2 France
Between exceptionalism and orthodoxy
Thierry Tardy
Since the Second World War, Franceâs security strategy has been the result of an unfailing anchorage in the West, its alliances and values, and a certain propensity to cultivate independence and non-alignment vis-Ă -vis the American superpower. Franceâs foreign and defence policies lie at the junction of these two fundamental features.
The attachment to the West is unsurprising, as France has objectively been one of the main political, military, cultural and economic pillars of what constitutes the Western bloc and has therefore been logically involved in the security framework associated with it. The tendency towards non-alignment is more complex. It is an expression of Franceâs political culture, inherited from the French Revolution and the subsequent role as a European power. This heritage has significantly shaped Franceâs conception of its place on the international scene. It has led to the idea of a French âexceptionalismâ, simultaneously reality and fiction, contained in the conviction that France has special responsibilities, that it has a rank to hold, a particular role to play. This, in turn, limits the extent to which French foreign and defence policies can be tied to its alliesâ respective policies, those of the US in particular. Insofar as French âexceptionalismâ implies a certain aspiration to universalism, it is inherently difficult to reconcile with another alleged source of universalism, namely the American (Hoffmann 2000).
In the broadly defined field of international security, the linkage between âFrench exceptionalismâ and the way France assesses the threats to its security is not yet clear. Throughout the Cold War, France was a genuine and reliable ally whenever the Alliance was being tested, as was the case during the Cuban Missile Crisis or during the INF (intermediate-range nuclear force) missile crisis in the early 1980s. In contrast, the 1956 Suez crisis and the 1966 French withdrawal from the NATO military structure did involve true differences in policy orientations, but did not reflect any fundamental difference in strategic threat assessment. For example, French particularism within NATO did not result in a different French analysis of the danger represented by the Soviet Union.
After the main factor of cohesion â the Soviet threat â disappeared, the very notion of âthe Westâ was shattered. In the new environment, the whole notion of threat is to be revisited, as are the policies aimed at tackling the so-called ânew threatsâ. In this process, France does not necessarily distance itself from its partners, but still aspires to be one of the driving forces in the changing environment.
The events of 11 September 2001 once again oblige Western states to look at their threat assessment and policy responses. The French approach is a mix of singularity and orthodoxy. France shares most of the concerns and policy orientations of its allies, but witnesses with increasing discomfort the emergence of unipolarity as one key feature of the international system. In this respect, the French peculiarity, if there is any, lies in the way policy should be conducted â that is in the way threats should be addressed â rather than in the threat assessment itself.
In this respect, even if Franceâs threat assessment in the post-Cold War era can be seen as by and large accurate, it is not certain whether that assessment has been translated into policy. The shift from defence to security in theory and practice has not yet entirely taken place.
Security threat perceptions of a medium-sized power with a global vocation
As in every other Western country, the end of the Cold War had a direct impact on the definition of Franceâs security threats. The threat against which French defence policy had been built for over forty years â the Soviet Union â was disappearing. Given its scale, such a threat had captured both attention and resources; it had heavily influenced French foreign policy, determined the format, budget and posture of the armed forces, and eclipsed almost any other kind of threat.
Yet the disappearance of the Soviet danger coincided with the emergence of new forms of threat. The Soviet threat â well identified, massive, state-based and of a primarily military nature â gave way to threats characterized by their diffuse nature, often originating from non-state actors, and containing an important nonmilitary dimension: nationalism and identity-based conflicts, religious fundamentalism and terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and transnational organized crime among others. The ânoveltyâ of these threats is widely accepted: even if most of them were key features of the globalization process that came to be analysed in the 1970s, many were actually born out of it. However new, they augured for a new disorder in lieu of the short-lived New World Order proclaimed in 1990.
In France, this coming disorder was reflected both in the academic literature and the policy area. What was at stake was a fundamental reappraisal of the nature of the international system, and of the key concepts of security and threat. This was grasped in the first half of the 1990s in books by leading scholars such as Le retournement du monde (Badie and Smouts 1992) or Appels dâempire (SalamĂ© 1996)1 which challenged the realist paradigm. Both analysed the erosion of the state as the central actor of the international system and emphasized instead nonstate actors and transnational issues. As the non-military nature of the ânewâ threats was underlined, the term âsecurityâ tended to replace the too narrowly defined term âdefenceâ. Taking heed of the new context, a significant part of the literature was also dedicated to the new form of wars, their causality and evolution (Delmas 1996; Murawiec 2000; Vennesson 1998). In this new environment, uncertainty characterizes the nature of the system, the roles and nature of its agents, and their relations.
After the short period of euphoria around the concept of a New World Order that had some resonance in France,2 public discourse of the early 1990s was replete with references to the new security environment, its threats and, to a certain extent, the unpreparedness of the state when facing them. The dislocation of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed came as illustrations of the new context, while France became heavily involved at all levels in the managing of the Yugoslav crises (Tardy 1999b).
Those different evolutions were presented in a relatively comprehensive and coherent manner in the 1994 defence White Paper, written on the initiative of Prime Minister Ădouard Balladur. The White Paperâs first chapter takes note of the absence of an identified military threat to French territory, but also describes a European security environment that remained highly unstable. It presents the proliferation of WMD as one of the major challenges to international and French security, before identifying four sources of ânew vulnerabilitiesâ: terrorism; religious extremisms and nationalisms; drug trafficking; and the globalization of security and communication strategies (MinistĂšre de la DĂ©fense 1994).
In the same vein, the White Paper defines three categories of national interests particularly threatened in the new environment (MinistĂšre de la DĂ©fense 1994):
- vital interests: the integrity of national territory, including metropolitan France and overseas territories, and territorial airspace and waters; the free exercise of sovereignty and the protection of the population;
- strategic interests: although the White Paper states that there should not be a clear distinction between vital and strategic interests, it defines strategic interests as the maintenance of peace in Europe and in the areas bordering the European continent south and east; the Mediterranean and the Middle East as well as spaces essential to the French economic activity and to the freedom of trade and communication are also deemed to be of particular strategic importance;
- interests related to Franceâs international responsibilities: these interests are linked to Franceâs status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and its âparticular vocationâ.
By their nature, most of the new threats are not linked to a specific territorial base, which makes a geographical approach less relevant than during the Cold War. However, the strategic interests defined in the White Paper clearly identify Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East as the possible origin of threat. Similarly, the fact that no major threat to French territory is identified does not mean that France has necessarily become safer. On the contrary, the transnational nature of the evolving threats renders French territory unprotected by traditional means (such as nuclear deterrence and territorial defence). This also leads some decision-makers, such as Foreign Minister Hubert VĂ©drine, to stigmatize the globalization process as being a fertile breeding ground for the development of the new threats (see VĂ©drine 2000). A geographical approach retains pertinence when looking at particular categories of threat. Illegal immigration, for example, is an issue analysed differently in France, Italy or Spain as compared to Sweden or Ireland, largely because the geographical location of Mediterranean states renders the threat of refugee flows more immediate than in Northern Europe.
In the 1990s, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait (with the associated threat to the oil supply), the wars in former Yugoslavia (which were provoked by or led to extreme nationalism, identity-based conflicts, ethnic cleansing, refugee flows, weapons smuggling and organized crime), the civil war in Algeria (and its impact on French internal security with the 1995â6 series of bomb attacks in France), the limited civil war in Albania (following the collapse of the Albanian economy in 1997 and subsequent refugee flows), or the development of Islamic fundamentalism in the ArabâMuslim world provide illustrations of what France identified as direct or indirect threats to its security. In this respect, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 is not seen as the most likely scenario of regional destabilization. In the post-Cold War era, conflicts are characterized by their intra-state nature, and instability is seen as coming from weak or âfailedâ states rather than from powerful and aggressive ones.
Lastly, one threat that is identified in France and that distinguishes it from its partners is constituted by the unipolar international system centred on the United States. Drawing on an argument largely developed by structural realists (Waltz 1979), French public discourse is replete with references to the detrimental effects of one power dominating all the others and with advocacies for a multipolar world. This analysis led to the concept of âhyperpowerâ, coined by VĂ©drine to describe the level of domination by the US on the international scene (VĂ©drine 2003; 2000). By extension, this approach also insinuates that the United States itself can be a threat to international security â although not directly to French security. This concern became particularly acute in the context of the 2002/2003 Iraq crisis, when American policy was perceived in France as likely to make the world less safe. Such a threat is, however, in no way comparable with other threats to French security.
In this environment, French threat assessment, as laid down in public documents as well as the academic literature since the end of the Cold War, is a fair reflection of reality. The changing nature of the system is by and large understood, as is the non-military nature of the many so-called new threats.
It is interesting here to note the existence of a large consensus within political parties on foreign affairs and defence in general and on threat assessment in particular. The 1994 defence White Paper was written under the âcohabitationâ system and reflects the view of both the Socialists and the Right. With the exception of extremist parties, divisions on foreign policy issues lie within political parties rather than between them. The debates on the European Constitution or on the Iraq crisis in 2002/2003, or in the m...
