New Delhi, July 28 -- UNITED NATIONS - When Jerome Bonnafont, France's ambassador to the United Nations, rose on Sunday to address the Security Council's session on the Russian operation in Ukraine, the American delegation did not stay to listen. Mike Waltz, the United States ambassador, and Dan Negrea, the alternate US representative, collected their materials and left the chamber while Bonnafont was speaking.

The departure was deliberate, and Negrea left no ambiguity about its meaning. The United States, he told reporters after the session, would vacate the room every time France chose to deliver what he called "condescending and disrespectful rhetoric" toward Washington. He did not specify which remarks had triggered the decision, or ...