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‘Rentrée dans le rang?’ France, NATO and the EU, from the Védrine report to the 2013 French White Paper on national security and defence

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Abstract

In his report to the president of the French Republic in November 2012 assessing France’s return into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO’s) military command structure, Hubert Védrine, the former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, noted that France had no interest in leaving it again. His recommendations called for renewed action within the Alliance and the emergence of a European pillar. The timing should have been perfect, with France’s draft White Paper on defence and security about to be published. However, at a time when budget cuts prevail, are these recommendations applicable and do they amount to more than just paying lip-service? This article focuses on a one-year period, from November 2012 to the latest debates around the Military Programming Law, reminiscent of Pierre Mendès-France’s famous quote that governing is all about making choices.

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Notes

  1. Hubert Védrine interviewed by Axel Krause, September 3, 2009, https://doi.org/transatlantic-magazine.com/interview-with-hubert-vedrine/.

  2. Theo Farrell, Sten Rynning, and Terry Terriff, Transforming Military Power since the Cold War: Britain, France and the United States, 1991–2012 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 124: ‘The political legacy of the left-wing is distinctively Gaullist, marked by President Mitterrand’s commitment of the French left to nuclear deterrence but at the expense of maintaining a critical distance to NATO. The legacy still plays out. The new Defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, is known for criticising President Sarkozy’s 2008 decision to fully reintegrate into NATO, and the Hollande team […] more broadly is EU enthusiastic’. One must also not forget anti-Americanism as a deep seated feature of French public opinion — see for instance

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  4. Marcel H. Van Herpen, ‘I Say NATO, You Say No NATO’, The National Interest 95 (May/June 2008): 92–6.

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  5. Yves Boyer, ‘La France et l’OTAN ou le retour à Canossa: La défense française n’a rien à gagner à une intégration aux allures de “normalisation”’, Le Monde, (25 September 2007).

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  6. Nicolas Sarkozy, Allocution devant la conférence des Ambassadeurs (Paris, 27 August 2007), https://doi.org/www.rpfrance-otan.org/Conference-des-Ambassadeurs, 507.

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  7. Hubert Védrine, Report for the President of the French Republic on the Consequences of France’s return to NATO’s Integrated Military Command, on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, and the Outlook for the Europe of Defence, Paris, 14 November 2012, English version, https://doi.org/www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/global-issues/defence-security/french-defence/international-organization-in/nato/france-and-nato/article/hubert-vedrine-report-submitted-to.

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  8. François Hollande, Motion of No Confidence (Paris: Assemblée nationale, 8 April 2008), https://doi.org/discours.parti-socialiste.fr/2008/04/08/intervention-de-francois-hollande-motion-de-censure-mardi-8-avril-2008/.

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  9. Dan Kettinger, ‘François Hollande’ s Alternative Defense Vision Worrisome’, Atlantic Council Blog (21 March 2012), https://doi.org/www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/fra ncois-hollandes-alternative-defense-vision-worrisome.

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  10. Letter of engagement from the President of the Republic to Hubert Védrine, Paris, July 18, 2012.

  11. Laurent Fabius, ‘France and NATO’, The New York Times, December 5, 2012.

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  12. Nicole Ameline, ‘A Crescent of Crisis on Europe’s Doorstep: A New North/South Strategic Partnership for the Sahel’, NATO Parliamentary Assembly (May 2013), https://doi.org/www.nato-pa.int/default.asp?SHORTCUT=3168. For additional insights, and potential implications for NATO, see

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  14. Védrine, Report, 6.

  15. Ibid., 9–10.

  16. For a short summary on BMD and its implication for NATO, see Jean-Loup Samaan and Guillaume Lasconjarias, ‘The Israeli Experience in Missile Defense: Lessons for NATO’, Atlantic Council Issue Brief (August 2013).

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  17. Védrine, Report, 8.

  18. Michel Goya and Guillaume Lasconjarias, ‘L’OTAN en Afghanistan: analyse d’une inefficience militaire’, Sécurité Globale 17 (Fall 2011): 43–9.

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  20. Alexander Mattelaer, ‘How Afghanistan has Strengthened NATO’, Survival 53 (December 2011), 127–140 (quote at 131).

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  21. Védrine, Report, 9.

  22. Wallace Thies, Why NATO Endures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

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  23. Védrine, Report, 14.

  24. Ibid., 13.

  25. Gareth Chappell, ‘Operation Unified Protector: No “Swan Song” for NATO’, The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs 62 (2011): 63–78 (quote at 64).

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  26. For Sweden, the commitment was even higher as ‘out of a total of approximately 240 planes participating in the entire operation, the small unit of five Gripen fighters from Sweden actually performed one fourth of all surveillance, and provided 37% of the surveillance reporting in OUP’. See Ann-Sofie Dahl, Partner Number One or NATO Ally Twenty-nine? Sweden and NATO Post-Libya (Rome: NATO Defense College, Research Paper no. 82, September 2012), https://doi.org/www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php? icode=350.

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  27. Chappell, ‘Operation Unified Protector’, 67. See also Clark A. Murdock and Becca Smith, ‘The Libyan Intervention: A Study in U.S. Grand Strategy’, in Global forecast 2011: International Security in Times of Uncertainty, ed. Craig Cohen and Josiane Gabel (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2011), 62.

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  28. US Department of Defense, ‘The Security and Defense Agenda (Future of NATO)’, (speech by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Brussels, Belgium, June 10, 2011), https://doi.org/www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1581.

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  29. Emphasis mine. Jo Coelmont and Maurice de Langlois, ‘Recalibrating CSDP-NATO Relations: The Real Pivot’, Egmont Security Policy Brief 47 (June 2013): 3.

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  30. Védrine, Report, 17. For a confirmation, see also UK House of Lords, European Union Committee, 12th Report: Combating Somali Piracy: The EU’s Naval Operation Atalanta, 6 April 2010, https://doi.org/www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldselect/ldeucom/103/10302.htm: ‘Operation Atalanta has proved itself a credible force in combating piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. It has been highly effective in protecting World Food Programme and AMISOM logistics vessels, none of which has so far been taken by pirates. It has also successfully deterred and disrupted pirate threats to commercial shipping.’

  31. Coelmont and de Langlois, ‘Recalibrating CSDP-NATO Relations’, 3.

  32. Christian Mölling, ‘Europe without Defense’, Stifftung Wissenschaft und Politik (November 2011): 1, https://doi.org/www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?id=135191&lng=en.

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  33. Ibid., 3.

  34. Védrine, Report, 17.

  35. Antonio Missiroli, ed., Enabling the Future. European Military Capabilities 2013–2025: Challenges and Avenues (Paris: EUISS, Report no. 16, May 2013), 6.

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  36. Védrine, Report, 19–20.

  37. This last proposal calling for bold strategic thinking has been pinpointed by Régis Debray in Le Monde Diplomatique (‘La France doit quitter l’OTAN’, March 2013): Debray rightly notes that, in order to show ‘vigilance, rigour and influence’, one desperately needs not only financial support but also the possibility to expand France’s particular spirit without copying or looking for inspiration in Anglo-Saxon think-tanks. It is telling that an official French think-tank like the Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’École Militaire (IRSEM) remains relatively little known — a situation which reflects the still rigid separation between the academic world and the defence and strategic community in France.

  38. Védrine, Report, 21–2.

  39. Ibid., 24.

  40. See for instance General Vincent Desportes, La Croix, May 1, 2013.

  41. Jean-Marie Collin, The French White Paper on Defence and National Security (14 May 2013), https://doi.org/www.basicint.org/blogs/2013/05/french-white-paper-defence-and-national-security.

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  42. Benoist Bihan, ‘Le vide stratégique français à la lumière du Livre blanc 2013’, Défense et Sécurité Internationale 94 (June 2013): 30–38.

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  43. Ministère de la Défense, White Paper. Defence and National Security 2013. Twelve Key Points: ‘Take into consideration both the continuing existence of threats and the constraints related to public finances’, https://doi.org/www.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/ 207914/2305785/file/LB-fiche%2012%20pts-UK.pdf.

  44. The experts participating in study groups and working parties were not very different from those who had been summoned to participate in the previous White Paper.

  45. A map of the slight discrepancy concerning the ‘Arc of Instability’ between 2008 and 2013 can be found in Lisa Watanabe, ‘France’s New Strategy: The 2013 White Paper’, CSS Analysis in Security Policy 139 (September 2013): 2.

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  46. The yearly budget of 29.86 billion euros will have to be supplemented by exceptional resources, which are not guaranteed (see General Desportes’ interview in La Croix, 1 May 2013).

  47. Camille Grand in Clara Marina O’Donnell, ed., ‘The Implications of Military Spending Cuts for NATO’s Largest Members’, Brookings Analysis Paper (July 2012): 20, https://doi.org/www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/7/military%20spending%20nato% 20odonnell/military%20spending%20nato%20odonnell%20pdf.

  48. Assemblée nationale, Commission de la Défense nationale et des Forces armées, Audition de l’amiral Édouard Guillaud, chef d’état-major des armées (CEMA), sur les enseignements de l’opération Serval, 22 mai 2013, https://doi.org/www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cr-cdef/12–13/c1213074.asp (accessed November 7, 2013). At the time of writing this paper, the withdrawal had not begun and there were still considerable security challenges.

  49. The French White Paper states that the armed forces must have the capacity to ‘engage in a major coercive operation involving the special forces, up to two combat brigades representing approximately 15,000 land troops, 45 fighter aircraft and a naval aviation group’.

  50. The French Navy remains the leading European Navy in terms of size and capacity, with a carrier vessel, 3 LPDs, 10 submarines — among them the 4 bearing nuclear weapons — and between 15 and 20 frigates and patrol boats.

  51. According to the SIRPI military expenditure database for 2012.

  52. Andrew Rettman, ‘UK and France Going Own Way on Military Co-operation’, EU Observer (19 September 2013), https://doi.org/euobserver.com/defence/121495.

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  53. Judy Dempsey, Merkel’s Unfinished Business: Why Germany Needs to Act Strategically (Brussels: Carnegie Europe, September 2013): 13–14, https://doi.org/carnegieendowment.org/2013/09/05/merkel-s-unfinished-business-why-germany-needs-to-act-strategically/gmak?reload Flag=1.

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  54. On Pooling and Sharing, and Smart Defence, see Christian Mölling, ‘Pooling and Sharing in the EU and NATO. European Defence Needs Political Commitment rather than Technocratic Solutions’, SWP Comments 18 (June 2012): 2

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  55. Jakob Henius and Jacopo Leone McDonald, Smart Defense: A Critical Appraisal (Rome: NDC Forum paper, March 2012).

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  56. Mölling, ‘Pooling and Sharing in the EU and NATO’, 2. See also Admiral Guillaud’s declaration in July 2012: ‘NATO’s “Smart defence” and EU’s “Pooling and Sharing” are interesting opportunities but they will only fulfil their mission if they are meant as a possibility to do more together and not as an excuse to do less. They can’t be financial escapes and cause harm to the ESTIBD’, https://doi.org/www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cr-cdef/11-12/c1112004.asp.

  57. In this perspective, having a French General at the head of ACT could be considered as an asset, SACT being the Secretary General’s special envoy in convincing Allies to engage in Smart Defence tier projects.

  58. Daniel Fiott, ‘European Armaments in the French White Paper’, (16 May 2013), https://doi.org/europeangeostrategy.ideasoneurope.eu/2013/05/16/european-armaments-in-the-french-white-paper/.

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  59. My thanks to NATO Defense College Senior Course 122, Committee no. 6, which tackled this issue in its report ‘How can Smart Defence Reach the Next Level?’ (July 2013).

  60. Introduction to the EATC Enlargement Principles and Procedures, 29 May 2013.

  61. Recently, the disbanding of the French 110th Infantry battalion, garrisoned in Germany and belonging to the French-German Brigade, caused some concern in Germany, https://doi.org/lignesdedefense.blogs.ouest-france.fr/archive/2013/10/31/dissolution-du-110e-ri-un-autre-re giment-integrera-la-bafa-1.html.

  62. Karl-Heinz Kamp, NATOs 2014 Summit Agenda (Rome: NATO Defense College, Research Paper no. 97, September 2013), 3.

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  1. Research Division, NATO Defense College, Roma, Italy

    Guillaume Lasconjarias

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Correspondence to Guillaume Lasconjarias.

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Guillaume Lasconjarias holds a Ph.D. from La Sorbonne University in Paris and is a Research Advisor at the NATO Defense College (Rome, Italy). A historian by trade and a former civil servant at the French Ministry of Defence, his areas of expertise cover counter-insurgency (especially in Afghanistan), military transformation, smart procurement and comprehensive approach. He has also written on the future role of professional military education and the particular role of history in educating future leaders. He is currently finishing two books on the role and place of the military in Colombia and on the wars in Afghanistan.

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Lasconjarias, G. ‘Rentrée dans le rang?’ France, NATO and the EU, from the Védrine report to the 2013 French White Paper on national security and defence. J Transatl Stud 12, 418–431 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1080/14794012.2014.962735

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