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The ability to enter first...

(BRUXELLES2, opinion) The reflection started with the White Paper on a new format for the French army is starting to get to the heart of the matter. And in general, several methods can be used to try to identify what the French army of the future will be like.

  • First, define the rank that France must hold in the face of threats and the world. Unfortunately, it can no longer hold all that has been its strength in the past. The French economy is only fifth in the world, closely followed by Brazil (India is catching up with Italy). It is a fact. There is no need to cry over the past. And the financial crisis in the Euro zone has a structural effect. We have changed times.
  • Second, see what France may have, given the budgetary crisis, either in isolation or in groups. It's tempting. In this case, the defense becomes the key to adjusting other decisions. But it is a risk. The cuts will be made in the least painful way possible, according to current political choices. This is not automatically tenable in the medium term.
  • Third, reason about what makes the specificity French, its particular contribution to European defence, which the others cannot provide (to it). This approach seems to me just as relevant.

The ability to enter first, French specificity

What qualifies the French army? It is essentially its operational capacity to "enter first", combined with a politico-military system which allows it to go quickly, "pulses" well, and a planning availability which covers a wide range of action. The whole being generally accepted by public opinion, as long as the intervention is justifiable for external objectives and not only by the French interest (*). This is what really makes France unique among European countries. It is, in this sense, unique. This quality of "precursor", the intervention in Mali highlighted it (with the army in pole position) as the intervention in Libya had demonstrated (side air force and navy). At European level, only the United Kingdom can have the same approach (and again... because the British, apart from the Falklands, and Sierra Leone in 2000). And on the NATO side, only the United States fulfills an identical function (but France does not have the same defense budget, nor GDP).

Share in the plural

However, having the ability to enter first - helicopters, commandos, fighter jets, intelligence, transport aircraft, protective armor, ground forces, not to mention ships or planners, etc. All this has a certain cost, especially when we see that besides that it is necessary to maintain a maritime and air nuclear force which requires another rhythm and other constraints. We will have to choose: either abandon some of the capacities, which is dangerous, or share them in good intelligence... The selection criterion would then be: is it necessary, or not, for the intervention capacity? Everything else will have to be pooled and shared, no longer anecdotally but systematically, to generate significant savings. Training, maintenance, spare parts for example... We will have to accelerate this sharing of resources, by providing them with mechanisms to preserve this precursor capacity.

This sharing can be done with other countries but also internally, at the national level. The various ministries (interior, defence, equipment, etc.) must examine how certain structures can be shared. This device would have the advantage of preserving the speed of the chain of command. To this recipe for pooling and sharing, currently being developed, we could also conceive of another way of sharing: over time. For example France enters first, Germany or other countries then follow a few months later. In summary, we must explore all the possibilities of sharing, at all levels, territorial, functional, temporal.

Choosing over nuclear

Finally, we cannot elude nuclear power. Sanctuarized, not to say gelled, it affects certain capacities. Making a choice on nuclear power seems unstoppable. Even if this technology has brought power to France and also an important contribution in technical terms, it seems to me today less significant than before, in terms of strength and power. What constitutes the political strength of France? Is it its diplomatic network, its bargaining power present on all sides of the globe, its cultural institutes, or nuclear weapons? It should not be denied either that with the acquisition of this weapon by new actors, it contributes to demonetizing it. Because owning it is no longer the prerogative of a few - on the fingers of one hand - but on the fingers of several hands. We can therefore legitimately ask the question if total permanence on both planes, maritime and air, is today justified with regard to the other essential issue: "first entry"!

(*) Which places France in contradiction with Germany where the notion of national interest is an unwritten condition of intervention

Nicolas Gros Verheyde

Chief editor of the B2 site. Graduated in European law from the University of Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne and listener to the 65th session of the IHEDN (Institut des Hautes Etudes de la Défense Nationale. Journalist since 1989, founded B2 - Bruxelles2 in 2008. EU/NATO correspondent in Brussels for Sud-Ouest (previously West-France and France-Soir).

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