LV 211 : South Korea: the nuclear temptation | Europe’s Ukrainian spiral | Lorgnette : balloon hunting

Posted on by A M

Letetr from La Vigie dated 15 FEB 2023

South Korea: the nuclear temptation

South Korea is the tenth largest economy in the world but strategically it is heavily dependent on the United States. However, if Europe is interested in Ukraine and Washington is interested in China, the Korean question is becoming more sensitive, with 90 missile tests carried out by Pyongyang. So much so that Seoul is talking very strongly about nuclear capabilities again.

To read the article, click here

Europe’s Ukrainian spiral

One year after the Russian aggression in Ukraine, this article answers the following three questions: How did it come to this? How will it finish? How can we avoid a repeat? It advocates an immediate Russian-Ukrainian strategic pat.

To read the article click here

Lorgnette: balloon hunting

The earthquake in Turkey and Syria has claimed 40,000 lives, but the death toll is expected to double or even triple. The disaster took place in the area bordering the two countries, where the last Syrian opponents, many of them jihadists, have taken refuge under Turkish control. International aid is arriving, but the observer senses a kind of embarrassment, both towards the devious Erdogan and towards the banished Assad. As a result, humanitarian emotion seems to be stifled.

Meanwhile, America is dealing with air balloons and sending its best jets to shoot them down, issuing flight bans, suggesting UFOs… The incredulous observer thinks he is dreaming in front of both amateurism and over-reaction. He has the impression that the American government is reacting like in Hollywood superhero movies, when Mars attacks and you have to do everything to defend yourself. The show is shown to the willing public and the message is simple: the alien is China, the alien to be wary of.

At the same time, articles are multiplying to predict that Ukraine will lose.

As if the media washer were saying: Let’s move on…

JOCVP

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

Photo credit: U.S. Indo-Pacific Command on VisualHunt

LV 210: There is no magic weapon | Will the rear end hold ? | Lorgnette : Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie, dated 1st FEB 2023

There is no magic weapon

The recent decision by the Europeans and Americans to supply tanks to Ukraine was intended as a show of unity in favour of Kiev. The difficulties in achieving this, and the relief that resulted, show that the issue remains fragile. Above all, it is based on an illusion: that arms alone can change the course of the war, whether by their quality or their quantity. Beyond that, a concern is surreptitiously emerging: is it still about winning or is it now about not losing?

To read the article, click here

Will the rear end hold?

If the fortunes of the weapons mainly decide the fate of a war, it is essential to also worry about the rear: if the combatants develop a certain and indispensable self-sufficiency, this is the result of the efforts made by the rear. The war in Ukraine shows us, however, that the notion of the rear is not as simple as one might think, and that the rear can also have a certain geographical depth.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: Israeli-Palestinian peace process

Recent events in Palestine have once again put the Palestinian question at the heart of the news. While it is likely that everyone will do their best to ignore it, it is important to note that it is still there because no solution has been found. The Abraham Accords promoted by D. Trump explicitly ignored it, organising a peace between Israel and certain Arab countries while agreeing to ignore the Palestinian question. Without going back to the triggering element of this week’s incidents, let us observe that the lukewarmness of international reactions is justified by the assumption that there is a peace process that is taking its course. This is obviously false.

It should be remembered that this is not (despite the use by some of the word terrorism equated with jihadism) a religious issue but a question of national liberation – and therefore of the freedom of peoples to self-determination – and of the political control of a population and of territories by an occupier. This is the original objective of the peace process. That it is obviously not working means that there is no peace. But who draws the conclusions? The EU looks the other way, as it is so quick to agitate for values. It is a sign of its hypocrisy and thus loses its credit.

JOCVP

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

Photo credit: UNDP Ukraine on Visualhunt

LV 209 : Belgian neighbours and partners | Economics of war, economics of war | Lorgnette: Russian Mountains of the German Army

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie, 18 January 2023

Full English version accessible here

Belgian neighbours and partners

A new year, a new geographical cycle, this time the land borders of France by looking at its neighbours. Today, we will focus on Belgium, a country that we do not know as well as we think and that has made the radical choice to adopt, via the CaMo partnership, a complete land army model, and not only to buy a few vehicles from the Scorpion range.

To read the article In English, click here

Economics of war, economics of war

Economics plays an important role in war: from building a defence industrial base to imposing sanctions, from mobilising the country for total war to identifying economic targets, warfare entails both an economy of war and an economy in war.

To read the article in English, click here

Lorgnette: Russian Mountains of the German Army

Before February 2022, the chiefs of staff of the German navy and army said that one should understand Putin, the other that the Bundeswehr was on its last legs.

Since the Russian offensive, the chancellor announced (in June) that Germany wanted to have the first European army and to provide it with 100 billion euros.

All these fine words have been shattered by the recent resignation of the German Defence Minister, whose term of office had started badly. Having admitted that her appointment was a surprise, which owed more to parity and party balance than to her knowledge of the subject, she successively promised helmets to the Ukrainians, went on holiday with a Bundeswehr helicopter, failed to calm the debate on the delivery of tanks to the Ukraine and presented wishes that were considered strange, to say the least. Auf wiedersehen, meine Dame.

Two things bring her closer to her compatriot Benedict XVI (cf. LV 208): they did not want this position and gave it up. One point distinguishes them: no one remembers her name anymore. The post is vacant, good luck to the German armies.

JOCVP

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

Photo credit: Min Def Belge

LV 208: The second 21st century | The words that trap | Lorgnette: Benedict XVI, the last modern

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie, dated 4 Jan 2023

Happy new year 2023 !

The second 21st century

The conjunction of the global pandemic and the war in Ukraine has tipped the world into a second 21st century with confusing contours. The unleashed conflictuality is now self-sustaining and the planet of 8 billion inhabitants no longer benefits from the regulators inherited from the 20th century which had allowed us to approach the end of the Cold War in relative safety. This dangerous shift into the strategic jungle seems irreversible. France must take this new strategic reality into account.

To read the article, click here

The words that trap

In strategy and international relations, words count. However, contemporary discourse constantly uses words that are based on past conceptions and that do not help to understand, and therefore to resolve, the conflicts of the moment: war, peace, the law of war, victory, territory, negotiation are the most striking examples.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: Benedict XVI, the last modern

The death of Joseph Ratzinger marks the end of an era. Here is a pope who will have been the last modern.

The progressive intellectual of the post-war period, an influential player in the Second Vatican Council, was gradually transformed into the rigorous guardian of a firm Catholic tradition. Elected Pope without having wanted to be, uncomfortable with the media, he chose the name Benedict in reference to Benedict XV and his attempts at peace during the First World War and to Saint Benedict, patron saint of Europe: a very European Pope, in the end, not very much in tune with the planetary world around him.

He is basically the last modern: he lent his pen to John Paul II for the 1988 encyclical Fides et ratio, which perfectly reflected his rational spirit. He was destabilised by the contemporary, post-modern world, where emotion and media hype predominate over the search for truth. This is why we will remember above all his “renunciation” of the papal state in 2013, leaving the chair of Peter to a successor more at ease with the new conditions of the moment. This intellectual was neither a full-fledged pastor nor a true man of power. A rare example of a man who reached the top without having sought it.

JOCVP

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

Photo credit : Thomas Hawk on Visualhunt

LV 207: 2022: strategic review | Ukraine war: perspectives | Lorgnette: World cup

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie, dated 21st December

Merry Christmas ! See you in 2023…

2022: strategic review

The past year has seen the collapse of many strategies that lacked depth and were developed at a time when the return of war was not seriously considered. The conflict in Eastern Europe reminds us that strategy is a dialectic of wills using force to resolve their conflict. A revision of strategic thinking is necessary for those who want to remain free.

To read the article, click here

Ukraine war: perspectives

The war in Ukraine shows a stabilisation of the fronts, which may not only be due to bad winter weather but also to the exhaustion of the belligerents. Both sides are trying to build up their strength, both in men and in equipment. But despite their declarations, neither can seriously envisage victory. The time for negotiations has come, without promising anything other than a cease-fire.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: World Cup

The recent World Cup is full of lessons. Let’s start by welcoming Argentina’s victory and France’s improbable but ultimately close-to-success journey. The competition was held in a good atmosphere and the grumblers on both sides were silenced: both the moral teachers who called for a boycott and those who predicted internal dissension after the high-stakes matches, especially against Morocco. Common sense triumphed and a quiet patriotism prevailed.

These sports competitions have a huge virtue: they turn the confrontation and rivalry between nations into a game that is enough to ease most tensions, especially since the opponents are random. A match between the United States and Iran gets attention, but despite the geopolitical background, the confrontation remains benign. Sport makes it possible at little cost (whatever one says about the expenses of the World Cup or the players’ salaries) both to unite nations without pushing them into chauvinistic excesses, and to organise adversities whose outcome is resolved by a simple score.

The pacifying virtue of sport, which distributes happiness and simple emotions.

JOCVP

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

Photo credit : Fred Ortlip on Visualhunt.com

LV 206: Back from Singapore | High intensity: taking the high road | Lorgnette: The Kertch bridge

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie dated 7 December 2022

Back from Singapore

On his return from a visit to Singapore, the strategist was stunned by what he had seen: here was the capital of globalisation, succeeding in physically and culturally reuniting the East and the West, which, according to Kipling, “will never meet“. And yet, Singapore demonstrates the opposite…

To read the article, click here

High intensity: taking the high road

The prevailing discourse, especially since the new phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war started on 24 February 2022, insists on the need for the French armed forces to be prepared to be engaged in a ‘high intensity’ war scenario. While leaving the decision to modify the operational contract of our expeditionary armies to the political power, let us lend ourselves to the exercise: inspired by what we can observe in Ukraine, what are the lessons that we must (re)learn to be able to fight such battles?

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: The Kerch Bridge

On the night of 7-8 October, the Ukrainians managed, to the surprise of everyone, to hit the Kerch Bridge, presumably with the help of a naval drone. This was not only a serious blow to Russian logistics but also a deliberate attack on one of the symbols of Crimea’s attachment to Russia.

On 5 December, barely two months later, Vladimir Putin visited the bridge, which he himself had inaugurated on 15 May 2018.

This visit, which few people expected, is rich in lessons. If Putin travels to and from this bridge in person without any problems, it is because he is healthy enough to do so, that he is not afraid to be absent from places of power despite the conspirators, that he manages to move without foreign intelligence anticipating it, that Russian engineering is working hard and that there is no question, despite the withdrawal from Kherson, of abandoning Crimea.

At the same time, the Ukrainians managed to hit two strategic bases 800 km inside Russia. The political stakes are rising on both sides.

This war is far from over.

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

JOCVP

photo credit: Ray in Manila on VisualHunt

LV 205: The Polish question | Strategic manoeuvres underway | Lorgnette : An insignificant RNS

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie dated 23 November 2022

The Polish question

The war in Ukraine validated Poland’s strategic priorities, which for three decades had been warning of the Russian threat. Paradoxically, the war in Ukraine shows the Russian weakness and the solidity of the Alliance: Poland’s strategic situation is reinforced. Is this why one can sense acrimony rising in Warsaw towards Berlin?

To read the article, click here

Strategic manoeuvres underway

An update on Russia’s campaign in Ukraine is useful at the start of winter, when some are tempted to make a strategic move to revive the ailing global economy. Firmly supported by the EU, Ukraine is fiercely opposed to it. Already the geostrategic and geo-economic manoeuvres underway prefigure the strategic framework of a “second 21st century”. For France, a healthy wait-and-see attitude would be in order.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: An insignificant RNS

Since 2012, La Vigie has been sceptical of the White Paper process, often finding it disappointing and wordy. Despite this, it has always welcomed the intellectual effort made to produce an overall strategic analysis, even if the procedure adopted more often than not condemned these works to fail to meet the need, assuming that it is a question of defining a grand strategy and not simply of communicating it. The 2008 review was too long, the 2012 review was repetitive and the 2017 review was incomplete.

The deterioration of the formula continued with this RNS (Revue nationale stratégique: National Strategic Review), prepared in secret, unveiled at the last moment, brief and agreed, the result of administrative work with little scope and above all without any debate. At the very least, the previous exercises gave rise to discussions and if the result was disappointing, everyone had at least reflected and debated.

Here, one wonders whether the exercise was not quickly dismissed. Everyone would have understood a document of expectation that set the limits of the moment, specified its uncertainties, stated its will, and gave guidelines for the present time. The reader finds none of this in the published document.

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

JOCVP

photo credit: NATO on Visualhunt

LV 204 : A new strategic world is emerging | Corruption and strategy | Lorgnette : in two voices

Posted on by A M

Lettre from La Vigie Nr 204 dated 9 novemrbe 2022

A new strategic world is emerging

The war in Ukraine seems to be stabilising the fronts, which is a setback for Russia and a Ukrainian success. The strategic consequences will be long-lasting, notably by entrenching the West’s opposition to its Moscow neighbour. For all that, this war is not in itself a turning point but the ultimate revelation of a multiform crisis that has shaken up our strategic world for ten years.

To read the article, click here

Corruption and strategy

Corruption, which is not generally included in the fundamentals of strategy, nevertheless invites itself into the debates as soon as it is implemented: the corrupter encourages those he corrupts to model their strategy on his own, or at least to make them compatible. Strategists are also affected, as their assessments of the situation may be biased or corrupted, making them less relevant.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: in two voices

Ah, dear novlangue… that which offers simultaneous and contradictory points of view. A delight in two recent examples.

COP27 is currently taking place in Sharm-el-Sheikh and developed countries would like emerging economies to finally stop their frenetic consumption of hydrocarbon energy – while the West reopens coal-fired power stations, Europe builds LNG terminals and buys shale gas from the US.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) criticised Qatar and its protection of human rights two weeks before the start of the World Cup.

The Qatari Foreign Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, reacted in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: he feels irritated by the German double standard, which has nothing against Qatar when it comes to evacuating nationals from Afghanistan or buying Qatari gas or oil, but which gets on its high horse when it comes to sports…

Let us not mock too much: let he who has never sinned cast the first stone.

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

JOCVP

photo credit: Damian Gadal on Visualhunt.com

LV 203: Crisis: a question of morale | Did you say deterrence ? | Lorgnette: stiff China

Posted on by A M

Letter from La Vigie Nr 203 dated 26 October 2022

Crisis: a question of morale

We are living in a state of protean crises, which are becoming endless and simultaneous, creating a climate of anxiety. War is a form of crisis and the military are specialists in crisis management and insist on the importance of morale in order to overcome them. Shouldn’t we draw inspiration from the military model to face current crises?

To read the article, click here

Did you say deterrence?

President Macron’s statements the other night on deterrence may have been clumsy. However, they bring up the debate on an essential question, renewed by a world nuclear order that is unravelling, from NWBT to the end of the INF treaty, from Ukraine to North Korea. It is high time to get back to the terms of the discussion.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: Stiff China

As we predicted last summer (LV 197), the Chinese stiffening has been accentuated on the occasion of this 20th Congress of the CCP. Let us remember that in China, power belongs to the party. We saw the humiliating way in which Hu Jintao, the previous leader, was ruthlessly dismissed in front of the world’s television channels, and also the composition of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, in which only Xi Jinping’s supporters were promoted.

Despite the difficulties, or more likely because of them, the Chinese leadership has chosen to persevere: in its noxious anti-Covid strategy, in the pursuit of an economic policy that has produced disappointing results this year, and in its opposition to Taiwan, which is now enshrined in the CCP charter. This clear hardening accompanies Xi’s unlimited power, designated for a third term.

The hard line can be expected to become more pronounced, both in opposition to the US and in support of V. Putin. Yet the possibility of failure increases the risk of a breakout action in the zone, notably against Taiwan, betting on a weakening US following the mid-terms. Worrying.

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

JOCVP

photo credit: Eric Vondy on VisualHunt.com

La Vigie Nr 202: Autumn raspoutitsa | Transatlantic strategic square | Lorgnette : The Iranian street rumbles

Posted on by A M

Autumn Raspoutista

In the autumn of 2022, the season of the first cold spells and quagmires, we note the multiple strategic bogging down of France: the total and worrying deadlock of the war in Ukraine which saturates the Euro-Atlantic landscape, the swamps in which radical and sceptical intercontinental relations are bogged down, and finally the budgetary swamp of the future army model and of the security investments that need to be made for the security of France and the French. An autumn already well bogged down.

To read the article, click here

Transatlantic strategic square

From Moscow to Washington, from Prague to Berlin, the transatlantic strategic stakes have changed over the past month. From the war in Ukraine to questions of deterrence, from an enlarged Europe beyond the EU to the importance of economic issues, everything points to a rise in tensions.

To read the article, click here

Lorgnette: The Iranian street rumbles

Once again, Iran is experiencing massive protests, following those of 1999, 2009, 2017 and 2019. Experts tell us that this time things are different, that the new generation is connected, that no one believes in the possibility of reforming the regime anymore, that women are involved.

What hasn’t changed is the regime’s repression, which deploys its squads of Revolutionary Guards and other Basijis. The army remains in the background and could decide the fate of the country if the clashes persist.

No one believes in the legitimacy of the theocratic regime in Tehran. However, it has been able to interpret the interests of the country and to conduct an active foreign policy despite American and Saudi hostility, with real successes, especially in its immediate environment. A fall of the regime would probably not put an end to regional geopolitical rivalries.

But the observer wonders: in the 21st century, can a popular revolutionary movement, even a massive and lasting one, put down a tyranny? The Sudanese and Belarusian examples do not support this view. We shall see.

Subscribers: click directly on the links to read online or download the pdf issue (here), always with your login/password. New readers: read the article by issue, by clicking on each article (€2.5), or subscribe (discovery subscription €17, annual subscription €70, orga. subscription €300 excl. tax): here, the different options.

JOCVP

Crédit photo : awestomestories