LV 250 (free): Enchanted interlude and strategic disenchantment | Should we win the war or prevent it? | Lorgnette: Iran’s dilemma

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Lettre de La Vigie, dated 2 October 2024

Enchanted interlude and strategic disenchantment

During the Olympic and Paralympic Games, France showed the world that it knew how to organise major international and popular events in a sumptuous setting, without any security hiccups. However, the term ‘enchanted interlude’ is surprising: why should day-to-day security be an interlude rather than a permanent feature? How can we ensure safety for all?

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Should we win the war or prevent it?

The war is back: everyone can see it, and the Vigie is constantly analysing it. In recent months, while high-intensity words have taken centre stage, the issue of deterrence has also come back with a vengeance. But is current nuclear regulation enough?

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Lorgnette: Iran’s dilemma

Iran has been accumulating setbacks for some time. Until now, it had managed to operate in the Near and Middle East thanks to a network of allies that enabled it to balance the Saudi opposition on the one hand and the Israeli challenge on the other. The Shiite networks in Iraq, the Syrian support point, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis were all effective relays for an influential policy in the region. Despite everything, things were changing. The Abraham Accords had launched an Israeli-Arab reconciliation (LV 217). Teheran responded by reconciling with Riyadh (LV 226).

The attack on 7 October turned the situation upside down by forcing Israel to react and re-establish its conventional deterrent, both in Gaza and against Hezbollah (note). Iran, which was challenged this summer (assassination of the head of Hamas in Teheran), must react but not too forcefully, as it is prey to a domestic fragility that must not be overlooked. On the other hand, it cannot allow the blows dealt by Israel (assassination in Teheran, attack by Hezbollah) to go unanswered. This is the reason for today’s missile strike.

The escalation continues and no one knows where it will lead. The fact remains that Iran is on its own in the region.

To read the appendix to this issue, LV 250 bis, Ten years of La Vigie, click here

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LV 241 : Raids in the Middle East and the threshold of disuasion | NATO’s decoupling | Lorgnette: 7 years on

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Letter from La Vigie, dated 1st May 2024

Raids in the Middle East and the threshold of disuasion

The reciprocal attack by Iran and Israel in April was the first direct aggression against the Hebrew state for decades: a threshold of escalation has been crossed. But it pits two powers on the nuclear threshold against each other: does the classic grammar of deterrence still apply?

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NATO’s decoupling

The entry of the first Russian troops into Ukraine prompted NATO member states to support the invaded country. European voices then proclaimed that the Alliance was being strengthened, as evidenced by the accession of Sweden and Finland. However, decoupling mechanisms (not just transatlantic) are at work, threatening the Alliance’s very survival.

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Lorgnette: 7 years on

7 years after the 1st speech at the Sorbonne (LV 107), 3 pages of text later, where does France and Europe stand? A list of successes, still implacable observations, progress to be made, incentives to build the European pillar of the Alliance, to implement common strategies, to apply the strategic compass, to rethink energy and agricultural policies, to use France’s nuclear weapons to protect Europe…

There’s nothing fundamentally new here, apart from the fact that we can guess at the impact of farmers’ protests against rising energy prices. We have already dealt with these issues in a previous issue (LV 237), which gives this speech a surprising tone. Can we keep repeating the same observations and the same proposals, betting on our listeners’ amnesia? Some of the German press echoed this perplexity, while French columnists did not hesitate to evoke a “strategic rupture”… Europe is thus at a turning point in the face of uninhibited powers, the risk of falling behind, and the battle of the imagination. “I have come to talk to you about Europe”, he said 7 years ago.

What if we were now to take action?

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LV 238: Deterrence and circumvention | Impossible victory | Lorgnette : The implosion of ECOWAS?

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Letter from La Vigie, 20 March 2024

Deterrence and circumvention

The very nature of the war in Ukraine raises questions about the relationship between deterrence and conventional action. The search for a complete integration of military actions, through an approach based on physical environments and immaterial fields, paradoxically offers greater possibilities of circumventing deterrence at the lower end of the spectrum. This question of possible circumvention is becoming increasingly critical for the Atlantic Alliance, with the issues of credibility of resources and solidarity between Allies at stake in the run-up to the American elections.

Impossible victory

Victory may seem an obvious word, but it is fraught with pitfalls because it is so strongly influenced by history and the Western model of war. Yet the conflicts of the post-Cold War era and the most recent wars show how unsuitable this concept is. We need to rethink victory and see it as an illusion: other objectives need to be pursued.

Lorgnette: The implosion of ECOWAS ?

These are difficult times for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). This “sub-regional” organisation (as the African jargon puts it) brought together 15 members from West Africa and the Sahel, from Nigeria to Senegal and Niger (but without Mauritania, which left in 2000). Originally an economic organisation, at the end of the 1990s it added a security mission (creation of Ecomog). It tried its hand at crisis mediation (Mali 2013, Gambia 2017). From 2019, its members will be discussing a common currency to replace the CFA franc. In 2017, Morocco and Mauritania asked to join.

But coups d’état from 2021 onwards hampered the process. Mali and Guinea were suspended, followed by Burkina-Faso, while Niger saw its trade transactions excluded and some people spoke of military intervention by the organisation to reinstate President Bazoum. The split became even more pronounced in January 2024, when Burkina, Mali and Niger announced that they were leaving the organisation. The heart of the Sahel is moving away from the Gulf of Guinea. The future is uncertain, as if suspended.

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LV 213 / Africa farewell ! | New nuclear issues | Lorgnette : Arab-Persian deal

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Letter from La Vigie dated 15 March 2023

Africa farewell!

From the Ouagadougou speech in 2017 to the one in Paris in 2023, one constant appears: the non-existence of France’s African policy. Added to this is the delicate relationship that we see in undiplomatic gestures. Faced with this observation, are we condemned to say: Africa farewell?

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New nuclear issues

Obsessed with the war in Ukraine, we fail to see the profound strategic changes that are taking place elsewhere, for example in the nuclear field: the end of the ballistic monopoly, the ambiguity of carriers, aggressive sanctuarisation, the death of arms control, the questioning of non-proliferation are all issues that are retroacting on the European theatre.

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Lorgnette: Arab-Persian deal

The recent announcement of an Iranian-Saudi agreement, concluded under the auspices of China, sounded like a thunderclap. Arabia had been announcing for some time that it wanted to break away from the Quincy Pact (LV 205). It did not sign the Abrahamic agreements between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain and the recent Israeli stiffening should not reassure it. As for Iran, the continuation of uranium enrichment despite sanctions and the JCPOA negotiations, the agreement with Russia and the recent popular discontent favour a change in strategic posture.

The agreement gives the impression of a simple restoration of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran. It seems to include a security dimension, the implementation of which will be seen in Yemen, where the Saudis seem to be negotiating while the UAE and the Americans are refusing. Basically, Arabia seems to want to diversify its sources of security and no longer relies solely on the United States. Washington, which has lost interest in the Middle East, is thus paying for its abstention and loss of credit. As for China, it has two of the main suppliers of hydrocarbons: that is enough for it.

The puzzle is moving in the region…

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La Vigie Nr 187 : East from West | War in Ukraine | Nuclear factor (Free reading)

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Letter from La Vigie dated 2 March 2022

East from West

Europe did not define its eastern border because it did not reunify at the end of the Soviet era. Little by little, the new Russia has been sidelined by Europe and the Ukrainian issue has become the cause of Moscow’s recent power grab to demilitarise Kiev. For its part, Kemalist Turkey, which was oriented towards Europe, has given way to a frerist Turkey, which is deployed all over the margins of Europe, Western Asia and Africa. Turkey and Russia are competitors of a European Union that no longer knows how to think about its East, which is also the East of the West.

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War in Ukraine

The war between Russia and Ukraine is attracting a lot of attention. It is appropriate to briefly review its causes, both distant and immediate, and the factors that led V. Putin personally to decide to start it, the goals in the war and the possible aims of the war, and finally the global reactions, both from the Atlantic Alliance and from third countries, especially China.

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Lorgnette: The Nuclear Factor

This crisis obviously has a nuclear dimension. Indeed, the Russian aggression in Ukraine is a conventional war fought in an disymmetric framework (Ukraine cannot win on the ground). It is a change from the asymmetric conflicts we have known for the past two decades, which operated below a certain intensity threshold. In this case, that threshold has been crossed. But it does not only operate in the land, air and sea domains: the other domains of multi-milieu and multi-field operations (M2MC, FR equivalent to MDO) are also open: space, cyber, electromagnetic, cognitive…

In so doing, this conflict raises the question of another threshold, the one that overhangs it and separates it from the nuclear domain. Indeed, physical aggression calls for the mechanics of escalation. This is why V. Putin quickly set this limit by threatening reprisals for any attempt to counter his offensive militarily. The French Foreign Minister replied that the Alliance was also a nuclear alliance. This is a reminder of the rhetoric that defines the grammar of deterrence. It is another sign of a return to a new Cold War in Europe.

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Crédit photo :Ministère de la défense d’Ukraine

LV 159 : On democracy in America | Grozny the new | Lorgnette : Closed sky

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Letter from La Vigie Nr 159, dated 20 January 2021

Democracy in America

The events of 6 January in Washington mark a popular emotion, undeniably seditious even if it cannot be described as a coup d’état. It confirms the deep American division between radicals on both sides. It is also the occasion for censorship by the major social networks which questions their place in the democratic system. A heavy task awaits Joe Biden.

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Grozny the new

Chechnya hasn’t been in the headlines for the last 15 years or so, yet what happened to Chechens fighting Chechens in Syria, some alongside Russians, others in the EI? Today, however, let us note the Russian control that has regained control of it ciscaucasian space.

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Lorgnette : Closed sky

Russia declared on 15 January that it was withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, signed in 2002, which allowed the right to conduct and the obligation to accept observation flights over [the] other party’s territory to verify military activities and installations. Trump’s United States unilaterally withdrew last November (LV 143) to the chagrin of its European allies, who refused to accede to Moscow’s request not to transfer their observations to Washington. The United States had already withdrawn unilaterally from the INF Treaty (LV 112).

Open Skies marked the end of the era of Confidence and Stability Building Measures (CSBMs) that had irrigated international dialogue since the 1970s. The whole system of arms control and monitoring disappears: all that remains is the New Start Treaty (nuclear arsenal control), which expires on 5 February next.

The timetable is important: while Joe Biden will take command of the White House on 20 January, the Russian announcement constitutes diplomatic pressure to prolong New Start while affirming its resolution in the negotiations to come.

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LV 136 : Nuclear deterrence : the satus quo | Ecology and strategy | Mali : speaking the truth

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Letter from La Vigie, 19 FEB 2020

Nuclear deterrence: the status quo

An analysis of the nuclear deterrence discourse of the current legislature shows an assumed continuity and a fairly theoretical openness to a European strategic nuclear perspective. One will readily subscribe to this agreed caution. The reactions recorded reveal a rhetoric whose meaning is fading and priority is fading despite the current disorder.

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Ecology and strategy

The preservation of the environment is a global priority, yet it is rarely mentioned by strategists. However, when it comes to managing scarce resources, there is an opposition between a political vision (ecology) and an economic vision (economy), despite the ideological excesses of some. A response to this global problem should logically be multilateral: the American withdrawal from the Paris agreements hinders this approach. Something else must be imagined, all the more so as the strategic factor will weigh more and more heavily in tomorrow’s conflicts, a prospective that must be examined today.

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Lorgnette: Mali: speaking the truth, the end of denial?

By confirming the offer of direct contacts with Iyad Ag Ghali and Amadou Koufa, two emblematic jihadist leaders, IBK, the Malian Head of State transcends the inclusive national dialogue. What does he have to offer?

Probably little, if not a real sharing of political and social views and even local responsibilities. In fact, the military framework has been well renewed: French reinforcement (600 men for Barkhane and G5 Sahel) after the Pau Summit (LV 134), the symbolic and negotiated return to Kidal of an element of the reconstituted Malian army (based on 2/3 of local paramilitaries) on 16 February, the integration into the FAMA of 500 men from the MSA for Menaka and the launch of Maliko, a vast autonomous Malian military operation to reconquer the territory whose eastern theatre covers Gao, Menaka and Kidal.

At the same time, General (ex-captain putschist) Sanogo was released without trial. It is an attempt to bring together all the Malian actors in a Malian military coalition against AW. Al Saharoui (EIGS) designated to all as the terrorist intruder to be eradicated. Then we’ll talk about everything (political, social, religious) But we’re speaking French too. To be seen, up close

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Persistent nuclear background noise

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As the summer is drawing to a close, the pressure around North Korea’s nuclear power is monopolizing attention (as is Iran’s request, to a lesser degree). Their lead correspondent being the United State’s, the world’s biggest nuclear power. But in the beginning of summer, we remember the resignation of the « C.E.M.A »(Chief of the general staff headquarters of the Armies) during a budget related controversy due to, amongst other things, the renewal of our strategic nuclear arsenal.

Let us not forget that the nuclear issue is a passionate one, and that from Hiroshima to Fukushima to Chernobyl, it rouses the sciences as much as consciences.

Source

So where does our reluctance, nay our overall hostility for the exploitation of the atom come from? The answer is well known: From it’s first use which was a military one, and a tragic one.

The military use of the atom stems from the great scientific adventure of the 1920’s that was then put to use by the military necessities of the 1940’s. The atomic bombs that were then dropped on Japan revealed the unequalled power of unbridled nuclear energy, but also indefinitely branded it with the hallmark of inhumanity. Indeed, the atomic bomb combines power and lethal lasting damage, never before seen with another explosive. As no shield can protect from it’s effects, no war based on an exchange of nuclear strikes was therefore winnable in a useful way.

Thus, after 1945, the emergence of the atomic bomb  contributed to the progressive change in the way we wage wars now. If the victors of 1945 made war illegal with the U.N Charter, the atomic bomb made it unwinnable and those that had it, untouchable.

The dynamics of strategic nuclear deterrence progressively developed on this basis at the end of the Second World War to then establish itself at the heart of the strategic equation of the Cold War. Then it was perverted in the world in crisis that succeeded the bipolar balance of terror.

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