Emmanuel Macron Wants to Change France’s Military Strategy, but With a 114% Debt-to-GDP, the Path Will Be Difficult.
This strategy remains conditional on France's economic, financial, political and moral recovery in the years to come.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine marks a change of strategic era. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, peace seemed assured and war impossible. Since February 24, 2022, peace is impossible and war becomes plausible.
The war takes the form of a high-intensity conflict in Ukraine, but also of a hybrid confrontation between Russia and Europe, mixing nuclear blackmail, energy and food crisis, manipulation of migratory flows, cyber attacks, disinformation, support of populist movements, destabilization of Africa and the Middle East.
War is not only back, it is changing its nature and going beyond its limits: it is no longer the monopoly of the military but involves the nation in all its components. And France and Europe are on the front line.
Hence France's National Strategic Review intends to take this new situation into account to inform the future military programming law, in line with the new NATO concept and with the “Strategic Compass” adopted by the European Union in March 2022.
France's strategic review first of all takes note of the confrontation between democracies and authoritarian empires. It is open with Russia and exacerbated with China, the two powers have established a strategic partnership aimed at bringing about a post-Western world. At the same time, the crisis of the democracies and the retreat of the United States are opening up vast spaces to jihadists, from the Sahel to Afghanistan. New areas of conflict are emerging with space, cyber, or the seabed.
Finally, the institutions and rules put in place to try to limit violence have been dismantled, like the disarmament and arms control treaties - only New START remains in force until 2026.
To meet these challenges, France has set itself the objectives of strengthening its autonomy, contributing to the defense of the continent by developing European sovereignty and participating fully in collective defense within NATO, and stabilizing the international system by asserting itself as a provider of security, particularly in Africa.
The strategic functions devoted to anticipation, deterrence, protection, prevention, and intervention are extended to influence, and close cooperation with diplomacy. They are notably expressed in the modernization of nuclear deterrence, the capacity to conduct high-intensity warfare, the assertion as a leading cyber player, the response to hybrid threats, the resilience of the nation, and the mobilization of the economy in the service of defense.
The strategic review is a turning point for France.
It shows the will to adapt to a world where war is once again possible and acknowledges the obsolescence of the army model developed in the 1990s, based on nuclear deterrence and an expeditionary corps army designed for asymmetric conflicts. However, it does not draw all the consequences of the rise in conflict and leaves several questions open.
The first question concerns the posture of a balancing power that France claims to have.
Faced with a world that is becoming impoverished, dominated by the imperial ambitions of the tyrannies of the 21st century and by their desire to eradicate freedom, France must choose its camp, which can only be that of the democracies. This in no way implies aligning itself with the United States or locking itself into the logic of the blocs. But we cannot base a strategy on balance with powers that pose an existential threat to our nation and wage a ruthless hybrid war against us.
The danger of this ambiguous positioning was highlighted by the underestimation of the possible invasion of Ukraine and then the complacency maintained towards Moscow. While the danger arising from the convergence between China and Russia is rightly pointed out, the Strategic Review remains very discreet on the risks linked to regional powers that use the strategic vacuum left by the withdrawal of the United States to assert their ambitions.
Emancipated and uninhibited, these regional powers do not hesitate to resort to armed forces, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and especially Turkey, which directly threaten Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Moreover, French strategy remains torn between the affirmation of strategic autonomy and the role of sting claimed within NATO and the European Union. The Alliance, enlarged to include Finland and Sweden, is acclaimed by our partners, even though it has been weakened by the tearing apart of America and by the pivot of the United States towards Asia. It is as essential to France's security in the face of Russia as it is dangerous because of the dependence it creates.
At the same time, the gamble on European sovereignty is lost from the outset because of the priority that Germany has set for itself to become by 2030 the leading conventional partner of the United States and NATO's platform on the continent.
The greatest uncertainty, however, results from the foreseeable gap between the objectives set by the French strategic review and the army model and financial envelope of the 2024-2030 programming law.
The return of major threats to France's territory and population implies a reinvestment in defense to guarantee the effectiveness of deterrence through conventional credibility, to fill the gaps in terms of UAVs, deep strikes, anti-aircraft defense, and cyber or munitions.
High-intensity warfare is inseparable from the upward revision of the size of the armed forces. The conversion to a form of a war economy is conditional on the reorientation of public spending toward security. This is not compatible with a debt of 114% of GDP, nor with a country and a decision-making system at a standstill
France can only provide security if it is capable of ensuring its security in all circumstances. However, the programming law risks confirming that there is no such thing as sovereignty for over-indebted countries, by forcing us to adjust our ambitions to the shortage of resources. Rearmament is therefore more than ever conditional on France's economic, financial, political, and moral recovery in the years to come.
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