France’s strategic defence review: leading the debate

Guest article by Luis Simón Navarro

On Tuesday morning, President Nicolas Sarkozy presented in Paris a new strategy of security and defence for the next fifteen years, before an audience of some 3500 people, including military officials, police officers, diplomats and other civil servants, experts and journalists. The publication of France’s Livre Blanc pour la défense et la sécurité nationale comes at an appropriate moment: a good six months before the expiration of Javier Solana’s deadline to come up with a revision of the European Security Strategy, only two weeks before France’s takeover of the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, and at the very early stages of the deliberations aimed at providing NATO with a new Strategic Concept—expected next year in the Alliance’s sixtieth anniversary summit, to be held in Strasbourg and Kehl. A new American administration will be in place by January 2009 and the European Union seems on track (Dublin forbid) for giving itself the necessary instruments—mainly in the realm of the Common Foreign and Security Policy—to tackle the challenges of the twenty-first century more coherently, robustly and effectively.

Indeed, it is a good time for strategic reflection. For one thing, the hindsight of time, and the (ongoing) lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq, have contributed to a better understanding of the nature of the new puzzles that arose from the smoke of the Islamist attacks on 11th September 2001. Furthermore, the current instability in financial markets—partly rooted in the important disruptions in the chain of global energy supplies—and the, largely related, alterations in the European and global balances of power (i.e. the resurgence of Russia or the rise of Asia) are notable developments that deserve careful strategic reflection.

France’s new Livre Blanc replaces a previous strategy from 1994, and provides a guiding framework for the country’s foreign, security and defence policy over the next fifteen years. The deepening of globalisation and subsequent growing interdependence, resulting in rapid and considerable transformations in the strategic environment, are highlighted throughout the new strategy. Arguably, one of the most noticeable features of the Livre Blanc is the absence of a cut-clear, one-stop threat to the security of France and its allies. Instead, the density of the current strategic landscape derives from the coexistence of the new post-Cold War, post-11th September threats with the kind of old challenges from which Europeans thought they had moved away only fourteen years ago.

Particularly alarming is the emphasis placed on Europe’s relative decline in international affairs, a decline illustrated by a substantial shift in global geopolitical and economic attention towards Asia or the challengingly growing protagonism of Russia on the European scene. Today and tomorrow’s challenges are inherently entwined and multidimensional: a blurring distinction between the internal and external dimensions of security; the evil triangle of terrorism, failed states and weapons of mass destruction proliferation; energy scarcity (a challenge whose European dimension the document particularly emphasises); organised crime; threats to cyber security; the emergence of global pandemics; and the advance of global warming.

According to Louis Gautier, the defence advisor to former French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, and national delegate for strategic affairs in the Socialist Party, the Livre Blanc feeds a narrowly conceived paradigm of the world, one dominated by the West’s fears. As he says, in this mindset, ‘international security will result from arms superiority, the effectiveness of protection systems and the unity of the West.’[1] Regrettably, Gautier contends, the spirit of the Livre Blanc propels a pessimistic attitude: alternative options such as the promotion of multilateral schemes for disarmament or the strengthening of international regulation simply do not qualify as credible means for delivering French security. This emerging paradigm is not just a consequence of the growing disillusion with dreams such as The end of History, but is also a source for uploading suspicion and lack of confidence into the international system over the years to come. This is the ‘security dilemma’ in action.

For the Livre Blanc, the world’s growing volatility calls out for a flexible strategy: entwined and multidimensional challenges require comprehensive solutions. It says that more coherence is needed between military, diplomatic, economic and other civilian means, but also between and among partners, the various regional and international organisations or other elements of global civil society. The Livre Blanc proclaims prevention, deterrence, protection and intervention as France’s core strategic functions. Particularly recurring is the theme of prevention and the corresponding emphasis on the acquisition and distribution of information—a concept the French used to refer to as intelligence. It is in this sense that we can understand the substantial budgetary increase in the field of satellite communications and other space-based assets—from the current figure of €380 million to over €700 million in the next few years.

Possible concerns with a potential activation of more traditional (inter-state) conflicts are well covered by the continuing accent on independent nuclear deterrence—the ultimate guarantee of France’s protecion. Finally, the ongoing globalisation of security challenges puts a premium on attributes such as deployability and readiness; on intervention. This explains the envisaged reductions of personnel—a cut of 54,000 over the next six to seven years—and assets restructuring in the armed forces (i.e. rationalisation of military facilities in French territory). The direct target behind the restructuring is to reverse the current ratio—sixty percent of the French defence budget and assets are devoted to logistics and maintenance and forty percent to operational punch—in order to close the gap with Britain’s armed forces, were those figures are reversed. Finally, the absence of a decision over the construction of a second aircraft carrier for the Marine nationale is perhaps the most notable news in the realm of capabilities.

The Livre Blanc identifies a ‘geographic axis of strategic priority’, namely the strategic corridor that connects the Euro-Atlantic space with the Indian Ocean. The new geographic axis runs from metropolitan France, through the Mediterranean and the Gulf, and on into the Indian Ocean. Special importance is also given to Western and sub-Saharan Africa, areas in which the French have traditionally played an active role and remain currently engaged. Such an explicit reference to a strategic geographic axis represents, arguably, a step backwards from a (alleged) prior global focus that today seems financially unattainable. Most significantly, the new French strategy seems to ignore Latin America, as well as the same Asia that the document catalogues as the strategic locus of the twenty-first century.

France’s ‘Geographic Axis of Strategic Priority’

Regarding France’s vociferated reintegration into NATO’s military structure, the new strategy puts emphasis on the fact that the announced move is just part of a wider pattern of cooperation between France and NATO that goes back to the early-mid 1990s. Such a pattern is best illustrated by France’s return to the Alliance’s military committee in 1996, or Paris’ active participation in NATO missions.[2] Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy: it is this very issue that the French Socialists have attacked, given the scepticism that the noises of a comeback triggers both within France’s administration and the country’s public opinion at large.

Last and, most certainly, not least is l’Europe. Europe and the European Union play a pivotal role throughout the Livre Blanc, for which it is almost impossible to conceive a French strategy without a European strategy. The document pays special tribute to the historical character of the Franco-German couple as the driving force behind European integration, but also points to the Franco-British connection as an indispensable asset in the road towards the consolidation of the European Union as an international power and security provider.

Down at the level of specifics, the document advances, in a rather raw form, some of President Sarkozy’s ambitious proposals for the further development of European Security and Defence Policy: first, the need to boost Europe’s autonomous capabilities for effective crisis management (including the creation of a Permanent Headquarters in Brussels for the planning and command of European operations); second, the creation of a European strategic reserve force of some 60,000 personnel with the required naval and aerial components; third, a reinforcement of the mechanisms for common funding for European operations; fourth, the establishment of European schemes for training military and civilian personnel; fifth, the rationalisation of Europe’s defence industry; sixth, an expansion of the Union’s functions in the realm of security beyond crisis management, such as common defence (notably strengthening the internal dimension of European security); and finally, the call for a European Defence White Book. Interesting times certainly await Europeans with France’s upcoming presidency of the European Union!

[1] Le Monde, 19th June 2008 (own translation).
[2] On France’s relationship with NATO after the end of the Cold War see: Frédéric Bozo, ‘Alliance atlantique: la fin de l’exception française?’, Document de Travail (Paris: Fondation pour l’Innovation Politique), February 2008.

Luis Simón Navarro, EFSPS Scholar, is completing his Ph.D. in French and European defence policy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is currently a guest researcher at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique in Paris.