Alliances:

  • "Independence is not just something you have, but also something you do. [...] It's a skill."
    (Dr. Foster, 11:00)
  • "Do you want allies like that, or do you want people who are subservient, who just have to go with you, but then are actually, I think, in the long run, weaker?"
    (Dr. Foster, 13:22)

• On Ironies of Geopolitics:

  • "The irony is that it also makes the French debt crisis much worse and probably accelerates, if not causes, the revolutionary uprising 15 years later. There's a certain, you know, a certain tragedy there for freaking Louis."
    (Dr. Foster, 10:07)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:41–02:21: Introduction of Dr. Luke Foster; context of Washington’s foreign policy philosophy
• 03:17–05:50: French population, military, and naval contributions; transformative impact on America’s military foundations
• 06:16–07:28: Transition from Washington to Adams; challenges in maintaining alliances post-independence
• 08:16–08:49: Key events: Saratoga, French formal alliance, and decisive intervention at Yorktown
• 09:01–10:28: Motives behind French aid; the unintended consequences leading to the French Revolution
• 11:00–13:22: Drawing lessons from history for current U.S.–European relations; critiques of European defense posture; France as an exception
• 13:40–14:15: Wrap-up and key takeaways

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Conclusion

This episode provides a comprehensive historical and philosophical exploration of America's first significant foreign alliance and its implications for both founding-era and contemporary foreign policy. Dr. Luke Foster’s insights bring clarity to the nuances of strategic partnership, the nature of true alliances, and the enduring lessons for the United States and its allies today.

Transcript

[A]

You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives. Learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's unashamedforhillsdale dot com to experience the Genesis story alongside the ROBERT. To celebrate 250 years of freedom, Hillsdale College's Matthew Spaulding, along with professors From Hillsdale in D.C. sit down with Larry O' Connor of WMAL to discuss the truths that make this country great. This is Hillsdale on the Hill.

[B]

Dr. Luke Foster, Dr. Luke Foster, of course, from Hillsdale College. Excuse me, I want to get the title right. Assistant professor of government at the Van Andel Graduate School of Government right here in your nation's capital. Dr. Foster, thanks for joining us.

[C]

Good morning. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

[B]

Well, I saw an op ed that you wrote over at American Mind called We Need Friends, Not Flatterers. And I'd love within the context of of America's 250th anniversary that we're honoring on a regular basis with our friends and partners at Hillsdale. I'd love for you to sort of expand on this idea because it spins off of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech at Munich with regard to America's role in foreign policy, going all the way back to George Washington saying beware of foreign entanglements. And how that idea has sort of affected how we interact with the world. But also many people, I think, sort of warp what Washington was trying to imply.

[C]

That's right. I certainly don't think Washington thought it was a bad thing to have friends abroad. And even he thought there were some countries that were more likely to be friends in the long term than others. But of course, he wanted friendship to be grounded in recognition of each other's sovereignty and each other's legitimate interests and the capacity to act in the world. That wonderful line and a declaration to assume among the powers of the earth the that separate and equal station. So grounded in the philosophy of the Declaration is the idea that you're taking part on a world stage and there's supposed to be an acknowledgement among peers of an equal status. But of course, that takes work that doesn't just happen. So if you allow me, I was going to talk a little bit about the importance of the French alliance at the time of the founding.

[B]

That'd be great.

[C]

Which is, I think, part of the perspective that Washington's drawing on. I think the population numbers are really helpful here. So in 1775, the 13 colonies are about 2.5 million people. Great Britain, we think, is about 8 million. So, you know, more than three times the size of what becomes the U.S. but France has a population of 27 million. So France is really the heavyweight of Europe at the time, both in population and in its agriculture. So just getting a power that big on your side is obviously a big coup. Diplomatically, it's very important for recognition. It immediately makes the world take the American case for independence much more seriously, I think that we're familiar with. But there are two further things that were less obvious. So one is the military contribution of the French, starting with Lafayette, very famously, but then Rochambeau's army, obviously, just having thousands of French regular troops with the Continental army helps. But more importantly, the French helped give the early American military a standard of discipline, which is hard for us to imagine now because we have this stereotype from Iraq war days of the Frenches. What was the line? Cheese eating surrender monkeys. Something like that.

[B]

Yeah. Cheese eating surrender monkeys. I believe that's from the Gospel according to Bart Simpson, if I remember right.

[C]

Yes, that was widely said at the time. But in the 18th century, that's not at all how people looked at it. Right. They thought, this is the best land army in the world. The British had the best navy, but the French had the best army. And so early West Point is very modeled on French military academies all the way up through the Civil War. All the generals of the Civil War are trained on Napoleonic manuals, his tactics. So for the first century or so of US Military, the French are standard discipline, which is very important. And then the other big thing is they give us a navy, because turning militiamen into Continental army soldiers is already hard enough. But you can kind of get an army out of ordinary people who are angry and willing to grab their rifles. But a navy requires decades of technology, professionalism, infrastructure. And so the fact that the Chesapeake Bay, the French can field a navy as powerful as the British one almost and hold them off so that Washington can gain the victory at Yorktown is really key. And so that helps kickstart arguments for the need for a strong federal government. For, you know, the Department of the Navy is one of the very first federal departments in a very, very small government, because everyone recognizes, based on that experience, how important it is to have the professional basis to make a navy.

[B]

So it sounds like, I think it's

[C]

part of the genesis of our, you know, having a serious military that can take its part in the world.

[B]

Well, certainly having Washington as our commander in chief of the Continental army and all of those forces during the revolution and then having him be our first president sort of helped that handshake, I would think, between him, obviously, knowing what we needed militarily to protect the fledgling nation. And it sounds like he was a proponent of peace through strength.

[C]

Definitely, definitely. And I think it helps also that his second. His successor, the second president, was John Adams and not Thomas Jefferson in a way. Right. Adams is the guy who takes these lessons and says, let's invest in the navy, unless not alive with revolutionary France. Crucially, Adams saw the shift that had happened because it's a certain tragedy. Right. The French intellectuals, they see the American example, they're inspired. They think it's about liberty and equality, but they leave out the. They leave out the dependence on God part, and they leave out the objective duties that flow from natural rights, and they launch this terrible revolution. So it really creates a foreign policy crisis for the young American republic. Are we going to follow these guys who are just our friends, or do we say, you actually don't go with your friends when they're doing evil? Which is a hard choice to make,

[B]

especially considering Washington's sort of unofficial adopted son, Lafayette, was part of what was going on in France there during that time. It was, I know, a tough thing for him. All right, hold that thought, because I want to then take those lessons learned about how we won our independence because of France and because of their military might, how that then informs what's going on today, how that is reflective in Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech, and how France and Germany and England and our European partners could actually learn those lessons, too, with a little sovereignty of their own. Let's summarize first what ended up happening there, because France is secretly helping us and supplying us gunpowder there at the early parts of the war. And then we had a huge victory at Saratoga, and that sort of brought the French out of the closet, as it were, right?

[C]

That's right. Yeah. So there are early volunteer efforts. That's why you mentioned Lafayette, who's a great friend of Washington. There's this young French officer who comes with illegal. Really, Group of volunteers. But then after Saratoga, Louis XVI commits to a formal alliance and recognizes independence of the United States, one of the first countries to recognize us. And then you get regular troops under General Rochambeau and.

[B]

And the Navy, and the next thing you know, they're. They're surrendering at Yorktown. Because Rochambeau brought his fleet down.

[C]

Exactly. Yeah. So within three years, it makes a huge difference.

[B]

And by the way, if I could. Could I ask you one other question? Just because you just spurred something in me. Because we often talk about our alliances around the world right now and being suspicious of countries that want to partner us for one reason or another. This goes all the way back to this time. It's not like King Louis was, like, a huge fan of America and, like, he wasn't in favor of revolutionaries overthrowing a monarch. Lord knows, look what happened to him a few years later. It was really. All he cared about was sticking his eye in King George. Right. I mean, he just. He helped us out because he knew it would weaken Britain.

[C]

Yeah. I think. I mean, which is fine. I think you can take it too cynically. Like, I think there was some affection for. Hey, these are people who. Who want freedom. Great. But certainly there was also a lot of. This is part of, you know, power politics. Like, France fought a big war with Britain in the 1740s, and then again the Seven Years War just before 1756-63. So it's very recent history. And when the American proposal comes to the King, Louis, he says this is a chance to, you know, to really weaken the British Empire and reduce a key piece of their strategic asset, which is North America. So. Absolutely. However, the irony is that it also makes the French debt crisis much worse and probably accelerates, if not causes, the revolutionary uprising 15 years later. There's a certain, you know, a certain tragedy there for freaking Louis.

[B]

Amazing. All right, so then. So I'm sorry for sending you off of the path there, though, but ultimately, that's where that was. Our first major big foreign alliance was with France, obviously. So now fast forward to where we are today when Secretary of State Rubio, you know, in the same position that Thomas Jefferson was in that first administration, speaks in Munich to our allies in Europe. How does it sort of connect the dots all the way back to America's first sort of global statement about our foreign entanglements?

[C]

Yeah. Excellent. So first big thing to note, of course, is that we're a lot more powerful than we were then. Right. We're not. We're not the little guys on the. On the edge of the world. We have both the economic and the military might to to dictate things a lot of the time. And the question becomes, are you going to behave like any old empire that came before, or are you going to have a different attitude? Because. Because you think that your freedom is founded and grounded in justice and the gift of God, etc. And what I think is really important is that when we relate to our European friends today, we have to recognize that independence is not just something you have, but also something you do, right? It's not just a state like other people recognize you as independent and therefore all the work is done. It actually requires constant practice. It's a skill. And so again, we're. Well, we're having some trouble with decoupling from China. There are areas in which we're not fully independent, but basically, because of our economy and our military, we can act as we think we need to in the world as long as we can agree internally. But with Europe, it's not so much the case. They depend on us in a lot of ways. And also, crucially, I think they have allowed their spending and especially their welfare spending to get so out of control that their debt crisis has gotten very bad. This is particularly true in the French case. And military readiness has gotten eroded. Most European countries don't take their defense seriously anymore. Part of why I think France is interesting for us now is that France is an exception, relatively. France still has a real navy. France has a. A competent army. And what you see is that enables a nation to make choices. Do we want to go with our American friends or do we want to do something different? So that's where I think Rubio's speech is so interesting. He's trying to say from the outside, which is, of course, difficult. We want you guys to be real countries. We want you guys to be capable of governing yourselves and to do the hard work that takes. And for the American side, we will do what we can to help, but ultimately it's up to you to get it right or get it wrong. And that leads to interesting things. Like right now with the Iran war, right, the French are sending eight frigates and an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, which most European countries couldn't do, right? They didn't start the war with us, but now they've gotten involved because of the Iranian missiles. So the question is, do you want allies like that, or do you want people who are subservient, who just have to go with you, but then are actually, I think, in the long run, weaker?

[B]

Well, incredible historical perspective on where we are today, how we got here, and how well, you know, everything old is new again in some respects. Dr. Luke Foster, we gotta leave it there. Appreciate you stepping up today for our ongoing conversation about Hillsdale College's Washington D.C. campus and graduate school. By the way of government in Washington, D.C. our conversation station, America 250. And don't forget, the Van Andel Graduate School of Government is located right at Capitol Hill. And then they offer a part time MA In Government degrees for young professionals. Go check it out at Leary for

[A]

hillsdale.com thanks for listening to Hillsdale on the Hill, presented by Hillsdale College. To learn more about the Van Andel Graduate School of Government and Hillsdale's work in our Nation's capital, visit D.C. hillsdale.

[B]

Edu.

[A]

That's D.C. hillsdale. Eduardo.