French military (catch all)

[AdamG]

Mon Dieu

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/2084832/French-army-falling-apart,-documents-show.html

According to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France's Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down.

Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according to documents seen by Le Parisien newspaper.

Two thirds of France's Mirage F1 reconnaissance jets are unusable at present.

*
According to army officials, the precarious state of France's defence equipment almost led to catastrophe in April, when French special forces rescued the passengers and crew of a luxury yacht held by pirates off the Somali coast.

Although ultimately a success, the rescue operation nearly foundered at an early stage, when two of the frigates carrying troops suffered engine failure, and a launch laden with special forces' equipment sunk under its weight.

Later, an Atlantic 2 jet tracking the pirates above Somali territory suffered engine failure and had to make an emergency landing in Yemen.

[Tom Odom]

Well they put a Jaquar into a mountain side while Stan and I were in Goma. There was great discussion of this decline in the late 80s when I was in UNTSO serving with French officers. Looks like it came true

Tom

[Norfolk]

This is what happens when you have to pay for all those hefty pensions for the '68ers.:wry:

[Ken White]

Everything has gotten so expensive that the maintenance and infrastructure costs are killers. Defense procurement generally fails to account for the fact that annual O&M costs are typically 10-20% of purchase price and long term support typically adds 25-35% to the per item cost.

A Viet Nam era camouflage band cost Seven cents; today they're over a buck. The average Joe in an Infantry unit has about $12K worth of gear vs. his 1960s counterpart's $500. An M1A2 costs over $4M, UH-60s are up to around $20M.

Not to mention that each $10.00 per Barrel rise in oil prices costs the USAF about $600M...

The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...:wry:

[Ron Humphrey]

Everything has gotten so expensive that the maintenance and infrastructure costs are killers. Defense procurement generally fails to account for the fact that annual O&M costs are typically 10-20% of purchase price and long term support typically adds 25-35% to the per item cost.

A Viet Nam era camouflage band cost Seven cents; today they're over a buck. The average Joe in an Infantry unit has about $12K worth of gear vs. his 1960s counterpart's $500. An M1A2 costs over $4M, UH-60s are up to around $20M.

Not to mention that each $10.00 per Barrel rise in oil prices costs the USAF about $600M...

The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...:wry:

The military has its own capabilities for building hydro electric dams and purifying water, etc.

MAAYbee OILRIG anyone:confused::wry::eek:

[Fuchs]

The Anti War types will win; soon no one will be able to afford a war...:wry:

Which begs the question; is the material-heavy approach to modern warfare useful?

The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.

[Ken White]

Which begs the question; is the material-heavy approach to modern warfare useful?however, it won't go away. No one is prepared to cede an advantage to others.The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.True, though I'd say much of that material is more over priced than it is actually expensive. Manpower is expensive because the legislatures of the West have made it so -- unintended consequence of trying to be all things to all people (and buy votes...).

No matter. The unemployed 18-25 year olds are a far greater problem that will get worse before it gets better. You'd think people would realize what causes that overpopulation. The fun thing is that the so-called have-nots are reproducing at twice to three times the rate of the more (in their own minds) civilized nations. That, I suspect, is going to provide employment for all that materiel heavy military force...

We live in interesting times... ;)

[sandbag]

I think it still is. Fad logsitics concepts (JIT, et al) that are wildly successful in corporate environments fail when LOCs/LOSs are under fire or don't have the structure set up to make them work. In recent memory, the "Drive to Baghdad," while tactically neat, was not logistically sustainable after the push. Heavy units MTOE organized around the newer, untested support structure had to beg, borrow and steal from "legacy" division wedge units.

Why? Simple: the "Iron Mountain" is effective because it leaves little to chance. Decimating support units in favor of more infantry is a good concept if those units don't actually have to be supported. You make that worse when you strip your "tail" out in the hopes that higher-echelon support units will be there to help, and said units aren't on the battlefield yet.

I'm not a cheerleader for bringing back DESERT STORM-era SUPCOMs or anything like that. That said, I've watched the 82d Busborne in action, and I did not like what I saw.

Which begs the question; is the material-heavy approach to modern warfare useful?

The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.

[Fuchs]

I didn't think so much about force structures and such when I wrote that.
I thought rather about the expectations that we have.

We expect good camps and plenty fire support everywhere.
Our MBTs were not designed with much thought about fuel consumption (I know that even in armor divisions the thirst of the MBTs is a minor problem).
The Truck fleets aren't up to date, old designs (70's designs quite often, French even use some 50's designs) are thirsty by default.
MRAP vehicles are extremely heavy in comparison to their transport performance.
Food is not being purchased in the theatre, but being imported most of the time afaik.

But the most obvious problem is that we expect to be everywhere strong at once, every company in action has as much support as in earlier wars only companies at the centre of gravity.

The expectations are so incredibly high. Operations would be much cheaper, often more agile and certainly less bureaucratic if we would be ready to tolerate some more suboptimal results.

It's a huge topic and I certainly didn't formulate it very well.

[Ken White]

Why? Simple: the "Iron Mountain" is effective because it leaves little to chance.Risk mitigation as TTP? Okay. Mayhap you're looking at the wrong end. Decimating support units in favor of more infantry is a good concept if those units don't actually have to be supported. You make that worse when you strip your "tail" out in the hopes that higher-echelon support units will be there to help, and said units aren't on the battlefield yet.Which brings up two questions; why aren't they there and, more importantly, does that mean the design of units that are on the ground is flawed in that they need (want?) too much 'stuff?' ...That said, I've watched the 82d Busborne in action, and I did not like what I saw.S'okay, most of the bus riders aren't too impressed by the rest of the Army either. :D

[William F. Owen]

Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

The IT and solid state electronics evolution and all it's spin-offs should have created considerable savings, and actually has, in terms of procurement and ownership. Civilian cell phones are far more complex than a lot of military radios, yet cost nothing.

If you want to see true corruption, look at the companies that build Sniper Rifles!! Gold Plated Wheel Chairs!! UAVs cost vastly more than they should, and the list is almost endless.

The problem is how the equipment is procured and how the money is spent.

One day this will all bite us in the ass as folks like Hezbollah and Venezuela can go out and just pay for military capability, and not worry about the budget shell games of the DoD and MoD.

[sandbag]

I'd argue it's not TTP. Rather, it's TTP (and materiel)-driven. Complex systems (and tactics that use them) require more support. We went through a brief infatuation with "FedEx Logistics", which was mercifully killed in 2004. Corporate management principles are fine, but tend to have unforeseen consequences when applied to an army (especially one in a war).

Why weren't high-echelon support units afield? Talk to the planners about that one, but if I remember the traffic correctly, it was as it usually goes: planners weren't really thinking about that sort of thing. Some had drank the 4ID Kool-Aid and went in very light on the support end in the hopes that corps support units were going to magically quark in from the Twilight Zone to keep non-existent LOCs open. Bottom line is that we paid for our post-DS sins from an MTOE standpoint with horrible post Phase III readiness.

So yeah, I would agree that the unit designs are flawed. I don't think they "want" too much. As both a combat arms and a support weasel, I never have considered a desire by a unit for support to be a "want". However, I think complex weapon systems intrinsically require complex support solutions, unless said support solutions are designed as such that the majority of the support is done on a modular basis further back in the field. Most of our systems aren't built like that, and the Army's attempt to "replace forward, repair rear" only works when the systems themselves can support that.

My crack about the Imperial Army only applies to their desert mobility. I've worked with them in combat, and they do fine. They just can't support themselves or move well.

Risk mitigation as TTP? Okay. Mayhap you're looking at the wrong end.Which brings up two questions; why aren't they there and, more importantly, does that mean the design of units that are on the ground is flawed in that they need (want?) too much 'stuff?' S'okay, most of the bus riders aren't too impressed by the rest of the Army either. :D

[marct]

worth pulling out in some detail.

The situation has changed in comparison to the 60's - material is extremely expensive, manpower is expensive - but all Western nations have significant unemployment, including the age group 18-30.

True, though I'd say much of that material is more over priced than it is actually expensive. Manpower is expensive because the legislatures of the West have made it so -- unintended consequence of trying to be all things to all people (and buy votes...).

[quote=William F. Owen;49369]Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

The IT and solid state electronics evolution and all it's spin-offs should have created considerable savings, and actually has, in terms of procurement and ownership. Civilian cell phones are far more complex than a lot of military radios, yet cost nothing.

There's three "problems" here - cost, distribution systems and "unemployment" - but they are actually all related quite strongly.

Let's set the scene first. In any socio-economic system, you have an integrated production, distribution and accounting system (in the broad sense for all of these). All of these components have cross-cutting sub-components of technology (what you use to achieve X), technique (How you achieve X), and measures of valuation (What X is "worth"). If humans were rationally logical, which we aren't despite Adam Smith and his apologists, we would have a priority chain which has technology as the highest value and accounting as the lowest. What we really have is the inverse of that with accounting as the highest and technology as the lowest.

What this value chain does is priorize accounting systems as the primary ordering schema of cultures. So, for example, when a culture uses money as its primary accounting system, technique and technology will take a back end to making money. When a culture uses "honour" as its primary accounting system, technology and technique again are brought into play to support that accounting system. The reasons why this is so is both simple ("status") and highly complex (achieve X result and you will be happy, rewarded, successful, "self-actualized", etc.). In general, cultural accounting systems are the markers cultures use to keep score in ideological games.

Since we happen to live in a culture that valorizes "money" as its accounting system, let's draw that one out. There are a whole slew of different forms of socio-economic systems that valorize "money" as the cultural accounting system but, in the West, ours is tied in to a general evolution from merchantile capitalism through free market / state capitalism to industrial feudalism (which is roughly where we are now in many sectors of the economy). If anyone is interested in the developmental trajectory, read Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (ebook (http://www.ne.jp/asahi/moriyuki/abukuma/weber/world/ethic/pro_eth_frame.html), sparknotes (http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/protestantethic/), Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Protestant-Spirit-Capitalism-Counterpoint-Paperbacks/dp/0415084342)).

The big shift in the past 50 years has been the Third Industrial Revolution (automation, computers and robotics); Wilfs' IT revolution. Between roughly 1910 and 1955 or so, the dominant model was a rational-bureaucratic organization (again after Weber), organized around horizontally and vertically integrated product area silos; the so-called "military-industrial complex" is just one example of this (Sears is another, as is GM). This was a strong form of industrial feudalism that, like most feudal organizations, got the snot kicked out of it by a really highly organized force (specifically, by the Korean and Japanese car industry during the mid- to late 1960's).

The reaction of the North American cultures to this problem was, in many ways, predictable. First, increase centralized government control (governments are "industrial" fiefdoms just the same as any other organization). So we see a rise in social programs to deal with the social dislocation effects of losing massive numbers of economic battles (think about the increase in welfare programs, job retraining programs, etc.). Governments also took over more control of the cultural accounting systems - the social ideologies - while, at the same time, increasingly restricting what ideologies could be talked about in the public arena (compare the political discourse of the early-mid 1930's with that of the early to mid 1970's and you'l see what I mean). Increasingly, these ideologies became more rhetorical and less substantive.

Second, North American cultures searched for the "innovative" answer to their problems. The most obvious ones were in production costs associated with old manufacturing plants and with high cost labour. So, what happens then? Throughout the 1970's and into the 1980's, you see new plants being built with an increasing amount of automation in them employing fewer people. By the 1990's, this is coupled in with a trend to reduce labour costs even further by doing away with high cost North American labour and "exporting" jobs, as Lou Dobbs would say, to third world countries. In order to support this shift, several other shifts were necessary - decreased tariff barriers, increased ability to "import" cheap labour, increased ability to export products, increased capacity for consumers to purchase goods, etc. Note that most of these deal with changes in the distribution system...

At the same time as these changes are going on, there is an increasing trend in the production of personal computers. Computers, of all types, are the sine qua non of setting up and running automation (thereby reducing labour costs). They are also necessary for the implementation of JIT systems (which reduce the logistical tail of corporations and means that capital flows through them faster). They also end up producing a "new" environment for businesses - the Internet.

By 1996 or so (as early as 1982 in some areas and still not yet in others; 1996 is just a marker of convenience), the general social organization has split between rational-bureaucratic industrial fiefdoms with few permanent members and many temporary employees (mercenaries in the true sense), and clusters of fragmented and contingent communities of interest and communities of practice which, on the whole, are organized around a totally different form of cultural organization: reciprocity (vs. the Authority Ranking system of the rational-bureaucratic system and the late industrial feudal groups). In this system, "valuation" (the measure of an accountancy system) is not based on an office held or money (either held individually or controlled by an office) but, rather, on individual skill, knowledge and "trust".

This, in my usual round-about way, comes back to Wilfs' point:

Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

It all depends on what organizational form the equipment and armies are based on. When your accounting system is based on money - control of vast amounts increased your status - then the equipment and armies should be getting more expensive. The potential for cheaper equipment and cheaper armies is definitely there but, on the whole, is mitigated against by the cultural accounting system. When you compare the actual costs of military equipment and "armies" in an honour based system, the Anbar tribes are a good example of this, they are much cheaper. Compare it also with a reciprocity based system, such as AQ, and again, they are much cheaper.

If you want to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of the actual system, then you have to figure out how to change the basic accountancy system. After all, how many bureaucrats get rewarded for coming in under-budget? They don't; they get penalized by having their budgets reduced with the consequent loss of status and power. If you want to see an analog of the current situation in the US, assuming that the accountancy system isn't changed, then I would recommend an examination of the Byzantine Empire during the 1020 - 1040 period; it's not pleasant reading, but it does clearly show what happens when the bureaucratic accountancy system prevails.

[SWJED]

An Army Falling Apart (http://kingsofwar.wordpress.com/2008/06/08/an-army-falling-apart/) - Theo Farrell, Kings of War

Internal documents report the French Army to be on the verge of “falling apart”, according to the Telegraph. Less than half of the army’s Leclerc main battle tanks, and less than 40% of its helicopter fleet, are operational. This gives a new spin on French reluctance to do more of the heavy lifting (i.e., combat operations) in Afghanistan. Here was I putting it down to political reluctance. But perhaps it’s as much a case of “can’t do” as “won’t do”.

I did quite a bit of focus group work with French officers in the Ecole Militaire in Paris last year. This is a true war-fighting military. Years of intervention in Africa have given French officer corps combat experience. And crucially, this is a military itching to get back to war. Especially as their last big punch-up, the 1991 Gulf War, proved to be a bit of an embarrassment: the French only able to deploy a light division that was tasked with guarding the far left flank of the coalition advance into Kuwait. This was in contrast to the British 1st Armoured Division, which joined the US VII Corps assault on the Iraqi armoured reserves and Republican Guard...

[Ken White]

I'd argue it's not TTP. Rather, it's TTP (and materiel)-driven. Complex systems (and tactics that use them) require more support.No question; I was suggesting that the issue might better be those tactics which do indeed drive the materiel requirement. I'm pretty well convinced that war is inherently simple and that we humans have complicated it unnecessarily for a variety of reasons. Not least here in the US are an overweening love of technology for its own sake; a budget process and a Congress that promote jobs in Districts at the expense of truly good training; inherent laziness and the stultifying experience of WWI and WW II which is still very much in evidence; there's more but those will do for openers.

In my experience the most important requirement for the conduct of combat operations (and the preparation therefor...) is agility. That is followed by speed and that by effective firepower; way down the list are net power or mass. A massive force will by definition not be agile and will sacrifice speed for mass. Effective firepower is not the same thing as volume of fire or total firepower. That simple.

That's why I say the TTP factors -- which should be the drivers but are not -- are important. The TTP should drive the support process, yet because of a lack of emphasis and thought we have the support process constraining the TTP. The combat arms senior leadership over the years has failed to focus on that issue so I don't really fault the Loggies. That, BTW, is not to say that I'm living in a dream world, I'm well aware of many current constraints but am suggesting that a number of those could have been ameliorated long ago with the proper focus and resourcing. We elected not to do that for various reasons so we are where we are. Just saying we coulda and shoulda done better...We went through a brief infatuation with "FedEx Logistics", which was mercifully killed in 2004. Corporate management principles are fine, but tend to have unforeseen consequences when applied to an army (especially one in a war).Blame Robert Strange McNamara and his demand data mentality for much of that; he failed to realize that what worked for static Ford dealerships would not work for military forces at war. Subsequent SecDefs with Corporate experience keep looking for a way to reduce the massive inventory required for wartime readiness -- they apparently do not realize that there is little as cost-inefficient as a Rifle company in peacetime...

Problem is that Rifle Companies are like firearms; one rarely need one but when one does, one need it pretty badly.

Still, was the problem that FedEx logistics did not work -- or that the system did not want it to work? I'd suggest the latter and add the caveat that the mechanical elements to make it work did not exist. Further suggest those elements were not wanted by the Powers that be and Congress because they would have sapped funding from 'more important items.' Wonder how many fewer IED casualties there'd be had we delivery systems that were not roadbound? If we had a far lower requirement for Cl III?Why weren't high-echelon support units afield? Talk to the planners about that one, but if I remember the traffic correctly, it was as it usually goes: planners weren't really thinking about that sort of thing.True; no question that post attack thoughts did not intrude on many involved. Some had drank the 4ID Kool-Aid and went in very light on the support end in the hopes that corps support units were going to magically quark in from the Twilight Zone to keep non-existent LOCs open. Bottom line is that we paid for our post-DS sins from an MTOE standpoint with horrible post Phase III readiness.I think there was also a strong belief (on the part of many who should've known better) that it was going to be a quick in and out operation. In any event, whoever played with the TPFD erred mightily.So yeah, I would agree that the unit designs are flawed. I don't think they "want" too much. As both a combat arms and a support weasel, I never have considered a desire by a unit for support to be a "want". However, I think complex weapon systems intrinsically require complex support solutions, unless said support solutions are designed as such that the majority of the support is done on a modular basis further back in the field. Most of our systems aren't built like that, and the Army's attempt to "replace forward, repair rear" only works when the systems themselves can support that.Agreed -- I am merely suggesting that:

(a) They should be so designed; that we have really known that since Korea; and that we have diligently refused to do that for less than pragmatic reasons.

(b) We are fully capable of doing that but the bureaucracy would and will not be served if we do, ergo we likely will not unless placed in an existential situation.

(c) DOPMA and HRC are part of that problem...My crack about the Imperial Army only applies to their desert mobility. I've worked with them in combat, and they do fine. They just can't support themselves or move well.True, design factors again plus the aforementioned failure to design materiel to minimize support requirements. They can get by without an amazing amount of support if they have to and still be more than dangerous but most of the folks there are just as used to the status quo as the rest of the Army so they want their share. They can move better than most Infantry on foot but they're still on foot; the Hittites discovered that foot troops weren't ideal in the Desert over 16 centuries ago. METT-TC applies... :D

They are quite capable in both realms at what they were designed for (if a little over heavy on vehicles ;) ), when METT-TC factors are ignored no unit does all that well.

[Ken White]

...the so-called "military-industrial complex" is just one example of this (Sears is another, as is GM). This was a strong form of industrial feudalism that, like most feudal organizations, got the snot kicked out of it by a really highly organized force (specifically, by the Korean and Japanese car industry during the mid- to late 1960's).Sad thing is that neither the Mil-Ind complex or US car makers seem to have learned a lesson...The reaction of the North American cultures to this problem was, in many ways, predictable. ... Increasingly, these ideologies became more rhetorical and less substantive.Again ignoring history -- and reality......In this system, "valuation" (the measure of an accountancy system) is not based on an office held or money (either held individually or controlled by an office) but, rather, on individual skill, knowledge and "trust".With '"trust" being a relative term more often equal to 'known and can be dominated...' :( ...The potential for cheaper equipment and cheaper armies is definitely there but, on the whole, is mitigated against by the cultural accounting system...

If you want to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of the actual system, then you have to figure out how to change the basic accountancy system. After all, how many bureaucrats get rewarded for coming in under-budget? They don't; they get penalized by having their budgets reduced with the consequent loss of status and power. If you want to see an analog of the current situation in the US, assuming that the accountancy system isn't changed, then I would recommend an examination of the Byzantine Empire during the 1020 - 1040 period; it's not pleasant reading, but it does clearly show what happens when the bureaucratic accountancy system prevails.Well said on all counts. Has the problem of being distressingly on target but... :wry:

[Ken White]

Actually, military equipment SHOULD be getting cheaper, and so should armies.

If you want to see true corruption, look at the companies that build Sniper Rifles!!...The Sako TRG 22/42 are more than good enough for virtually all purposes and are the cheapest in their respective calibers out there by far.

Hardware procurement has really gotten to be a con game. Reminds me of Ernie King during WW II -- FDR told him to buy what he needed and he took that as a license to steal and bought more ships and stuff for the USN than we could have ever manned. Thus setting the USN on course to keep buying more and more...

(NOTE to Squids; no attack, the first part is historical fact, the second is the way the game is played today. Not the Navy's fault)

[AdamG]

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20080609/tts-weapons-military-research-c1b2fc3.html

AFP - Tuesday, June 10 <- AFP. Qu'elle surprise

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - - World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade, with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditure, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT

Military spending grew six percent last year alone, according to SIPRI's annual report.

*

The United States spends by far the most towards military aims, dishing out 547 billion dollars last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure.

Britain, China, France and Japan, the next in line of big spenders, lag far behind, accounting for just four to five percent of world military costs each.

[Fuchs]

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/moseley-gates-w.html#more

... I believe the services have to be able to do everything — across the entire spectrum of conflict. We have got to be able to fight a counterinsurgency, an irregular war scenario, all the way up to the high-end theater. And we have to be able to do that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You don’t get to pick when and where you do this. You have to be able to do it on a global scale. . ...

That's what I call cost-riving ambitions.
He had the ambition to be able to do everything, decade after decade, everywhere. That's madness!

Such an attitude - if funded - ruins any state in the long run.

[Ken White]

...He had the ambition to be able to do everything, decade after decade, everywhere. That's madness!We've had that requirement effectively since the 50s; we've done it well on occasion but got over-focused in one direction in the 80s. It's neither that hard nor need it be that expensive.Such an attitude - if funded - ruins any state in the long run.Possibly true but certainly arguable with definition or length of "long run" being key. In any event, no democracy including us is likely to fund it fully. Nor, in this day and age will a large force be able to attract enough recruits to do it on a total force basis.

The key is to tailor the force with some elements specialized for the various spectrums of combat and all able with some retraining to adapt to another spectrum. That is not that difficult and I'd argue that the bulk of the US Army and the USMC really did that pretty well from the late 50s until the mid 60s (Viet Nam was a distraction). After Viet Nam, the Army set out to try to produce a 'doctrine' that would focus on one type of war and convinced themselves to hew to that as a means to affect national policy. That didn't work too well...

Problem with that solution is the opposition will aim for your weak spot. As we have seen.

Solution is to have a force that is affordable, able to recruit in adequate numbers and that has elements that specialize in each potential spectrum in order to provide an instant initial deployment to the contingency capability followed by rapid trainup of those folks that were focused elsewhere later deploy to the current contingency.

As I said, it's been done before -- and we're supposed to be smarter and better educated now than we were then. I firmly believe most units I've seen in many nations armies are capable of doing a lot more than the systems expect them to do.

[Fuchs]

An aggressor can prepare for war in few years and be ready for just a short period - this is much more efficient and affordable than to be ready all the time.

I prefer another approach to keep such aggressors at bay.
I'd prefer if we kept the know-how, developed equipment that can quickly be produced in great quantity, were alert with a moderate force and budget and ready to expand quickly.
Meanwhile, arms control treaties can keep costs down for everyone at conventional war crisis hot spots and alliance frontiers.
This is to some degree what some European countries do, albeit they fail at preparing seriously for the expansion phase.

The typical response to such a strategy proposal is the assertion that the world would run amok without the almighty U.S. military as policeman in the background.

Well, that's a very questionable assumption. We've seen most ground combat power of the U.S. committed to a war and its other ground forces being quite occupied with other than conventional war preparations.
I don't remember any country being invaded in the meantime (except Somalia by Ethiopia - which was obviously ENCOURAGED by the supposed policeman).

This suggests that almost the entire ground forces of the U.S. were not necessary to deter any aggressions at the very least during the past years.
Instead, they were used for the only major aggression in the past years.


I guess this should be debated somewhere else, as the French don't really seem to follow such a "prepared for everything" approach as their ground forces are not well-prepared for a major conventional war.

Has anybody statistics about the French 'defence' budget? Shares of personnel, equipment, operations and other costs?
Their insistence to develop many systems indigenously from usually just one company without competition might have contributed some inefficiencies.

[Ken White]

An aggressor can prepare for war in few years and be ready for just a short period - this is much more efficient and affordable than to be ready all the time.Depends on how well you want your people trained. Your solution may be more efficient but is highly unlikely to provide a particularly effective force.I prefer another approach to keep such aggressors at bay. I'd prefer if we kept the know-how, developed equipment that can quickly be produced in great quantity, were alert with a moderate force and budget and ready to expand quickly. Meanwhile, arms control treaties can keep costs down for everyone at conventional war crisis hot spots and alliance frontiers.This is to some degree what some European countries do, albeit they fail at preparing seriously for the expansion phase.Among other things...

How's that keeping frontiers calm working out in the Balkans...The typical response to such a strategy proposal is the assertion that the world would run amok without the almighty U.S. military as policeman in the background.Typical response from whom? Not likely to be the response of anyone on this board and certainly not from me. Need to watch those standing broad jumps at erroneous conclusions, they can lead to sprains. I would, however, note that my favorite cartoon from The Economist was the one about ten or so years ago where the little European was standing outside his house obviously on his way to work and talking to his wife as the house next door labeled Bosnia was burning and filled with carnage. He said to his wife "Ask the Americans what they intend doing about this."Well, that's a very questionable assumption. I agree, yours was a questionable assumption.We've seen most ground combat power of the U.S. committed to a war and its other ground forces being quite occupied with other than conventional war preparations. I don't remember any country being invaded in the meantime (except Somalia by Ethiopia - which was obviously ENCOURAGED by the supposed policeman).Okay, I agree -- what's your point?This suggests that almost the entire ground forces of the U.S. were not necessary to deter any aggressions at the very least during the past years.Or it could suggest the the total Armed forces of the US were highly successful in deterring aggression worldwide. Other than in Africa; we tend to leave Africa to all you former colony owners. How you folks doing down there?Instead, they were used for the only major aggression in the past years.Yep. Two 'aggressions,' Afghanistan in response to an attack on US soil and Iraq in response to many provocations over the years from the ME. Iraq wasn't totally innocent but they really just happened to be geographically central in the ME. That in response to 22 years of probes and attacks on US interests around the world from various state and non-state actors in the ME; we virtually ignored most of those to little avail, they just kept coming -- so our aggression was simply notification that we would accept no more and a belated response to extended provocations. I blame four previous Presidents for not properly responding but they did that in an effort to be nice guys. Futile effort. Little we do will ever satisfy most in the world. So yes, we got aggressive -- probably would not have had some student pilots not failed in getting to near stalls and run into buildings with their aluminum birds...

Nope, little we do will ever satisfy a good many in the world. Until they want something...I guess this should be debated somewhere elseTrue. Nothing really to debate. We can differ.as the French don't really seem to follow such a "prepared for everything" approach as their ground forces are not well-prepared for a major conventional war.Not just the French, that's essentially true of all nations -- because that is the hardest and most expensive thing to prepare for ergo, it gets lip service or the minimum necessary to maintain the capacity to expand -- which is essentially what I suggested before you got all political. It's also what you suggested but you don't want to do anything else. Not sure you'll have that luxury. Apparently, the Bundeswehr isn't at all sure on that score either...

[Fuchs]

Pm

[Tacitus]

The rapid rise in fuel prices has resulted in the French navy cancelling 3 summer missions. Sacre Bleu!

Read all about it here, as well as other places, I'm sure.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/06/09/europe/EU-GEN-France-Navy-Fuel.php

Fuchs may have a point about the cost of war (or at least as Western nations are set up to fight) becoming so excessive as to make it almost prohibitive for some to attempt it. At least unless it is an existential conflict.

[SWJED]

France's Livre Blanc (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2008/06/frances-livre-blanc/)

By Judah Grunstein - Cross-posted at Small Wars Journal and World Politics Review

France's Livre Blanc was finally released today (French version here and here, parts 1&2, both .pdf), and the only real shock is seeing in print what's basically trickled out in leaks and declarations over the past few months. It's a very well-written document, coherently argued and convincingly articulated. As expected, counterterrorism and the integration of defense with homeland security play a prominent role, with an emphasis on developing intelligence capacity, both human and satellite-based, in the context of a newly added Anticipation component. There's also a significant reduction of the French armed forces, from a total of 271,000 to 225,000 by 2015 (Army 131k, Navy 44k, Air Force 50k), mainly from the administrative back office, but which will necessitate politically unpopular base closings.

But the real story to my eyes is the prominence of Asia as a strategic focus of interest, which surprised me even after having already called attention to it in last week's series. The document doesn't make a case for intervention so much as careful management, calling for the West to take a greater interest in stabilization of region. It makes mention of the continent's three nuclear powers, three major unresolved crises (Korean Peninsula, Taiwan Straits and Kashmir), and the lack of any real regional, multilateral security instrument...

[Jedburgh]

France's Livre Blanc was finally released today (French version here and here, parts 1&2, both .pdf)
Here's the English version: French White Paper on Defence and National Security (http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/Dossier_de_presse_LBlanc_DSN_en_anglais.pdf)

[AdamG]

PARIS (AP) — France's military will slash its ranks by 54,000 personnel and close dozens of air, army and other bases in an overhaul meant to slim forces at home while making it easier and faster to deploy troops abroad, the prime minister announced Thursday.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the 15 percent cut in manpower and base closings will save billions of dollars but still permit an agile military suited to the country's security needs.

Like other European countries, France is grappling with aging military equipment and budget constraints while facing new threats such as terrorism.

Fillon said the military units and bases slated for closure are "ones that are no longer adapted to today's threats."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jXSKVHJNIfnO_iMaiGT6AL_XwUvQD924EOUG1

[Rifleman]

PARIS (AP) — France's military will slash its ranks by 54,000 personnel and close dozens of air, army and other bases in an overhaul meant to slim forces at home while making it easier and faster to deploy troops abroad, the prime minister announced Thursday.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the 15 percent cut in manpower and base closings will save billions of dollars but still permit an agile military suited to the country's security needs.

Like other European countries, France is grappling with aging military equipment and budget constraints while facing new threats such as terrorism.

Fillon said the military units and bases slated for closure are "ones that are no longer adapted to today's threats."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jXSKVHJNIfnO_iMaiGT6AL_XwUvQD924EOUG1

Let me guess. The end result will be.....Viva la Legion!

[AdamG]

Let me guess. The end result will be.....Viva la Legion!

Or more Franco-PMCs. :wry:

[davidbfpo]

Not solely a French problem, but IISS in comparing defence spending have a pie chart of defence spending, which shows that Western Europe spends 55% and the USA 20% on personnel. Point to ponder.

davidbfpo

[jmm99]

See in this same section, France's Livre Blanc

http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showthread.php?t=5591

for the French policy and strategy behind this RIF.

You have choice of French or English.

Maybe it will work - if the French public allows deadwood to be removed. Last time that happened was the 1789 Revolution (just joking).

Vive la Legion - non !

Vive le 1er régiment d'infanterie de marine !

http://www.defense.gouv.fr/terre/decouverte/presentation/composantes/troupes_de_marine/1er_regiment_d_infanterie_de_marine

See the little guy in the avatar (left) cheering his regiment. Non ? No imagination.

[Distiller]

Thing is, that against the three or four potential "real" global enemies a war has become impossible, thanks to the nukes. What stays are second- and third-rate enemies and proxy wars. If after the end of the Cold War we've seen the big failure to adapt, it is caused by (i) the absence of a worthy enemy, and (ii) the inability of the political leadership to reshape the forces. (Economy and budgets might well do it for them in the next couple of years).

It is the dark side of the American Empire that from the very beginning it relied much more on armed actions than, say, the British Empire. Once you start to live by the sword...
As long as a war with China is seen as a possibility and a justification for the current force levels, costs will not go down.
If that Chinese war were ruled out, forces could easily be cut two thirds. And in the case of the Euro-Armies - they are, as is the whole continent, just fossilized and do not exist for any other reason than that they were always there.


Somebody mentioned something along the lines of minimal forces, but designed to be expanded in case of war. Total mobilisation it's called I guess.
I have my doubts - with things moving as slowly as they do these days. I doubt that you could churn out F-22s as fast as P-51s, even with a "total war" economy.
Prolonged war is dead, at least between nuclear armed powers. Short spurts of violence yes. But for that you just have to work with what's at hand; sometimes maybe with what's in theatre for the lack of time to re-enforce.

[Fuchs]

Food for thought:

Civilians and military experts expected in 1919-1938 that the next major European war (if there would be any) would be all about poison gas warfare. Poison gas bombing against civilians, millions of civilian deaths...and Germany was militarily impotent at that time, till about 1937 at the very least.

(Almost) no poison gas was used in WW2.



I believe that this "there will be no war between nuclear powers" is ideology.
A (kind of) war between nuclear powers on the terrain of a third nation already happened; Russian fighter pilots flew over Korea and fought against U.S. fighter pilots. The intensity of this was greater than the Kosovo Air War.

Never say never, you'll be caught unprepared if you do.

The threat of nuclear arms didn't make us save our conventional forces in the Cold War, why should that be a good idea today?

Our potential challengers are just not ready to strike us within few years, but it might happen in 5-10 years.


That's why the ability to expand military power quickly and launch that project with little lag is so important.

[Ken White]

Never say never, you'll be caught unprepared if you do.

The threat of nuclear arms didn't make us save our conventional forces in the Cold War, why should that be a good idea today?Good comment and good question.

[Distiller]

Food for thought:

...

I believe that this "there will be no war between nuclear powers" is ideology.
A (kind of) war between nuclear powers on the terrain of a third nation already happened; Russian fighter pilots flew over Korea and fought against U.S. fighter pilots. The intensity of this was greater than the Kosovo Air War.

Never say never, you'll be caught unprepared if you do.

The threat of nuclear arms didn't make us save our conventional forces in the Cold War, why should that be a good idea today?

Our potential challengers are just not ready to strike us within few years, but it might happen in 5-10 years.


That's why the ability to expand military power quickly and launch that project with little lag is so important.


Korea is a bad example. I wouldn't speak of "nuclear powers" till about the late 1960's. But that's not the point.

You're German, right? Clausewitz talked about war as "die Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln". You have to ask: what could be so drastic as to cause a direct war among the 3-4 major powers? And: what could realisticly be achieved by such a war? I'm about the opposite of a peacenik, but I fail to come up with an answer.

And the argument with WW1 and 2 is flawed, since there was no qualitative leap ahead in "Bedrohungspotential" during the 1920's and 30's. Despite airpower and Panzerwaffe - just new toys.

The ability to annihilate whole chunks of land by automated systems (from about the late 1960's) was such a qualitative leap in Bedrohungspotential. And that leap made old lessons at least suspect. As long as MAD works between the major powers, conventional forces play only third fiddle.

Did conventional forces change anything during the Cold War? Tactical nukes would just have made them chared skeletons. And it was the nuclear options that kept Ivan from sunbathing on La Côte d'Argent, not the NATO Panzer Divisions.

[Fuchs]

Hitler knew that at least his chemists had developed the first nerve gas.
The threat was increased by increased payload & range of bombers and their assumed ability to always reach their target.

I know some factors that make a war between nuclear powers on a third nation's soil more likely than you seem to believe.

Geography:
Georgia, Ukraine, Taiwan, arctic - ideally suited for the scenario

Deterrence:
The belief that a war could end mankind is gone. Exactly because the conflict level is less than all-out preparation for WW3. We wouldn't assume that the Russians use nukes immediately if we came into conflict with them on 3rd party soil, for example.
The aging and increasingly worn-out Western equipment inventories pose a lesser deterrence as time goes by.

Alliances:
NATO continues to exist for convenience. European politicians don't want to play alliance games as in 19th century, but focus on other topics.
The WEU is actually a sufficient defensive alliance for Europe's security.

NATO might fall apart if the foreign policy of the USA remains so alien to the European's ideas of a responsible and good policy. The USA hasn't enhanced, but degraded their European allies' national security in the past ten years.
The Eastern European an British friends would have to side with the close European core nations when NATO falls apart, leaving the USA basically only Australia, Turkey and at least for air defense also Canada as allies.
This could happen in less than five years.


I really don't know why European powers degrade their forces to expedition forces voluntarily.
A collective defense based on assumptions and memories of a past time doesn't seem to be very solid.

[Ken White]

...I really don't know why European powers degrade their forces to expedition forces voluntarily.
A collective defense based on assumptions and memories of a past time doesn't seem to be very solid.you don't -- or they could just have opinions that differ from yours. Either way, everyone from the Albanians to even the normally and nominally neutral Swedes and Swiss and to include your own country are doing just that. So they're all wrong and you're correct?

Same thing holds true for the collective defense based on the past; while the EU bureaucracy and a couple of nations seem to agree with you on the surface, most of the rest of Europe does not...

[Fuchs]

The political dynamics even of a parliamentary democracy don't necessarily yield the correct actions.
They even don't necessarily follow the people's will.
The German government's stance to Afghanistan is consistently against a majority of the Germans population, for example.

Granted, lots of governments thinking differently than me is a reason to question my stance.
A dozen influential German politicians who coin our foreign and defense policy standing against a 55-80% majority of their 82 million citizens is a reason to question their stance as well.
So I'm not really alone or part of a minority.

Back to the dynamics; the German military ops "out-of-area" (outside of NATO territory) have not benefited the nation visibly.
The appearance (and the speak) of our responsible politicians hints very much into the direction that they PLAY with the Bundeswehr, as an asset to use in foreign policy games just like we used money in earlier times.
Inf act, our military missions overseas have degraded our national security by adding foes and have cost a lot of money and military readiness.

And then there's the small detail that I assume to have a better general and military history knowledge than most if not all the top 20 politicians who define that policy (some of which were never in armed forces, none of them has officially studied history afaik - so they have no professional background superiority concerning this, just briefings).

Finally, some of our military missions overseas were ordered by Scharping, a douchebag who has been exposed to be a liar since then and who fell into deep disgrace. He's now denying doping troubles in the doping-infested national bicycle association that he leads now.


France has a history of small expeditions and many befriended African nations that depend on this kind of assistance to keep their defense expenditure bearable. They have the expeditionary capability and there's no real need to expand that imho.

[Ken White]

The political dynamics even of a parliamentary democracy don't necessarily yield the correct actions. They even don't necessarily follow the people's will.True of course, though I'd suggest the latter is probably generally a good thing; people can be unduly selfish -- and fickle.The German government's stance to Afghanistan is consistently against a majority of the Germans population, for example.Which may be a case of good leadership overcoming a little selfishness...Back to the dynamics; the German military ops "out-of-area" (outside of NATO territory) have not benefited the nation visibly.I don't think benefit to Germany is why you have troops in Afghanistan. It certainly is of little to no benefit to the US to have troops there or in Iraq. Maybe there's another reason? Maybe they think it's necessary for the good of Afghanistan...The appearance (and the speak) of our responsible politicians hints very much into the direction that they PLAY with the Bundeswehr, as an asset to use in foreign policy games just like we used money in earlier times.I think that's why most nations have forces larger than necessary for a mobilization base in times of apparent peace.Inf act, our military missions overseas have degraded our national security by adding foes and have cost a lot of money and military readiness.Isn't that a shame -- try to do good and suffer for it. We know the feeling, we hate it when that happens -- but we've gotten used to it. You probably will also. Don't lose too much sleep over the foes; we've got tons of 'em.And then there's the small detail that I assume to have a better general and military history knowledge than most if not all the top 20 politicians who define that policy (some of which were never in armed forces, none of them has officially studied history afaik - so they have no professional background superiority concerning this, just briefings).Does your alleged superiority in this regard extend to all their advisers? Do those briefings tell them things you aren't privy to? Do they make decisions based on different criteria than you would use?France has a history of small expeditions and many befriended African nations that depend on this kind of assistance to keep their defense expenditure bearable. They have the expeditionary capability and there's no real need to expand that imho.True, and the British have a colonial legacy to worry about and deploy for. OTOH, you'd think the Danes and the Swedes have been out of the colonial business long enough not to bother but they're into it also. And the Dutch -- the Poles; the list goes on... :D

[Fuchs]

The Dutch and Danes have so little troubles ... life as government would be boring without overseas adventures, I guess.
The Poles clearly do it for bargaining.

There ARE reasons for those missions, I just don't approve them.

And as a proponent of more basic and less parliamentary democracy: The Swiss do very fine with it. The fears about it were proved to be wrong on many occasions.
Anyway - a citizen majority against the mission in Afghanistan impresses me more than the generally despised "Germany is being defended at the Hindukusch" of former defence minister Struck.

The whole expeditionary stuff would be less worrying if we had demonstrated the ability to deploy at least one of our three divisions fully to the new Eastern NATO border on short notice and sustain it during some weeks of exercises.
Such basic collective defense skills were afaik never demonstrated.

[TT]

Ken White posted: Maybe they either know something
________________________________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuchs
...I really don't know why European powers degrade their forces to expedition forces voluntarily.
A collective defense based on assumptions and memories of a past time doesn't seem to be very solid.
you don't -- or they could just have opinions that differ from yours. Either way, everyone from the Albanians to even the normally and nominally neutral Swedes and Swiss and to include your own country are doing just that.

Fuchs, allow me to take a short stab at answering your question, for as Ken rightly notes, ‘everyone is doing it’. I have had the good fortune to lead a team of researchers that looked at seven European states with respect to ‘transformation’ (something else they are all ‘doing’) – specifically, the focus was on expeditionary warfare, EBAO, and Network-enabled operations (closest to the US Network Centric Warfare) -- and the answer to why depends on the state in question, and usually there are several reasons.

A common reason across the seven states was the changing security environment – European military organizations recognize that the prospect of an armed invasion of Europe by a hostile state military a la the cold war is currently very remote and that what their governments had been tasking them to do, through the 1990s and into the 2000s to the present, is what are in essence expeditionary operations (ranging from war fighting through to humanitarian relief) which they were not very well configured to undertake. Thus there was a perceived need to develop the capabilities to be deployable and usable. In some cases there is evidence that some were at least in part driven to undertake the shift to being more expeditionary by the national military organization’s perception that they needed to be seen by their governments as being deployable and employable, or, to put it another way, politically usable/useful if you will. Worth noting that in some cases the mil orgs themselves took the lead and in other cases the political leadership at least pointed them towards expeditionary operations.

This last points to a second driver, which is that if the mil orgs in question continued to focus on defending their or NATO’s borders absent a clear and present threat then, then they ran the real risk of their governments starting to cut funding even more than they have already. Very much related to this is that undertaking change to become more expeditionary confers ‘legitimacy’ on the organizations, confers the perception that they are a modern military like other military organizations (in other words, other mil orgs are doing it, so they need to do it) - for both internal and external purposes. So important to why they are making this change is budget share (or maybe just retaining budget share), which legitimacy helps with this internally but legitimacy as well helps externally in term of the perception of fellow and/or allied military organizations (professional respect - and yes, self respect plays here). And yes, as noted already, in part the external legitimacy issue is with respect to NATO (and the US).

And third, and related to the first, for some states all current and recent operations are NATO ‘out of area’. In short, operational experience has forced them to identify a need to become more expeditionary capable (this is probably particularly true of states such as Poland, which only in the last year or two has started to undertake ‘transformation’).

That noted, this does not mean that the various national militaries are all on the same path – some are farther along to becoming more expeditionary capable than others. Moreover, in some cases, while the 'narrative of change' is that they are becoming more expeditionary capable, in practice the changes (org, procurement) suggest otherwise – in other words, they more ‘talk the talk than walk the walk’ (so the narrative confers internal and external legitimacy). Finally, this also does not mean that the changes being undertaken are necessarily the most appropriate changes (whether this be doctrine/concepts, procurement, organizational structural change) - but this is another discussion.

Oops, not so short……:wry:

[Fuchs]

From a historical point of view, the "remote" possibility isn't so awfully remote.

Recall the situation of France in 1928, for example.
Twelve years later they were weakened by a world economic crisis, overrun by a power that was marginal till 1935 and would probably have been overrun few years later by just another power (USSR) that was an equally "remote" threat in 1928.

And then there's an ethical problem.
How dare we to accept new NATO members if we aren't willing to think seriously about how to protect them?
Instead, some are expecting them to provide expeditionary forces for some distant adventures that have no advantageous effect for their national security.
Isn't that unethical?

Disclaimer:
I'm not all against small wars. I've got strict criteria, though. It would be much easier to convince me to intervene in Biafra, Rwanda & Darfur scenarios for a couple of months than to send a FFG for a pointless multi-year patrol off the Lebanese coast or some infantry with APCs to Afghanistan.

[Ken White]

...I'm not all against small wars. I've got strict criteria, though. It would be much easier to convince me to intervene in Biafra, Rwanda & Darfur scenarios for a couple of months than to send a FFG for a pointless multi-year patrol off the Lebanese coast or some infantry with APCs to Afghanistan.Given your often stated rationale for the use of force best being applied only to issues of national survival?

While those above named operations you would support would be of beneficial humanitarian impact their continuance poses no threat to Europe while the two you do not support can arguably have an adverse impact on Europe, probably not to an existential level but certainly to an increased terrorism and dissent level.

Priorities...:wry:

[Fuchs]

Given your often stated rationale for the use of force best being applied only to issues of national survival?

While those above named operations you would support would be of beneficial humanitarian impact their continuance poses no threat to Europe while the two you do not support can arguably have an adverse impact on Europe, probably not to an existential level but certainly to an increased terrorism and dissent level.

Priorities...:wry:

I believe I discussed Afghanistan in detail somewhere in this forum. I see no useful contribution to national security in contributing to that civil war.


Actually, I wrote a rule set for application of military power and alliances long ago and checked it against many historical cases - and was satisfied to have fixed my own compass for such affairs.
It had/has two sufficient justifications for warfare;
- a promising attempt to protect th own national security (possibly enlarged to collective defense of the sovereignty of all members of an alliance)
- (non-obligatory) intervention against genocide (not violent ethnic cleansing) for ethical reasons

That's just a personal rule set and nobody needs to agree with it - but I can guarantee that I am consistent in my stance towards the question "war or not war". It's just not a very obvious and simple rule set that could be understood by fragmentary observation of symptoms.

[Ken White]

I believe I discussed Afghanistan in detail somewhere in this forum. I see no useful contribution to national security in contributing to that civil war.by any reasonable definition -- are a part of the effort to dissuade some Islamist fundamentalists from violence. If you believe Germany has no interest in deterring that for long term benefit, I'd suggest you may be in error. If, OTOH, you believe there's a better way to go about that dissuasion, that's a different matter but it appears that the folks in Berlin have opted for that approach -- even if many Germans disagree.Actually, I wrote a rule set for application of military power and alliances long ago and checked it against many historical cases - and was satisfied to have fixed my own compass for such affairs.
It had/has two sufficient justifications for warfare;
- a promising attempt to protect th own national security (possibly enlarged to collective defense of the sovereignty of all members of an alliance)
- (non-obligatory) intervention against genocide (not violent ethnic cleansing) for ethical reasons

That's just a personal rule set and nobody needs to agree with it - but I can guarantee that I am consistent in my stance towards the question "war or not war". It's just not a very obvious and simple rule set that could be understood by fragmentary observation of symptoms.All well and good. As long as you realize it is a personal rule set and allow others to disagree in good faith, no one should complain.

I'd simply suggest that anyone disagreeing with you is not necessarily stupid or immoral; they might just have arrived at different and perfectly acceptable conclusions from the same or similar facts.

You might consider that a change in circumstances you have not foreseen may cause you to add a reason or two -- and that economic, military or political reality may cause others to ignore your rules. You're entitled to your rules and others are just as entitled to theirs. All of us should be able to accept differing ideas without implying anyone who doesn't agree with our ideas is dangerously ignorant.

[TT]

Fuchs Posted: From a historical point of view, the "remote" possibility isn't so awfully remote.

'Remote' is relative concept. I doubt anyone thinks an invasion or threat thereof is impossible. But, remember, in the late 1990s and early part of this decade the only plausible threat was Russia, and even today, ten years on, Russia while certainly making a lot of noise is not an enemy. Ten years from now, who knows.

Fuchs posted: And then there's an ethical problem.
How dare we to accept new NATO members if we aren't willing to think seriously about how to protect them?
Instead, some are expecting them to provide expeditionary forces for some distant adventures that have no advantageous effect for their national security.
Isn't that unethical?

I agree that NATO, or rather most of NATO's member military orgs are not well suited to defending the Alliance's eastern borders unless they were to be forward deployed to these allies territories.

But NATO currently is not willing to forward deploy forces on the scale and scope needed to posture a real defense them, in part as there is no obvious major threat of invasion and in part (and possibly in larger part) as NATO does not want to aggravate relations with Russia, which would see major NATO forces forward deployed into East and Central Europe as threatening.

So, how is NATO to support them should some lesser contingency arise? - particularly if most NATO forces currently are not particularly deployable and employable at any reasonable distance in a reasonable time frame. In short, in the current environment developing expeditionary capable forces - deployable, sustainable, combat capable forces (or forces for lesser contingencies) - actually will provide NATOs member states with the means to support their eastern allies should the need ever arise (this applies particularly to ground forces, for air forces can be surged forward more readily).

If Russia should start to emerge down the road as a serious renewed threat, NATO can revisit its decision not to forward deploy member military forces to its new allies' territories.

[Rex Brynen]

France ends four-decade Nato rift (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7937666.stm)

BBC News
17:31 GMT, Wednesday, 11 March 2009

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has announced his country is to return to Nato's military command, reversing four decades of self-imposed exile.
Mr Sarkozy confirmed the decision in a speech to defence experts at the Ecole Militaire staff college in Paris.

President Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of Nato's integrated military command in 1966, saying it undermined France's sovereignty.

[Tom Odom]

France ends four-decade Nato rift (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7937666.stm)

BBC News
17:31 GMT, Wednesday, 11 March 2009

DeGaulle is flipping like a pancake....:eek:

Critics say France will now be no more than "a clone of Great Britain".

But Mr Sarkozy said there was no sense in France - a founder member of Nato - having no say in the organisation's decisions on military strategy.

La France a clone of dee Eeenglish?! Non! Non!:D

Best
Tom

[jmm99]

Zarkozy's Socialist opponent had this to say (from the OP link; bold added by JMM):

"Nothing today justifies returning to Nato military command," said the leader of the opposition Socialists, Martine Aubry.

"There's no hurry, no fundamental need, except for this Atlanticism that's becoming an ideology."

"Atlanticism" is not a term used much here. Two older, background articles are here (http://www.streitcouncil.org/content/pdf_and_doc/Journal%20SC%20Fall%202007%20Straus.pdf) and here (http://www.streitcouncil.org/content/pdf_and_doc/freedom_union_fall_08/01_intro_balladur_sarkozy.pdf). Our old buddy, Dominique de Villepin (http://www.economist.com/blogs/certainideasofeurope/2008/04/the_perils_of_atlanticism.cfm), has also criticized Zarkozy's "Atlanticism".

I have a hard time seeing a "North Atlantic Union" - from a US perspective; but the Atlantic Rim countries do have common interests. So, a NATO and a SATO (bringing in the southern countries along the lake) would be a possibility for the future - leading to an ATO ?

Just a wild, futuristic thought on what is here a sunny day. :)

[davidbfpo]

Now France is to return to the military structures so carefully created and managed since 1966, oh yes plus the new members - where will the French actually sit? An extra chair at the conference table, easy. Placing French officers back in command posts, IMHO is a lot more difficult. For example will Germany and the UK relinquish their spots? Dep. SACEUR for example.

Can anyone recall which posts the French held before leaving?

I welcome the French return for a host of reasons and it will IMHO slow down the EU becoming a super-state (a debate that lingers on in Europe).

davidbfpo

[Van]

Will France returning to the NATO command structure fix problems or create problems? Or both, and in what ratios? Over what time frame; 1 year, 5 years, 10 years?

Given France's historical behavior towards collaboration (with allies), the French conduct during SFOR, IFOR, and the Kosovo campaign, their relationship with Iraq between 1992 and 2002, and that I have personally heard French officers state that France is the logical counterweight to U.S. global power and influence, my assessment is that this will be immediately disruptive and in the long run detrimental to NATO.

Within the U.S., there are vocal factions that think that France is incapable of error, so, of course, it could get some of the further Left folks reconsidering NATO or their attitudes about France. This is an interesting dynamic, and could be disruptive in PoliSci departments through American academia. So there is an upside.

How will Russia view this? The Soviet Union and later Russia always viewed NATO as an explicit threat because of the claim that it was a defensive alliance*, and that NATO's purpose is attack was proven in the Balkans, when NATO attacked and occupied (from their perspective) Slavic territory. France coming back into the C2 structure will be viewed as an explicit threat.

And the EU... Threatening Russia is bad juju for the EU, and putting 600 years of mostly ugly history back into NATO will also be disruptive. Thinking about it like this, I am getting less clear on what France's true objective is...

I'm bringing popcorn, this should be a good show.

*To Russian thinking, 'defense' is striking before you can be struck, and crushing your enemy's will to fight, not building a wall. Every time we said 'defensive', they heard something very different.

[George L. Singleton]

France ends four-decade Nato rift (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7937666.stm)

BBC News
17:31 GMT, Wednesday, 11 March 2009

A historic overview: As a 2nd and lst Lt. based out of Pakistan I made several R&R trips (my tour of duty was two years in then West Pakistan) landing at either Chatereau or Everoux, both then being US Air Bases in our then NATO ally nation of France. DeGaulle's blatant dislike of America (Johnson was then President) did not carry down to the ordinary French citizens, who went out of their way to be helpful to me, traveling alone on trains and walking the streets of Paris later on as a sightseer.

Jump forward to today, our local Alabama Air National Guard until a year ago deployed for annual training to a French Air Base where unique operations benefitted from our refueling tankers. So, our military presence has been in France, again, for several recent years.

President Sarcozy is clearly pro-American, I personally like him, and am happy at this development. There is always room around the table for another friend and ally, who I for one am glad to see rejoin NATO.

On one other poster's comment that pan-Atlantic organization/economics seemed somewhat questionable, as far back as 1987 when I graduated from Air War College the paper I had to write to graduate suggested that in future economic interrelations and cooperation would be as important if not more important than just military cooperation in our ever shrinking world. I still feel this way, and of course, I support building the joint US-European future Air Force refueling tanker in Mobile, Alabama as well!

[jmm99]

from JMM
I have a hard time seeing a "North Atlantic Union" - from a US perspective; but the Atlantic Rim countries do have common interests.

I also suggested an ATO as a futuristic possibility, where ATO could be Atlantic Treaty Organization (military) or Atlantic Trade Organization (economic), or both. However, in considering this futurism, I suggest re-viewing the video "Cowboys herding cats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8)" for a perspective on what would be involved.

"Atlanticism" is supposedly Zarkozy's motive (see links in my prior post).

Since we (US) have a "more perfect union", I see no need for a "North Atlantic Union" - especially when the EU has not advanced to the point we were at under the Articles of Confederation.

But, at all costs, avoid "Running with the Squirrels (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z2_kKAe9y0&feature=related)" - and never, never get into the cage with This Cat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0omjqLTZGU&feature=related). :D

------------

As to successful confederations, I can think of only two large-scale examples: the US and Canada. The Swiss also come to mind on a smaller scale.

[George L. Singleton]

Since we (US) have a "more perfect union", I see no need for a "North Atlantic Union" - especially when the EU has not advanced to the point we were at under the Articles of Confederation.

The US foundered early on with our Articles of Confedertion which we did away with or our nation (US) would probably not exist as it does today, imperfect though it is and will always be...nothing we do will ever be perfect per se.

Canada's experience with Confederation is to me, at least, different, one supposes in part due to Canada still having a Crown appointed Lt. Governor and much symbolism and pomp which in the main adds value to tourism there and appeals to the parliamentary style of democracy. Canada for now even seems to have smoothed over and better incorported the French speaking folks in Quebec and elsewhere and seems well fit to have of late Prime Minister's who are literate in both French and English, French for hundreds of years having been, past tense, the language of diplomacy...now superceded largely by English...after all.

NATO has accomplished, correct me if I am wrong, essentially a standardization of weaponry, caliburs, interchangeability of parts for whatever. The area which I think (?) may still be weakest is communications standardization, which as a stand alone topic might be a good focus for a new thread of discussion on SWJ.

NATO (my opinion) is serving us well in Afghanistan where a large physical area is unevenly populated by a large Pukhtun majority but where our main alliance strength remains in the largely non-Pukhtun northern part.

The days of CENTO and SEATO are over and gone so only NATO has stood the test of time...and I think it was correct, after an apparently huge internal meeting squabble, for NATO to reopen it's Russian Liaison Arm.

Rumor mongering and baitng to create unhelpful to current needs points of view alleging such useless and outmoded things as Russian bombers being based in Cuba in future is to me antidiluvian thinking and a waste of words and time.

[Blackjack]

Thought this thread could use an update on the French rejoining NATO. France apointed to two General officers to NATO. The first is an Air Force Pick and the Second is a Marine.

Deux généraux français vont être nommés très prochainement à la tête de grands commandements de l’Alliance atlantique.

Le conseil des ministres a approuvé le 3 juin les candidatures suivantes.

Le général d’armée aérienne Stéphane Abrial, actuel chef d’état-major de l’armée de l’air (CEMAA ) prend le commandement d’ ACT , le commandement allié Transformation, à Norfolk (Etats-Unis) à compter du 10 septembre 2009. Il succède à ce poste au général américain James N. Mattis (Corps des Marines des Etats-Unis). La mission du ACT est de diriger, au niveau stratégique, la transformation des structures, des forces, des capacités et des doctrines militaires de l’OTAN pour améliorer l’efficacité militaire de l’Alliance. ACT constitue avec le commandement allié pour les opérations (ACO ), l’échelon le plus élevé de la structure de commandement militaire de l’OTAN .

Seconde nomination : le général de division Philippe Stoltz prend la tête du commandement des forces alliées basé à Lisbonne (Portugal) à compter du 20 Juillet 2009. Cette structure a autorité notamment sur la Force de réaction rapide de l’OTAN, la NRF (Nato Response Force). Le commandement de Lisbonne est un des 3 commandements qui dépendent de ACO.

Les nominations font l’objet d’un décret signé par le Président de la République, Nicolas Sarkozy. Décret publié au Journal officiel du 8 juin 2009. Elles interviennent près de trois mois après le retour de la France au sein du commandement militaire intégré de l’OTAN, les 3-4 avril 2009, à Strasbourg lors du Sommet de l’Alliance atlantique . Ces candidatures sont proposées et entérinées par Alliés dans le cadre des procédures de l'OTAN.

-Ministere De La Defence

General Abrail's Biography (http://http://www.defense.gouv.fr/air/content/download/42534/425627/file/biographie_du_cemaa_bio_gaa_abrial_octo_2006.pdf)

General Stoltz Biography in English. (http://www.nato.int/kfor/structur/whoswho/cv/bio_stoltz_new.htm)