French deterrence constitutes, today, one of the pillars of the country's defense posture, while giving Paris its strategic autonomy guaranteeing it rare freedom of position and tone, including in the Western camp.
Its undeniable effectiveness, since 1964, will be preserved, for the four decades to come, by the modernization of its two strategic components, with the arrival of the new ASN4G airborne supersonic cruise missile, from 2035, and the entry into service of the new SSBN 3G nuclear ballistic missile submarines, at the same time.
This is, at least, how the Military Programming Law 2024-2030 presents the subject, which will devote more than €50 billion to this mission on its execution, with the objective of replacing, almost identically and from 2035, current means, with largely modernized, therefore more efficient, capabilities.
However, in recent years, the threats that could potentially target France, like its vital interests, supposed to protect through national deterrence, have evolved considerably, in their nature, their origin and their volume.
While many voices are being raised, across the Channel and across the Atlantic, calling for a profound and rapid review of British and American deterrence postures, to respond to these developments, it is perhaps necessary to do the same. in France, without waiting for the end of the current LPM, to transform the tool at the heart of the country's strategic security and its vital interests.
In this section:
French deterrence, its modernization and the principle of strict necessity
Built on the principle of strict necessity, French deterrence has the function of giving the country's authorities the necessary and sufficient means to effectively integrate into the global strategic discourse, and this, in a strictly autonomous manner, while ensuring the security and integrity of the country. .
Today, this is broken down into two forces with complementary capabilities. The first is the Strategic Air Force, with two fighter squadrons equipped with fighters Rafale and around fifty ASMPA-R supersonic nuclear missiles, with a range of more than 500 km, and carrying a TNA nuclear warhead of 100 to 300 kilotons.
To this capacity implemented by the Air Force, is added, occasionally, the Nuclear Naval Air Force, or FaNu, allowing Rafale M of the 12F flotilla, to implement this same ASMPA-R missile, from the nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle.
The second is the Strategic Ocean Force, with four nuclear ballistic missile submarines, or SSBNs, of the Triomphant class. It keeps, at any time, one of these ships at sea, to evolve hidden in the ocean depths, and launch, at the presidential request, its 16 M51.3 ballistic missiles, with a range of 10.000 km, and each carrying 6 to 10 TNO independent trajectory nuclear warheads of 100 kt.
Together, these two capabilities provide the French authorities with a vast operational and strategic lexical field, the air component forming the visible force to respond to the deployment of forces or the threat of a potential adversary, and the submarine component, ensuring the adversary of almost complete destruction, if it were to strike France or its vital interests, even if France itself were hit massively by nuclear weapons.
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Hello,
Once again an informative and exhaustive article, both analytical and synthetic, and which helps us to remain lucid within the framework of a necessary geopolitical vision.
Please be thanked for this enrichment of our strategic and geopolitical culture.
However, faced with the numerous problems concerning National Defense that you identify and describe, your proposals in terms of solutions, although often relevant and even clever, do not seem to me to be up to the challenges. It is not possible to reason usefully while remaining within the budgetary logic induced by the Europeanist vision imposing the infamous Maastricht criteria.
We need to change the paradigm and get out of a situation where a finance minister is incapable of finding 70 billion savings to be made, like today.
We must move away from the impotence which leads us to ridicule since, for example, – you point it out yourself – a single aircraft carrier can only ensure 60% of the necessary presence at sea.
In my mind, it is not a question of letting deficits slip away and being indifferent to the debt - I am in favor of a constant budgetary balance as before 1980 - but of reprioritizing expenditure and returning to essential.
The State must refocus on sovereign functions and expenditure and above all on the financing of Defense which aims to ensure the survival of the Nation
To avoid the “yaka focon”, let us refer to the reports of the Court of Auditors, the territorial chambers of accounts and to foreign experiences – Canada. Sweden, Netherlands, etc. - which show that many budgetary expenditures can be reduced without impoverishing a population, weakening the state and causing the collapse of the economy.
We must change the budgetary paradigm because reasoning within the framework of the current budgetary paradigm is simply ineffective and leads us to collapse.
Hello
Indeed, but this is a political approach. For my part, I limit myself to technical approaches, which can be applied by any government, as long as it has the will, without impacting existing budgetary balances and arbitrations. In short, it is above all a question of saying “see, it is possible, and the budgetary excuses can be circumvented”.
Hello Mr WOLF.
Fine and clear prospective analysis, as very often on this site.
To corroborate your prospects for changes in the global nuclear threat in the short term (10 to 20 years), I can only recommend reading the work linked below (with your validation of course).
To sum up simplistically, I think we are only in the early stages of discovering the threats to which rising and undemocratic powers will expose us. The destructive imagination being limitless, we will have to be imaginative (acoustic decoys for our SSBNs etc).
Thank you again for your always relevant and forward-looking content.
https://prospective-innovation.org/notes-lecture/ces-guerres-qui-nous-attendent/
thank you) I will read this carefully!