NATO: post-Gaullist Realism and the Reality of Alliance

Abstract

The end of the ColdWar brought French defence policy to a crossroad of indecision and some confusion about what to do now that the familiar strategic landscape had passed from view. After the relative predictability of the Cold War era, it was clear that France, like its Allies, faced the deepest challenges in decades. For the French, the need for a rapid and profound change became a logical imperative. The sudden collapse of Yugoslavia and the appearance of a united Germany was to quickly encourage the notion that a profound rethink of defence policy was needed. Indeed, the biggest change since de Gaulle in the sixties faced the nation at a time when strategic priorities were to be weighed down by Gaullist thinking embodied in the costly defence programmes of the past. The Rafale fighter-bomber, the Tiger, and NH-90 helicopters were now part of a weapons programme tied into the concept of highintensity warfare, as were the need for new nuclear submarines and strategic missiles. Future needs would be very different.¹