By estimating from 2020 that “ France has the responsibility to make its nuclear deterrent capacity available to Europe “, the President of the Republic wished to reopen an old strategic debate that General Poirier, one of the theoreticians of the strike force, had already highlighted in his time: ” How can we accommodate the requirements and constraints of decision-making autonomy, which the atom imposes on our strategy, and that of our no less necessary contribution to the security of our neighbors and allies? ».
If the question is legitimate and has given rise to a practical debate (Tribune of the Mars group) followed by an intellectual debate (Tribune of the Aron group), it must above all receive a clear political response. The president will give one on March 2 during his speech on the Long Island: may our readers allow us to bring ours, which is in line with the Gaullian Sword. This orthodoxy of strike force, which has been able to resist world events so well through the timeless strength of its founding and driving principles, must be reminded in three forums: the French, the Europeans and global competitors.
The French, first of all, should be reminded of the trinity of strike force
Deterrence is first and foremost legitimate ; a fact too often passed over in silence, its implementation is parallel and, to a large extent, consubstantial, with the election of the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage. In the moral and political perspective of General De Gaulle, the power to implement the terrible destructive power of the strike force can only come from an incontestable authority in which the French people are embodied: a president elected by the Nation.
The irrefragable verticality of deterrence, which is manifested by the assessment of the vital interests of the country by the president alone and the firing order, is legitimized. We will never say too much to the French that deterrence has thus become a project of the Nation and not a program carried out only by specialists, politicians, military and industrialists, or even intellectuals. Formerly embodied by a dynasty (Capetian, Valoise and Bourbonnian), national independence is now materialized in an extreme way by strike force. Since the operation Blue Jerboa » (February 13, 1960) until today, sovereignty has been linked to deterrence and can no longer be dissociated from it. This couple cannot divorce.
This is why our group attacked so much from 2020 [1] the notions, deliberately ambiguous and, therefore, dangerous of “European sovereignty » who organized, intellectually, the transfer of national sovereignty to the European Moloch under American supervision. This semantic drift always seems to us to be the antechamber of abandonment, or, to paraphrase General De Gaulle, “ dead dog policy ».
Deterrence is then credible. One of the underlying reasons for General De Gaulle’s choice to elect the President of the Republic by direct universal suffrage was also to ensure the credibility of the deterrence put in place, after having established its political legitimacy. An elected president cannot fail under penalty of betraying his office, the Constitution and the Nation, which deters deviations. The deterrence strategy, like any strategy, is in fact and first of all a dialectic of wills: it is based on the expression of the permanence of this inflexible desire to implement it if necessary, a determination which is based in turn, without any hesitation, on a triple operational, technological and industrial credibility of the tool. The internal coherence of the French system thus lies in a complex capacity and technological loop, long in creation but immediate in execution.
Deterrence is finally permanent. The existence of two permanent nuclear forces – the Strategic Oceanic Force and the Strategic Air Forces, and a temporary one, the FANU – is the realization of this political will of the Nation and the guarantor of credibility. The diamond point of the French defense system, the strike force pulls the entire deterrence community (forces, industries, diplomacy) upwards, placing them permanently under operational tension. This effort establishes a long-term defense policy even though the implementing authority – the president – only has a short mandate ahead of him. This is why every decision and every word of a president is so delicate: a president is only one link in a long chain even though, often, the holder of the office considers himself the first and only link in it.
Legitimate, credible, permanent, strictly tailored to French needs, also part of a nuclear disarmament effort which must be recalled here (promotion of conventional and nuclear disarmament treaties; fight against proliferation), French deterrence cannot therefore be shared: any more than monarchical power, it cannot be “concerted” or “expanded” on both a political and technical level. It is thus independent and national or it is not. It is neither conventional nor tactical: it is therefore strategic or it is not.
In an essay that remains a classic, the Two Corps of the King (1957), Ernst Kantorowicz, theorized the dual nature, human and sovereign, of “ body of the king » ; to paraphrase the eminent professor of‘Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton, the President of the Republic has a dual nature: democratic because he is elected, but sovereign because he has – alone – the nuclear scepter. This is a fundamental historical fact which explains the very specific political path of French deterrence. Lesson in history and political philosophy, deterrence is also that: the heir of a great and old country and we ask the heir to keep the deposit and transmit it, constantly modernized but entirely, to his successor.
To the Europeans, second forum, three things should be said with force and clarity:
Firstly, the French strike force has been protecting Europe since its establishment. Its contribution to the security of the European continent has been recognized since the Ottawa Declaration (1974) and since then, regularly in the documents of the Alliance (which sees itself as a nuclear alliance) and European documents. This evidence, which we are surprised to see requires the reopening of a fundamentally very simple debate, is due to two equally obvious facts: son existence whose triple legitimate, credible and permanent character must probably be further demonstrated by inviting willing allies to observe its operational deployment and…the geography that makes in fact France in solidarity with the fate of its continent. As General De Gaulle said, “ You know, the Rhine is much narrower than the Atlantic. France feels more closely linked to the defense of Germany than America to ours.. (De Gaulle and the greatsEric Branca). What more can we add that could only be superfluous and superficial?
Then that the strike force is not shared for the reasons already given above but that two facts strongly support it:
on the political levelthe assessment of vital interests is the responsibility of the president alone and not of any European council. The verticality of deterrence which will always remain THE power of the French president alone, in fact creates a paradox of which Europeans are not aware of the indirect benefit: only the exclusivity of decision-making power can establish the credibility of a French instrument with beneficial effects for Europe ; we must therefore assume the selfish part of our deterrence, since for its ultimate defense, France has no allies, but it should be emphasized that this selfishness benefits Europe; Moreover, it is first and foremost up to the Europeans to show their determination in the face of any aggression: their political determination and their conventional forces would thus support French deterrence much better than their massive and cowardly abandonment of sovereignty (acquisitions of F-35, Patriot, etc.) since 1949.
Optimists will say that since “the change of times” of February 2022, indolent Europe, so similar to the two little pigs making fun of the third (France and its nuclear rattle), has finally woken up, with Germany in the lead. Our group prefers to be cautious about the duration of this change, its scale and its effectiveness. A colossal budget, while it strengthens an industrial base, does not necessarily produce permanent operational military capabilities. If Europe is interested in French deterrence, let it first rearm in the long term in a coherent and determined manner: France has had its permanent home for a long time, thanks to an intransigent and demanding policy of national independence which produced deterrence, what De Gaulle called ” meritorious renewal »: shelter improvident pigs, why not but not without conditions.
In terms of meansit must be said again and again that French deterrence is integrated, that is to say that all of its means – SLNE, Rafale equipped with its nuclear missile, communications and transmission infrastructure, maritime patrol aircraft, offshore patrol vessels, mine warfare vessels, or AWACS – are and must remain completely national: any pooling on one of the components of its environment would call into question the independence of the strike force and would create a precedent which could compromise it the day its implementation is decided. This requirement for integrated coherence must therefore exclude well-known European gadgets from pooling: valid under certain conditions in the conventional domain, they should be avoided for the strike force.
That the strike force, finally, cannot be dispersed or even extended. If it protects Europe, it is as a consequence and not its reason for being. This is why there can be no question of initiatives such as the deployment of the FAS Rafale in central, eastern or Baltic Europe: multiplying picket goats or red rags, in the form of artificial vital interests, does not strengthen deterrence but, on the contrary, discredits it by removing the very necessary ambiguity which must govern the use of the national strike force. Here too, an effort to explain French doctrine will be necessary, even if it means inviting political leaders to Ile Longue.
To strategic competitors, it must be emphasized that deterrence is “all-round” and now “all-distance”
Deterrence indeed offers an excellent “ general posture of strategic waiting » (General Poirier): at a time when predators are returning, and since deterrence is, due to the evolution of technologies, truly “ any distance » (General de Villiers), she must again think of herself “ all-round » (General Ailleret). France, let us repeat, has neither ally nor partner in this matter: it only has vital interests to defend. The equalizing and destructive power that deterrence gives it allows it to carry out great power diplomacy in the world that General De Gaulle had wanted to be independent, constant and equidistant. In this sense, the deterrent tool cannot be conceived without a major global policy which goes beyond, let us remember, the narrow and petty framework of the Europe of the two Brussels, poorly constructed frameworks. where the nation goes astray and the State disqualifies itself”.
French deterrence, because it is independentnot falling under the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, then introduces an element of doubt, uncertainty and therefore risk into the strategic calculation of its adversaries ; when, how and under what conditions would this deterrence be implemented? This is a question which seriously complicates the strategy of possible adversaries, as pertinently pointed out by a declared opponent of General De Gaulle’s NATO policy, Raymond Aron.
This effect could be multiplied a hundredfold if France left the integrated command of NATO while maintaining bilateral, political and technological links with its most reliable allies as it did from August 10, 1967: less predictable, France’s deterrence would remain a mystery more deeply surrounded by secrets, that is to say a major variable complicating the opposing equation.
Our group recalls once again that in the Gaullian vision and in times just as troubled as ours, the withdrawal of NATO’s integrated command (begun in 1958 with the Navy), was accompanied by the rise in power of the strike force and that the final decision (March 7, 1966) was preceded by the first alert of the Mirage IV with the AN11 bomb on October 8, 1964, and followed, also forgotten, by the agreements Ailleret-Lemnitizer of August 10, 1967 which organized the articulation between French and NATO forces and thus ensured the very necessary interoperability between the two. The coherence of these three decisions produced a model of French army which still appears to be very superior to those who lived comfortably under the American nuclear umbrella.
National independence comes at a price but generates effective results such as deterrence. Faced with this French ant, laborious and serious, the European armies, cicadas of defense, have thus taken another path: that of carelessness and comfort. We see the results when the protector threatens. The presidential speech on March 2 would certainly benefit from reminding these countries of their doctrinal wandering and their past criticism of the French model. Perhaps we should translate the fable of the cicada and the ants (March 1668) for them?
« The Ant is not a lender:
This is its slightest fault.
“What were you doing in the hot weather?”
She said to this borrower
— Night and day to all comers
I was singing, no offense.
— Do you sing? I am very happy about it.
Well ! Dance now. »
Even if it means opening the debate, let’s do it in complete frankness. Deterrence is finally reinforced by the existence of professional conventional forces who support him. This articulation, rendered arthritic by the underinvestment to which it has been subject for several decades, must be repaired in order to avoid maneuvers to circumvent deterrence below its triggering threshold by raising the threshold. Conventional deterrence does not exist (another divergence with Germany), but we must force any competitor to commit to a level such that we come, naturally, to pose the nuclear equation.
This conventional shoulder must be reviewed and recalibrated with this in mind. But, let us repeat, we have great doubts about the duration, coherence and effectiveness of European rearmament; it is therefore up to France to continue its national effort calmly and without the help of instruments as deceitful as SAFE who doesn’t come in addition more in less of the LPM and will force everything to be spent in Europe, failing which the remaining balance of French SAFE credits will return to Bercy and not to Brienne.
This is precisely where political power comes up against its own contradictions: for lack of having good finances, it cannot make good policies, as we saw with the LPM. Underfunded from the start, exaggerating its income, and underestimating its expenses, dragging its deferrals like a ball and chain, coming too early to reap the precious lessons of the Ukrainian conflict, it was already outdated and doomed from its conception doctrinally and financially as our group recalled in two resounding forums [2] ; waging war on the economy instead of finally ordering long-delayed equipment, it appeared above all insincere because its major increases were only planned after 2027; its planned update which would only return to the amounts desired by the armies (€430 billion) from 2022, will be voted on by an Assembly which puts its mandate back into play in 2027. What political sustainability will it therefore have? How can Defense continue to be financed even though public finances as a whole are faltering? The first reform to be carried out will therefore be that of the economy, as in 1958. In this sense, the guarantor of deterrence will be the new Jacques Rueff of 2027.
In conclusionwhatever the speech that President Macron will make on March 2, orthodox or transgressive, or both “at the same time”, his mandate is coming to an end and his succession is already underway: all the more reason to stick to the spirit and the letter that General De Gaulle’s famous speech of April 27, 1965 recalled and which remains strikingly relevant today: “our independence requires, in the atomic age in which we find ourselves, that we have the means to deter a possible aggressor ourselves without prejudice to our alliances but without our allies holding our destiny in their hands. Now, we give ourselves these means. Without doubt, they impose on us a meritorious renewal, but they do not cost us more than those which we would have to provide for Atlantic integration without being surely protected if we continue to belong to it as a subordinate auxiliary. We are reaching the point where no State in the world could bring death to our country without receiving it at home, which is certainly the best possible guarantee in the economic, scientific and technical order, to safeguard our independence. ».
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[1] See our trilogy:
[2] et
