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The French armed forces are planning for high-intensity war
- the_duke 6y agoCan anyone recommend some quality, somewhat neutral books that analyze the economical, political and military developments over the last and future decades? We are obviously seeing shifts in the global economy and power balance, with the US losing it's complete dominance, China becoming more confident and aggressive, countries like Turkey showing increasing aggression against the EU, and a more multi-polar balance in general. I'd love to learn some more, but most of the books I find are too "pop-sci", have a strong "US good/China scary & evil" tint, or a too narrow focus.
- dis-sys 6y agoI am reading Brzeninski's The Grand Chessboard this week. It is a 24yo book with some very interesting stuff.
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoIts going to be the same as for the past hundreds of years. Peoples of the Northern Latitudes are sent to war against eachother at the behest of their masters - for no real gain apart from preventing one group from becoming 'too powerful'. The natural inclination of the European, American, Russian, Chinese people are to conduct trade, tourism, and breeding with eachother, and to spread civilization across the planet and solar system. But it seems that our warlord controllers will not allow this.
- reducesuffering 6y agoSomehow I'm sensing you're implying "our warlord controllers" aren't in the "European, American, Russian, Chinese people." Mind expanding on this before I jump to conclusions on your implication...
- ArkanExplorer 6y agoYou might have to excuse my tone. I am from Ukraine and its disheartening to see Western people jump excitedly at the concept of war.
- reducesuffering 6y agoI don't see anyone here jumping excitedly. A prepared France is good for global stability. All countries have had their major shortcomings, but France has still been a paragon for enlightenment values. Without defense, authoritarians have the leeway to bully and kill whoever suits them, as Crimea is aware of.
- zoomablemind 6y ago> ...You might have to excuse my tone. I am from Ukraine and its disheartening to see Western people jump excitedly at the concept of war. Very confusing indeed. I wonder where do you fit yourself among "European, American, Russian, Chinese," and the Western people that "jump excitedly"?
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- throwaway894345 6y ago> have a strong "US good/China scary & evil" tint The US is imperfect and perhaps worse than (post-colonial) Europe in many respects, but does anyone seriously think that a Chinese global hegemony would be better? I understand that this is controversial and I'm not trying to agitate, but I am curious about who holds this position and why?
- vmception 6y agoWell that's part of the point, China is obsessed with territorial unity, not expansionist policies, where the overlap is limited specifically to where we already know: other places that China already calls China. The American perspective is that everyone is secretly trying to expand - like America did. Chinese hegemony could happen in other areas, like how it already has resulted in movies being changed to accommodate Chinese audiences, or having leverage over many private sectors who want access to their market, and with a currency based hegemony that could increase. But the other person's point about books being too "US good/China scary & evil" is exactly about the very limiting false dichotomies that you latched directly on to.
- adventured 6y ago> China is obsessed with territorial unity, not expansionist policies Obviously false. From Tibet to the recent massive South China Sea annexation and Taiwan, all of it is hyper expansionist. It doesn't matter if they lie and claim otherwise, it's plainly a lie. They're seeking territorial expansion. Nobody in their right mind believes the waters off the coast of south Vietnam belongs to China, except China. That's not about territorial unity, it's about hegemony in Asia and expanding their territory through military force. They're in conquering mode. The territy they took when they conquered Tibet is twice the size of France. The South China Sea territory they're attempting to take now - which does not belong to them - is at least the size of Tibet or larger. That's conquering on a scale not seen since immediately after WW2 with the Soviet Union's land grab in Eastern Europe.
- makomk 6y agoThe Chinese propaganda says they're just defending their territory, but as far as I can tell it's just expansionism in disguise. That is to say, they've been taking areas that even China considered to be part of (say) India, rewriting the past so that they're not only part of China but always have been, and sending in troops to claim them. In many ways their claim to the South China Sea is like this too.
- thinkmassive 6y agoSome books I recently enjoyed, mostly focused on the infosec aspect but still somewhat on topic: The Kill Chain, by Christian Brose Active Measures, by Thomas Rid Sandworm, by Andy Greenberg Fatal System Error, by Joseph Mann
- wcarss 6y agoI would also love to find a book like that. But, I doubt that it exists -- probably the world was always like this, but, it seems like there is just too much going on, and too much context to try to grasp and consider. One example of just one thing that's barely been reckoned with in mass public discourse, a tiny thing and an unfathomably huge thing, is the impact of national and corporate intelligence agencies on the world over the past 200 years, during the time when any nation could project force into pretty much any other via easy global travel. Every major country has not just spies, but significant resources they can bring to bear in terms of psychological operations and embedded operatives across the political spectrum. Just one small example of this kind of thing is Operation Gladio[1], which had massive ramifications for the political landscape in Europe in the last 50 years, and there are countless things like this that we do and don't know anything about. Just the USA has had a hand in so many bizarre and hugely important events, and then to think that Russia, China, Germany, Israel, France, the UK, and any number of other countries have operated in a similar fashion since WWI or earlier? Yikes! And that doesn't even touch on the corporate side of it, with its roots going back to the gilded age or earlier, where unions and putdowns and murders and all kinds of nutty (but secret) behaviour was just... normal. There's just so much we don't, and may never know, and even that stuff is just a tiny portion of the picture. The kind of open and secret economic games that get played, power and relationship dynamics between countries and their leaders, their wealthy families, the networks of people who meet through family and upbringing, grudges, debts, ideological choices and pragmatic ones -- it goes on and on and on. And then the technological changes! But, I would really love to read that book if you find it. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio
- hn8788 6y agoThe Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. It's written by a retired British general. It covers how war changed during the industrial revolution, then with the creation of nuclear weapons. The main point of the book is that conventional warfare is all but obsolete, but high level commanders don't know how to conduct anything but conventional warfare, and that the media can win or lose a conflict based on the narrative it pushes.
- abeppu 6y agoIn addition to just the difficulty posed by the breadth of what you're asking for, if there are also institutional or structural pressures which preclude such a work from existing? On the academic side, I get the sense that there is so much pressure to specialize and deeply study narrow areas that a really broad work (global developments over decades) would not be well received. Within think tanks, a broad survey would likely still need to be concordant with an institutional agenda. And if really broad documents are being produced within state departments/foreign ministries or other parts of government, we would never see them?
- legitster 6y agoI've read a bit of Peter Zeihan. It's hard to be a good judge of his accuracy - he can come across as a bit of a pompous - but he seems knowing and somewhat neutral.
- john_moscow 6y agoWhen it comes to contemporary political events, there is too much incentive to push a specific agenda, and too little incentive to be neutral. So if you want a neutral opinion, you need to piece it together from multiple biased sources. My personal feeling, as a first-generation immigrant, is that the West has eliminated the local incentives for traits associated with personal strength. Partly by moving jobs requiring problem-solving to cheaper countries. Partly by the corporate culture trying to refocus people's passion into areas where they wouldn't accumulate economic leverage (passion about hobbies, social issues and identity is OK, passion about the product that would make you one day start your own business is a no-no). So we have a high concentration of strong ambitious people used to solving problems in countries like China (because the entire world literally pays them to do so). And we have a lot of softer people taking too many things for granted in the West, sitting on most of the world's wealth. This is a textbook recipe for a conflict.
- Balgair 6y agoI don't have any books to recommend, let alone 'neutral' sources, but two research 'areas' may help: 1) The USMC reading list. If you want an English language view of the current state of 'thought' from the leaders of any near-future conflicts, this list is it. It goes from poolee to the top brass. Maybe look for the more top level books and read from there. Though the underlying mindset is important and is from the lower rank books. https://mca-marines.org/commandants-professional-reading-list/ https://mca-marines.org/commandants-professional-reading-lis... 2) The wikipedia articles on the Nagorno-Karabakh war of October 2020 and their linked pages. Obviously there aren't any books out on this war yet, as it was so recent. But the underlying mechanics of the war are likely to be the ones we're seeing in the near future as both sides were somewhat evenly matched and had access to modern weaponry. "The war was marked by the deployment of drones, sensors, long-range heavy artillery[99] and missile strikes, as well as by state propaganda and the use of official social media accounts in online information warfare.[100]" I'd maybe put out a google alert for books about this conflict when they come out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
- chriselles 6y agoDestined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? China’s Three Warfares(non-kinetic/pre-kinetic warfare): https://cryptome.org/2014/06/prc-three-wars.pdf https://cryptome.org/2014/06/prc-three-wars.pdf Professor Anne Marie Brady: https://twitter.com/Anne_MarieBrady https://twitter.com/Anne_MarieBrady
- sjg007 6y agoGeopolitics is all about oil.
- closeneough 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Chessboard
- zabzonk 6y ago> but also Turkey or a North African country. What? Turkey is separated from France by half a dozen countries, all of which would severely object to Turkish forces passing through them, and other NATO states would also have severe objections to such a conflict. And no North African states have any significant amphibious capability - there is a sea between North Africa and France, you know.
- reducesuffering 6y agoDo you think if Turkey invaded a nearby country like Greece or Armenia, that France would do nothing?
- eloff 6y agoGreece is a EU member state. The whole EU would react to such a thing - which is why Turkey would never do something that dumb. Russia, ever the villain (and oft deserved) is also not dumb. The most likely flashpoints for major conflict in my eyes are Pakistan - India, India - China, and China - Taiwan. It's a stretch to picture the French getting involved in any of those. Major conflict in Europe just doesn't seem likely to me.
- realusername 6y ago> Greece is a EU member state. The whole EU would react to such a thing - which is why Turkey would never do something that dumb. That's exactly because EU members would react that Turkey doesn't do it and preparing for this scenario is exactly how you prevent it.
- reducesuffering 6y agoUnless you don't consider it major, I think you're missing the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict that just happened 6 months ago, with a huge ability to spiral out of control, cause a humanitarian crisis, which Turkey will definitely get involved in supporting Azerbaijan. There is now really bad blood between ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and Armenians still live in Nagorno-Karabakh, currently only safeguarded by Russian troops. That situation is still a tinderbox until an actual resolution is achieved and generations have passed.
- sabellito 6y agoIt'd be cool for HN to have a [paywall] tag so I don't spend time opening these links. Don't get me wrong, I'd bet the article is great, but I'm not interested in an Economist subscription right now.
- rossdavidh 6y agoAgreed
- Zealotux 6y agoIn this case, disabling JavaScript will get you through.
- throway1001 6y agodisabling the site visit is an alternative solution
- kpennell 6y agohttps://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome
- sgt101 6y agoGood - by preparing seriously in this way (if they go through with it) and browbeating the Germans and Dutch to do the same there is a possibility that Europe will not offer a post Putin Russia an easy out from whatever dire crisis overtakes it. At the moment three divisions could waltz into Berlin and hold the whole project ransom, unless the yanks stopped them. The yanks can stop anything, but as the last whitehouse living person showed - the yanks can be fickle. France must orchestrate a serious military capability in Europe for the sake of global stability, and it must do it now. The Germans must pay for this. Poles, Italians and Greeks could staff it.
- smcl 6y agoYou're making kind of a big show of using "the yanks" - what's that about? Is that a British military thing (like how they don't refer to being "in Afghanistan" but "in Afghan")
- rossdavidh 6y agoSo, two competing hypotheses: 1) France knows something we don't know about the likelihood of them getting into a high-intensity war 2) France's military is worried about the civilian government cutting their budget until they are irrelevant, as happened in most of the rest of European NATO, and wants to look relevant
- medium_burrito 6y agoIt's Greece-Turkey, as others have said. Turkey has burned through much of it's foreign reserves, tourism is fucked and we could see Erdogan whipping up nationalist sentiment in the face of major economic difficulties. Longer term, as Putin slides out of the picture with his medical issues, Russia is an interesting candidate for instability. The Chinese might try to solidify their land grab in the east, but the bigger worry is Russia breaking apart and imploding. Europe has zero capability for warfare in the Pacific, so that is irrelevant.
- reducesuffering 6y agoPutin's medical issues are unconfirmed and even with them, he may not resign for another decade plus. I remember recently how western media had all but confirmed Kim Jong-Un was dead and it was being kept secrey.
- a_f 6y agoTurkey has already had varying involvement with warfar recently with engagements in Syria and Armenia-Azerbaijan. I would not be suprised to see them engage in further conflict.
- fxtentacle 6y agoIt's a way of generating a stable income and something to do for those losing their jobs to automation. Isn't the US military also a huge employer?
- sleepysysadmin 6y agoThe context of large military operations is not necessarily new. It's about being prepared and not necessarily aggression. >In his strategic vision for 2030 published last year, however, General Thierry Burkhard, the head of the French army, outlined the need to prepare for high-intensity, state-on-state conflict. Flipside when the military gets a 46% boost in budget... that's politicians making it abundantly clear that this is more than operations. This is Now place this in context. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousands-of-protesters-wrongly-punished-under-draconian-laws-in-pre-and-post-covid19-crackdown/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa... Anyone remember the Yellow vest protests? Ya they went away after the French government arrested them all. >Between November 2018 and July 2019, 11,203 Yellow Vests protesters were placed in pre-charge detention. As the link points out... France declared martial law pre-covid and has gotten significantly worse during covid. So it makes me wonder. Is this just a continuation of martial law or escalation? Or do they expect their military will be up against other states?
- camdenlock 6y agoAs opposed to a low-intensity war...?
- riskneutral 6y agoThis article suspiciously seems like saber rattling to me. Like it was placed in the Economist to send a message to someone. It is good for global security that France has a strong military and is strengthening it. But it is only a small consideration. It is nonsense to talk about France embarking on a global "high-intensity, state-on-state conflict" and projecting land military power from Russia to Turkey, and "naval presence" in the Indo-Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Persian Gulf, without noting that this would mean far more powerful militaries than France being involved and would mean nukes flying and most human life on the planet being wiped out in short order. In 2021, saying that France is preparing for a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is as absurd as saying that the State of Texas is preparing for a high-intensity war with North Korea or Mexico. The only scenario where France would be engaged in a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is if World War III started. I believe that it is reasonable to say that a high-intensity war between the world powers would probably result in the end of human civilization within a few hours. The fact that 10,000 French soldiers are planning to do a 4 day military training exercise in 2023 is a tiny consideration in the larger scheme of any strategic plans that NATO and the EU have for a hypothetical WWIII. What is most suspicious is that the article tries to equate such a world-ending event with on-going and hypothetical French military adventures in Africa. French military adventurism in Africa and the Middle East is not a high-intensity, state-on-state conflict.
- dragonwriter 6y agoOne of the contingencies driving the French planning is the potential waning or disengagement of some of those powers (one in particular), and the reason for it's preparation is to reduce the power gap with the others.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago> This article suspiciously seems like saber rattling to me. Like it was placed in the Economist to send a message to someone. Who? Why? > would mean nukes flying and most human life on the planet being wiped out in short or We had 50 years of Cold War and MAD and plenty of large, gruesome wars and no one got nuked. France was involved with some of them, too, e.g. Vietnam. The lesson of the Korean War is that even with nukes, intense conventional war is still possible, even likely. > The only scenario where France would be engaged in a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is if World War III started Not at all. If the French -- already reluctant members of NATO, with a history of trying to NOT be a member -- were to walk out of the alliance, why would that conflict lead to WW3? An multi-polar world with an independent Europe means that they can fight their own wars against Russia and Turkey -- they have in the past!
- gpayan 6y ago> French officers tend to be more sceptical than British or American ones that technology will transform the battlefield. “Technology is never 100% effective,” warns General Burkhard. “Soldiers must always be able to fight in a degraded way…when the technology does not work any more.” I would be interested to hear more on that from General Burkhard. Because right now - and based on my very limited understanding of the topic - this feels like the kind of statement that could look rather misinformed when looked back at in the future. This actually reminds me of the French army and French generals preparing for WW2; stuck with their existing organizational structures and mental models (that led them to victory in WW1), they discounted new warfare theories/technologies and strategies (such as: combining planes and tanks, blitzkrieg) that led them to a quick and complete defeat.
- chriselles 6y agoThe US led western coalition militaries are all now pivoting to peer level(Russia/China) military threats. Russia was a great power in great decline, but still capable of great disruption(Georgia/Ukraine). China is a great power with great momentum. But this is not another Cold War. During the Cold War the world was largely bifurcated into competing networks based on ideology. Nations switching from one network to another were rare and switching costs were high. Now in a highly integrated global economy value proposition is what matters and switching costs for nations is much lower. Having 1 billion daily active users in the developing world on a Superplatform(Facebook/WeChat) is worth more than the 1 trillion sunk cost invested in Supercarriers(Nimitz/Ford Class). This is not another Cold War, it is ruthless and relentless competition between competing value propositions.
- giardini 6y agoWhat is "high-intensity war" for the French armed forces? Jacque: "Monsieur Commander, our allocation of Sauvignon Blanc 1961 for the samedi dinner has been redirected to the front!' Claude: "Mon Dieu! Qel sorte du monde! Order the Malbec as soon as possible. Nou sommes perdues!" "And have you made room for the bound-and-gagged ISIS prisonnières? We want to be certain they can view our leisure dining, so as to torture and tempt them to abandon their Muslim faith for a carafe of excellent vin Francais, not to mention our excellent prostitues nicoise. Do not forget that theese is indeed high-intensity warfare and we must bring our bunker-busters to the fore in an overwhelming move to close the gap! Oh, hon, hon, hon! Jacque: Mais Senior Commander, the 5th Brigade of the American military, the pride of Black Fighting strength, will be attending the samedi dinner, Claude: Nous sommes perdues! Peut-etre, peut-etre...oui, I have eet! Tell the cooks to spice the Americains' meals with saltpeter! Oh, hon, hon, hon! I am not a Commander for nothing! With nightfall the French will advance with high-intensity, while ze Americains fumble with their limp pythons! Hon, hon, hon! Commander indeed!
- lazydud 5y agowat