UretereDroit
2021-03-30 19:43:10
IN THE FORESTS and plains of the Champagne-Ardenne region, where once the great powers went into battle, the French armed forces are beginning to prepare for the return of a major conflict. Planned for 2023, Exercise Orion is a full-scale divisional exercise that will last several days, based probably out of camps at Suippes, Mailly, and Mourmelon. It will involve the full range of French military capacity on a scale not tested for decades. The drill will include command-post exercises, hybrid scenarios, simulation and live-fire drills. Around 10,000 soldiers could take part, as well as the air force and, in a separate maritime sequence, the navy. Belgian, British and American forces may join in.
En gros en 2023 il y aura un exercice militaire d'une ampleur jamais vue impliquant l'ensemble des forces militaires françaises (terrestre, air et espace, marine) avec plus de 10 000 soldats et on pourrait être rejoints par l'armée belge, britanique et américaine.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/47/1479818828-risitasmilitaire3.png
There are other signs that the French armed forces are in the midst of a generational transformation. In January the general staff quietly established ten working groups to examine the country’s readiness for high-intensity war. French generals reckon that they have a decade or so to prepare for it. The groups cover everything from munition shortages to the resilience of society, including whether citizens are “ready to accept the level of casualties we have never seen since world war two”, says one participant. The spectre of high-end war is now so widespread in French military thinking that the scenario has its own acronym: HEM, or hypothèse d'engagement majeur (hypothesis of major engagement). The presumed opponents are unnamed, but analysts point not only to Russia, but also Turkey or a North African country.
En janvier dernier il y a eu des études sur la cohésion nationale en cas de conflit majeur avec le plus de victimes depuis la 2nde guerre mondiale. Les généraux français estiment que nous avons environ 10 ans pour se préparer à un éventuel conflit majeur. Les impliqués ne veulent pas donner d'hypothèses sur le possible ennemi mais des experts parlent de la Russie, la Turquie ou un pays Nord-Africain.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/14/1491235466-vpnuke.pnghttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/10/1489324471-iphone-image-03-12-2017.jpghttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2019/32/3/1565180726-zizou-fierte-dz-sah-quel-plaisir.jpg
That represents a seismic shift for French forces. Thirty years ago they mostly did peacekeeping. Over the past decade, they have turned to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism, whether abroad (Opération Barkhane in the Sahel) or at home (Opération Sentinelle). 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.
Il y a 30 ans l'armée française était principalement un objectif de maintien de la paix. Ces 10 dernières années elles s'est tournée vers des missions de repression des insurrections et anti-terroristes. Un général dit que l'objectif des 10 prochaines années serait de se préparer à des conflits de grande intensité, entre états.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/45/5/1510354294-mxdsci1ktpg4gnxevjj-ga2.png
“We absolutely have to prepare for a more dangerous world,” General Burkhard recently told The Economist. This requires what he calls a “hardening” of the land army. Currently France keeps 5,100 troops in the Sahel as part of Barkhane. Future operations “could involve brigades, or a division”, meaning 8,000-25,000 soldiers. The need to change scale over the next decade, says the general, will require a mix of reforms: more demanding recruitment; investment in modern equipment; simpler organisational structures to make the army more nimble; and toughened training for a major conflict. “We will be tested more and more brutally,” he says. “We need to realise this.”
When Emmanuel Macron was elected president in 2017 he raised initial doubts within the armed forces about his commitment to military spending. After imposing a round of short-term cuts, he rowed publicly with General Pierre de Villiers, then head of the joint chiefs of staff, prompting the general to resign. Since then, however, Mr Macron has kept a campaign promise to invest heavily in his soldiers.
The defence budget for 2019-25 got a big boost, taking annual spending to €50bn ($59bn) by the end of the period, by which time it will be 46% up on its level of 2018. Weighted towards the later years, the budget allows military planners to think ahead, buy kit and reorganise. “It’s the first time in memory that we have a reasonable fit between the planning documents and the budget allocated,” says François Heisbourg, of the Foundation for Strategic Research. It also means that France now meets its NATO commitment to spend at least 2% of its GDP on defence.
Macron a augmenté massivement le budget de la défense, objectif d'augmenter considérablement le recrutement dans l'armée, on va atteindre l'objectif de l'OTAN de dépense de 2% du PIB pour la défensehttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2020/32/4/1596734641-degaulle3.jpg
The core of French military modernisation is the Scorpion programme, a $6.8bn project to replace virtually every front-line motorised and armoured vehicle in the army, upgrade the 1990s-era Leclerc tank and connect all these together over a new digital network. The idea is that a first fully-equipped Scorpion brigade should be ready by 2023. Rémy Hémez, a French officer and researcher, says that in the 15 years between 2010 and 2025, the army’s equipment will have changed more than it did in the four decades between 1970 and 2010.
Le projet Scorpion a pour objectif de remplacer tous les véhicules motorisés de l'armée, qui datent des années 90. Les premiers nouveaux engins seront prêts en 2023. Entre 2010 et 2025, l'équippement de l'armée aura changé plus qu'entre 1970 et 2010https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/47/1480268642-1466554357-risitas74.pnghttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/51/1482169644-soldatrisitas.png
Marchons, marchons
In many respects, France’s approach to future war differs from the tech-heavy vision recently unveiled by Britain. Whereas Britain is cutting troops and armour, France is keeping 60% more soldiers than Britain plans to, and 50% more tanks. It has been relatively slow to acquire and arm drones. “There is a great risk of falling behind as automation on the battlefield accelerates,” warned a report by the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank. Indeed, 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.”
That does not mean France is ignoring new domains of war; space, in particular, is a priority. In September last year France’s air force became the “Air and Space Force”, having earlier stood up a new military space command in Toulouse. The French armed forces are also expanding their information warfare and cyber capabilities. In December 2020 Facebook and Instagram removed a network of 100 fake accounts linked to the French armed forces after they sparred with Russian-backed ones over the Central African Republic and Mali, among other African battlegrounds where the two countries vie for influence.
Contrairement au Royaume-Uni, on ne se concentre pas autant sur les nouvelles technologies. En effet, on devrait avoir 60% de soldats en plus et 50% de chars en plus par rapport au RU. Un général dit que la technologie n'est jamais sûre à 100% et que les soldats doivent être capables de se battre sans.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/51/1482333707-napoleon-risitas-sticker.pnghttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/03/1485015102-jesusvult.png
Cependant, la France n'abandonne pas les nouvelles technologies. En effet, en septembre dernier, l'armée de l'air est devenue l'armée de l'air et de l'espace. L'armée est aussi en train d'augmenter ses capacités de cyberdéfense. Elle a notamment découvert et éliminé une centaine de comptes trolls russes visant à décrédibiliser l'action de l'armée française.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2019/23/7/1560038126-road-to-espace-jvc.jpghttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2020/13/5/1585334913-purificiation-espace-jesus.jpg
As France starts to gear up its armed forces for all these new forms of warfare, however, there are a number of serious challenges. The Sahel experience, says General Burkhard, is “undeniably a real strength”. Over a vast area of semi-arid scrub, soldiers and special forces take part in high-risk combat operations, which are both technically and tactically challenging. The French army has reported 57 deaths since 2013. Yet Barkhane is a highly asymmetric conflict, in which the French enjoy air supremacy, with no communications interference nor threat from drones, missiles or cyber-attacks.
L'opération Barkhane est un environnement très efficace pour des entraînements dans des milieux hostileshttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/51/1482169644-soldatrisitas.png
The other problem is that French forces are being pulled in several directions at once. In mid-March a dozen French tanks, 160 armoured vehicles and 300 troops arrived in Tapa, in Estonia. They were the latest French contribution to the NATO battlegroups stationed in Poland and the Baltic states to deter Russian attack. Indeed military staff assume future engagements would be alongside allies—if not NATO, then at least America, or a coalition of the willing. These modernisation efforts are consistent both with NATO’s priorities and with Mr Macron’s desire for Europe to bolster its indigenous defences, though France and others remain reliant on American support for key enabling assets, like airlift and air defence.
La France a récemment envoyé des chars, des centaines de véhicules blindés et des troupes en Estonie pour défendre contre des agressions russes. On s'attend à ce que les US y envoient des renforts.https://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2021/11/1/1615833199-enormeculmanger.png
In addition to eastern Europe, France is increasingly preoccupied to the south. In the eastern Mediterranean, France and Turkey have clashed over Libya, Syria and Cyprus, prompting Mr Macron to dispatch two warplanes and a frigate to Greek waters last August. On top of that, France is also deeply involved in the Indo-Pacific, where its overseas territories contain 1.6m French citizens and 7,000 soldiers. France has sustained a steady naval presence in the area.
The catch is that the navy has just 15 major surface ships to deal with all these issues, points out Admiral Pierre Vandier, France’s chief of naval staff. “All of us Europeans are on thin ice. We may stretch our forces between doing well in the Atlantic, doing well in the Med, doing well in the Gulf and doing well in the Indo-Pacific.” Prioritising between these is no longer a job for the armed forces, he says, but “a political decision” for Mr Macron or his successor. “We will have choices to make, for sure.”
Il y a aussi des inquiétudes au Sud, en Méditerranée où on a aidé la Grèce et humilié Erdogan. Dans l'Océan Indien et Pacifique aussi, où 1,6 millions de Français habitent, il y a une forte présence militaire, avec 7000 soldats et une douzaine de vaisseaux de guerre.
Alors les kheys, vous êtes prêts pour la WW3? Entre la Chine qui se prépare à envahir Taiwan, la Turquie qui veut restaurer l'empire ottoman, la France qui commence à former des soldats cyborg et un nouveau porte-avions en construction, le prochain grand conflit semble être IMMINENT. J'aimerais savoir ce que vous en pensez, YKK ou YRR, moi perso jdishttps://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2017/32/6/1502546574-yorakelk3.png
Il reste à savoir quel génie va faire l'erreur de provoquer la plus grande puissance armée européenne: Poutine ? Erdo ? Xi ching ching ?