THE MITTERRAND LEGACY AND THE FUTURE OF FRENCH SECURITY POLICY
Tiersky
In the 1995-2000 5-year plan, drafted by the Balladur government, the French military is to focus on acquiring two new categories of equipment. The first is the construction of a large transport aircraft, the creation of a significant national airlift capacity for troop and equipment projection. The second is aerial reconnaissance capabilities.
In the Gulf War, the French, to their intense dissatisfaction, had to rely completely on American logistics, on American transport planes, and on American aerial reconnaissance. By contrast, during the Cold War, not to have such equipment not only saved money, it had the further geopolitical advantage of keeping the United States engaged. NATO, given the programmed European insufficiencies, couldn't function without American equipment, and the French once again had to rely on American troop transporters for the Rwanda intervention--but now this glaring inability to implement national policy is less acceptable. In the "Second Nuclear Age," when conventional forces have recovered a warfighting justification in French military doctrine, it makes strategic and political sense for France to build a significant logistics capacity.
In aerial reconnaissance, the Gulf War highlighted French reliance on American assets, and the peacekeeping operations in Bosnia underlined the same point. The late 1994 Iraqi military mobilization on the Kuwaiti border showed once again the French and European lack of aerial reconnaissance capabilities. Le Monde headlined an article "The Logic of Force in Iraq: While Baghdad and Washington Continue on a War Footing, the Europeans Have No Choice but to Follow Along with the U.S." The article reflected the irritation of certain government and military officials; for example, Balladur's defense minister François Léotard said that France and the Europeans generally had no independent means to "verify, let alone contest" American information about the military situation on the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. French authorities were obliged to accept at face value the information Americans gave them, culled by U.S. satellites and spy planes:
The lack of national, if not European, means of permanent observation in the region obliges the French to depend on American sources, as well as on their use--perhaps self-interested and perhaps exaggerated--by Bill Clinton, as he attempts to improve the credibility of his administration at the midpoint of his presidential term.30
The British were instantly at America's side in countering Saddam's mobilization, and the French only slightly less so.31 Saddam's move was especially reckless, given that the Gulf war allies of 1990 were at that very moment debating in the Security Council over lifting the embargo on Iraq (France and Britain in favor, the U.S. against).
The French had only 15 officers in the U.N. control mission on the ground in Kuwait, with no long-range espionage equipment. This left the French military blind and deaf in the crisis, without reconnaissance of their own to inform policy makers in Paris. The same French and European deficiency had been evident in the Gulf crisis of 1990-91; in the meantime, little had been done to give the French military what it asked for. The all-weather optical reconnaissance satellites Helios 2 and the radar espionage Osiris system, which France is proposing to build with European partners, won't be ready before the year 2000--and the projects may be put off or modified, given German and Spanish hesitation.
Europeans believe American policymakers shade the truth when it is in U.S. interest (or a president's partisan interest) to do so. In future situations they may want to verify American information but lack the means to do so. Nonetheless, despite a tendency to think that President Clinton had electoral motives to inflame the crisis, the French unambiguously blamed Saddam Hussein for precipitating the test of nerves on the Kuwaiti border, as when the Iraqi leader menacingly vowed "decisive" action if the U.N. Security Council did not act by its October 1994 meeting to show Iraq the beginning of the end of the international trade and arms embargo against it.
When Le Monde commented that Saddam's reckless action "provided the Americans with the occasion to extend their influence in the Gulf region," several American editorialists replied. William Safire, for example, wrote:
Saddam will have support in the Security Council. Russian intelligence chief Yevgeny Primakov is Saddam's longtime ally; Russia will support the lifting of sanctions, if only to make possible the repayment of $6 billion owed Moscow by Iraq. Foreign Minister Alain Juppé is salivating at the prospect of France resuming business with its best oil source . . . France or Russia care little that Saddam continues to try to strangle Iraq's Kurdish minority and starve its Shiites, or will surely circumvent arms inspections at the first opportunity. What does cause them to hesitate is Saddam's continued claims of ownership of Kuwait. . . . By creating a threat, Saddam makes possible his grand concession: If we will let bygones be bygones, he will not make war. Paris may even extract 'recognition' of Kuwait and claim a diplomatic triumph, deserving of instant trade relations.32
Charles Krauthammer made an even blunter analysis of French motives and reliability:
Unfortunately, the administration appears to be abandoning this idea (of a no-tank zone in Iraq along the border with Kuwait) because of Security Council opposition. In particular, France is opposed. So what? The United States bore the brunt of the Gulf War. It will bear the brunt of any future war. . . . The French don't like it? They should be told, in the most delicate diplomatic language, to stuff it. (That's what diplomats are for.) . . . If the United Nations will not impose a no-tank zone, America should impose it unilaterally.33
By contrast, The Economist pointed out why the situation was not so open to American unilateralism:
The Russians, not coalition partners in a military sense but crucial to the allies' success in the Gulf war, are now much less inclined to accept American hegemony in sensitive regions such as the Middle East. France--until Mr. Hussein's recent performance--had begun to oppose America's policy of keeping a full range of economic sanctions against Iraq...Even Britain's old intimacy with the United States has been imperiled by differences over Bosnia and to a lesser degree, over Northern Ireland.34Despite indications that the French military may be quite active in various kinds of missions in the post-Cold War period, the Balladur government announced military budget cuts that, contrary to its own defense White Paper, will affect the French air force most of all. A 1994 National Assembly defense committee report on the draft military budget for 1995 emphasized the degree to which the air force will be reduced. Signed by Olivier Darrason, a center-right deputy from the Bouches-du-Rhone, the report puts together several telling facts.35
In terms of military installations, the report observes that since 1984 15 air bases have been closed. Downsizing could well continue with a pending proposal to eliminate "one or several big air hub centers." In terms of training, the report notes that beginning in 1995 the air force will have to reduce by 3 percent the total number of its flying hours. Whereas the U.S. Air Force average is approximately 250 flying hours per year per pilot, and the United Kingdom's is 220 hours, French air training will sink further below their current annual average of 180 flying hours per pilot. This lack is all the more worrisome, says the report, given the upsurge of international crises calling for air power--combat and transport units--first of all in multilateral operations. In Bosnia, for example, the French share of air operations is second only to the United States. In 1993, foreign missions made up about 17 percent of the French air force's activity, requiring 20 percent of the air force's active pilots, really about 40 percent given leaves and other requirements.
It is paradoxical, then, that the air force, according to new plans, will have to downsize more than the two other services. At the end of the 1995-2000 military plan, active air force personnel will have shrunk by 3 percent, whereas French Army personnel will have increased by close to 6 percent and the navy by about 0.5 percent. Darrason argues that downsizing and budget cuts will inevitably damage air force efficiency, just when it has become the service called on to respond rapidly at great distances.
Cuts in the budget for equipment will also have a serious effect on the air force. The defense White Paper speaks of a French air force of approximately 400 combat aircraft, whereas Germany, the United Kingdom, and even Taiwan now have 620, 590, and 480 respectively, while France currently has 415. The report further asserts that if beginning in 1998 the air force is supposed to order only 16 Rafale fighter planes per year, the result will be "an air force of 320 planes." It would be necessary to order 20 Rafale planes per year beginning in 1997 to hold the goal of 400 planes on active duty. Furthermore, at the end of the decade the air force will face the problem of trying to finance two large weapons systems, the Rafale and the large transport plane to replace the Transall by the year 2003. The two budgets, about Fr. 200 billion for the Rafale program and Fr. 345 billion for the transport plane, will presumably end up in competition with each other for financing. The report concludes that the government must simply increase the air force budget, proposing the goal of the same rate of budget growth as for the French Army.
At the same time, following up on other White Paper commitments, in mid-December 1994 feasibility studies were started on three new long-range, precision-guided missile programs. The first two are an anti-infrastructure (e.g., anti-airfield) Apache missile, to be built by the Matra-Defense group, and a supersonic antiship missile (the ANNG, a successor to the Exocet) that Aerospatiale will construct. The two companies are supposed to work in tandem on the projects, and other European industrial groups may be invited to participate. Additionally, in January 1995 a decision was taken to launch a French cruise missile program, akin to the American Tomahawk system.
In making these projects public, Defense Minister Léotard commented that they were the first significant implementation of the 1994 White Paper's new strategy statement: the emphasis shifts between conventional and nuclear forces by planning for autonomous use of French conventional forces in a battlefield warfighting strategy, separate from the enterprise of nuclear deterrence that, until further notice, has a purely theoretical character.36 How the Chirac government intends to face the problems of choosing French weapons systems, and financing them, will be among the early major policy decisions.
President Mitterrand's deterrence doctrine, the commitment to pure deterrence, had not varied at all when he left office. The sole purpose of French nuclear weapons is defensive, to ensure the survival of the national territory and France's vital interests. No doubt Mitterrand's private thinking evolved considerably, especially in envisaging a European doctrine for the French and British nuclear forces, but to have put into question French nuclear doctrines would have been quite destabilizing.
The Gaullist nuclear doctrine of making France a "sanctuary" prohibited any broader view of nuclear deterrence, in particular any idea of a European deterrent or even the extension of French nuclear protection to German territory. However, in Giscard d'Estaing's presidency and through the two Mitterrand terms, unofficial and semiofficial statements made clear that France's vital interests begin not at the French border or even at the Rhine, but further east. Given the Soviet military strategy of a rush to the Channel, the nuclear protection of Germany would be vital to the protection of France. In discussions leading up to the Maastricht Treaty's call for a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), President Mitterrand publicly suggested (the first time any French president had gone so far) that France's nuclear deterrent could be reconceived as part of a European deterrent. His words indicated he had already made the adjustment in his own mind, that what was unthinkable in Gaullist orthodoxy has gradually become conceivable, not least because a European deterrence doctrine is justifiable as a natural extension of the European integration process. If there is going to be a CFSP in the European Union, the possibility of pooling nuclear deterrence, meaning a French-British nuclear guarantee, is bound to be raised. The bumpy situation in European integration since the signature of the Maastricht Treaty has pushed this particular issue into the background, but it will rise again.
In October 1994, French Chief of Staff Admiral Lanxade publicly echoed Mitterrand's recent trial balloon statements. At a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the first (practice) nuclear alert by Mirage IV planes,37 Lanxade talked of a European defense based on the extension of national deterrence doctrine and strategy to the European level. This would be desirable militarily, he said, but a maturation process is necessary in public and military opinion, because a European deterrent would require "a qualitative leap" in the nature of political decisionmaking in the European Union. Practical negotiations might be premature at this point, he added, but the theoretical sharing out of risks and responsibilities raised by "the joint possession of nuclear weapons" might be discussed now. Preliminary French-British talks have indeed already begun on the possibility of harmonizing nuclear submarine patrols.
Financing the French nuclear force will be an increasing problem in the coming years. With no "designated adversary," a smaller force de frappe could become a political priority. On the other hand, making a success of the CFSP--i.e., French-British nuclear cooperation and nuclear cooperation with the United States as well--means the French nuclear force will survive the peace.
A second deterrence debate is the question of whether French nuclear weapons could have a role in meeting potential dangers from the "south"--using warfighting nuclear weapons as a deterrent against rogue states. Practically, this would mean retention of French tactical nuclear weapons (Hadès) and the development of a range of new precision, battlefield nuclear weapons.
Several respected defense specialists have in the past few years called for such a change.38 The division of opinion on this matter is not left-right, but rather within all of the major political parties. Pascal Boniface, an academic specialist and consultant on defense issues, argues passionately against any warfighting doctrine of nuclear weapons use, and also against any French development of small, precision weapons to deter potential rogue state threats. Such developments are not necessary, he argues, because Hadès already exists and larger French weapons would be just as effective, if need be, in deterring new nuclear proliferation states and/or "crazy" leaders who are expansionist and ruthless, but not suicidal.
He said first, the standing French nuclear arsenal, comprising about 500 warheads, had reached a level of sufficiency. The force de frappe, especially its submarine component, had unquestionable credibility and strike force. Second, by launching a moratorium France would take a leadership position in nuclear politics, playing the sort of world role to which French policy traditionally had aspired. Third, resisting further nuclear proliferation had become an urgent matter again (North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and India). Facing up to this dilemma required two successful diplomatic negotiations: extending and expanding the nonproliferation treaty and, in 1996, reaffirming the ban on nuclear testing in an agreement that would be universal and verifiable. If the world's acknowledged nuclear powers unilaterally moved to stop testing, said Mitterrand, their credibility would rise in asking nonnuclear states to remain so.
While in the opposition Mitterrand had for years opposed nuclear weapons and the force de frappe; gradually during the 1970s he changed his views. Through deft use of deterrence-friendly Socialist leadership colleagues such as Charles Hernu, later Mitterrand's first minister of defense and one of his tutors on security issues, he was able to bring the internally divided and defense-inexperienced new "Epinay" Socialist party, refounded in 1971, to endorse both nuclear weapons and deterrence strategy.
The position of pure deterrence Mitterrand adopted was, however, an endorsement of nuclear defense he could make while asserting that he was not abandoning his previous convictions against any warfighting strategy or actual use. (And the pure deterrence strategy was made more feasible by the overarching umbrella of American/NATO extended deterrence.) The 1992 moratorium thus was a way for Mitterrand to leave, at least in appearance, a left-wing legacy that harked back to his 20 years of antinuclear convictions from the initiation of the force de frappe in the 1960s. Indeed, the Mitterrand moratorium had a comforting political effect among Socialist activists who had always been uncomfortable with the Socialist party's change of policy.
Unlike certain socialist leaders of the past, Mitterrand himself had never been a pacifist. As a young soldier, he had fought, been wounded, and been taken prisoner. Pierre Péan's recent bestselling book, Une Jeunesse Francaise: François Mitterrand, 1934-1947 (Paris: Fayard, 1994), showed in much detail that the escaped prisoner and future president had a controversial passage as a minor Vichy bureaucrat in 1942-43, before embarking on a significant and dangerous career in the Resistance. In fall 1944, General de Gaulle appointed him, at the age of 26 and his Vichy service notwithstanding, to be one of 15 Resistance leaders in charge of organizing the so-called "government of the secretaries general" to establish Free French administrative structures. In 1956, as a Fourth Republic interior minister faced with Algerian attacks on French colonies, Mitterrand replied notoriously to those who wanted negotiations with revolutionary forces, "The only negotiation is war."
In the May 1994 speech, Mitterrand stressed that he had made the decision on the moratorium alone, to underline the president's sole responsibility in nuclear matters. Guarding the credibility of French nuclear deterrence was a baseline of any French president's constitutional duty. Decisions to follow France in adopting a moratorium were announced by the Russian, American, and British governments. Mitterrand, whose had first announced a moratorium only for the remainder of 1992, then declared that France would not resume nuclear testing so long as no other power did. China broke the 5-power moratorium with a test in June 1994.
Mitterrand's Elysée speech argued that, contrary to speculation that his successor would be obliged by military considerations and political pressures to order a new round of testing, this would not happen for two reasons: because France could not afford to be seen as the government reviving preparations for nuclear war, and because it would "offend all the countries who don't have nuclear arsenals." One obvious qualification for a permanent French halt would be, he said, that none of the other major nuclear powers resume testing.
In the PALEN program the French are seeking but do not yet have simulation capacity. The Balladur government asked President Mitterrand to authorize a series of underground tests to perfect simulation techniques, but the president replied instead with a presidential directive to find ways to develop simulation techniques without any more actual tests. This, like the moratorium, was Mitterrand's way of leaving behind a political and technological challenge in nuclear matters.
The successful outcome in May 1995 of negotiations for an indefinite extension of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) creates added pressure on the new Chirac government not to resume underground testing. Some nonnuclear governments dragged out accepting NPT extension as a way to lobby for simultaneous commitments from the nuclear powers on the test ban treaty renegotiation scheduled for 1996.
According to internal government documents in the Elysée archives, French military and scientific advisors told the Mitterrand-Balladur cohabitation government that another year or two without testing is tolerable without harming French nuclear capability. The Balladur government might have tried to renew testing after its arrival in 1993, but in the cohabitation political situation Balladur did not push the constitutionally delicate issue of whether the prime minister or the president would have the final word on nuclear testing. It was one of the few disagreements on an important issue between the prime minister and Mitterrand. President Chirac thus arrives in office already faced with a decision on whether to authorize new tests at the Mururoa site, perhaps a series of 10 tests that could be finished early enough, say by May 1996, so as not to complicate renegotiation of the test ban treaty.
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