Like its predecessor in 2008, the new French White Paper on Defense and National Security highlights the need for the French air forces to keep a “forced entry” capability (see here, pages 92 and 96). However vague this phrase might sound, it seems to imply, at some point, the capability to conduct suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) missions. However, since the decommissioning in 1999 of the French-made anti-radiation missile AS-37 Martel, French air and naval air forces no longer have any dedicated SEAD means. As a matter of fact, it was considered in the late 1990s that any operations involving SEAD would be conducted in coalition – that is, with the US – and that they would provide SEAD means in the opening phase. As we are now looking for the next decade or so, France has to face two major changes in the strategic environment: on one hand, a gradual US withdrawal from Europe and a strategic posture that might not necessarily include SEAD in its service; and on the other hand, a worrying SAM proliferation across the world, including in France’s own backyard (since Algeria purchased SA-20 in 2008 we now have a considerable challenge less than 500 miles from our shores). So, what are actual French SEAD capabilities and are they sufficient?

Self-protection instead of stealth

Unlike the US Air Force, but much more like US Navy and USMC aviation, the French Air Force did not make stealth its paramount capability for penetrating enemy air spaces – for quite obvious budgetary reasons. The main French fighter aircraft, the Rafale, does benefit from a reduced radar cross section (RCS) but can hardly be considered a stealthy plane. Instead, French air forces rely on an electronic warfare suite called SPECTRA, which combines passive radars, laser and infrared detectors, intelligent chaff launchers, infrared flares, and most of all a comprehensive suite of 3 defensive jammers based on an AESA technology.

SPECTRA is a battle-proven and very effective tool, and there is even some evidence that it was the only platform that performed well against an SA-10B during the NATO exercise MACE XIII in April 2012 in Slovakia. Yet it confronted only one SAM system, and experts are quite skeptical about SPECTRA’s performance when facing integrated air defense systems, which means dealing with multiple threats and multiple enemy radars, possibly AESA ones.

Real but limited DEAD capabilities

Of course self-protection is not enough to conduct SEAD operations, nor even to enforce a No-Fly Zone. That is why French air forces need hard-kill, kinetic strike capabilities to take out SAM systems. Thanks to its main air-to-ground guided bomb (A2SM), the French Air Force was able to take out a Libyan SA-3 in the first days of operation Harmattan in March 2011. Here again, SPECTRA is also a key instrument to target SAMs for hard kills as it detects them and transmits the target information to the guidance system. In this case, the range of the A2SM (about 45 km) also allowed the pilot to shoot the SA-3 outside its target engagement ring.

Like self-protection however, these kinds of DEAD capabilities are only relevant against second or third-rate, non-integrated air defense systems that we can take out one by one and with limited range so that the shooter can remain standoff. I doubt the system can hang on for long against double digit-based, digitally integrated air defense systems.

Tactics, maneuver and risk taking

The Libyan air campaign showed some discrepancies between US (and even UK) approaches to SEAD operations and French ones. For instance, as French SIGINT reports indicated that the SA-5s were not operational (as they weren’t indeed), the Air Staff did not « air task » them, concentrating only on SA-3s, SA-6s, and SA-8s. The US, on the contrary did not want to take the chance and considered the SA-5s active until positively destroyed. By the same token, it looks like ruse and craftiness (e.g. using diversions to penetrate SAM rings) are more important in today’s French training than they are in the US (e.g. number of tacticians in a fighter squadron). Because it cannot always afford overwhelming material superiority, the French Air Force sometimes use tactics and maneuver to trump material limitations. This being said, and however much leverage these tactics and maneuvers can generate, it is doubtful that such tricks will, in the end, prove sufficient against modern threats – at least at a reasonable human and material cost.

Is the French way of SEAD sustainable?

To conclude, it seems that the current French way of SEAD is an interesting, cost-effective, and performing tool in some cases, but insufficient in many other. The current trend of SAM proliferation in developing countries will make this model more and more insufficient against first-rate, but also second-rate and even third-rate adversaries. So, is the French way of SEAD sustainable? Yes, if it adapts its capability: this means 1/ maintaining its SIGINT and strengthening its ISR capabilities; 2/ strengthening our existing standoff strike capability (especially by expanding cruise missile stockpiles); 3/ seriously considering developing/buying some means of electronic attack (whether it be traditional antiradiation weapons, modern AESA-based offensive jamming or even ground-breaking cyber-SEAD). Without these three efforts, France will soon find itself unable to conduct any serious « forced entry » missions, whatever the new White Paper might say.

Ifri’s Security Studies Center has just published the issue #46 of its Proliferation Papers series entitled:

The Primacy of Alliance: Deterrence and European Security

Sir Lawrence Freedman has been Professor of War Studies at King’s College London since 1982. He became head of the School of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s in 2000 and was appointed Vice-Principal in 2003. He was educated at Whitley Bay Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester, York and Oxford. Before joining King’s he held research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, IISS and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He was appointed Official Historian of the Falklands Campaign in 1997 and was appointed in June 2009 to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War.

His new Proliferation Paper can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

Since the end of the Cold War, the international security environment has been transformed and nuclear weapons have been marginalized in the West. However, the NATO security policies remain almost unchanged: deterrence is still considered as a principle guiding the Atlantic Alliance, even though the actual policy statements lack target, direction and urgency. Questioning the credibility of deterrence in Europe and its future, this text recalls that it lies first and foremost with solidarity and political cohesion among members of the Alliance, and only secondly with the threat of nuclear retaliation. As a consequence, the decreasing salience of nuclear weapons in the West seems less worrying for the robustness of deterrence in Europe than a long-term and lasting shift of US foreign policy away from the European continent.

Contents:

Introduction

The Nature and Diversity of Deterrence

NATO and Nuclear Sallience after the Cold War

Enduring Issues of Credibility for NATO’s Deterrent Posture

Conclusion

Ifri’s Defence Research Unit has just published the issue #43 of its Focus stratégique series entitled:

Defence Reform in the United Kingdom: A Twenty-First Century Paradox

Dr. John Louth is Senior Research Fellow and Director for Defence, Industries and Society at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies. His work has included the audit and governance of the UK strategic deterrent, the implementation of risk-based governance regimes into energy businesses, UK Ministry of Defence and industry partnering initiatives. He spent part of his career in the Middle East running separate national programmes to develop commercial and defence capabilities across a number of Gulf States. Dr. Louth has also worked as a senior adviser to the European Defence Agency on the development of pan-European procurement policies and practices. He teaches at Roehampton University Business School in London and is also a specialist adviser to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee.

His Focus stratégique can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

The context of budgetary constraint offered a strong incentive for the 2010 Coalition Government to improve its management of defence equipment. Before that, the previous Labour governments already focused on smart acquisition so that the procurement process could reach a trade-off between military performance, the R&D costs and the purchase value. Thus, several smart acquisition reforms aimed at importing private sector skills and behaviours into the defence public domain. By building its logic around public-private partnership (PPP), smart acquisition can be apprehended as an interlocking of three factors: organisation, the high level of process and body of knowledge, and the people who promoted and enacted its processes, behaviours and objectives. Due to organisational confusion, ineffective project management and unclear objectives, successive UK governments have failed to manage operational and financial risks, cost overruns and diseconomies.

Content:

Introduction

The Narrative of Reform

The Road to Smart Procurement

The Physicality of Smart Acquisition

Lessons and Insights from Defence Reform in the UK

Conclusion

This article was written by Thomas Franklin (pseudonym), who is currently serving as a US Navy officer. This article does not represent the views of the United States Navy or of the US Government.

In February the United States elaborated on its deployment of remotely piloted aircraft (RPA, often called drones) to Niamey, Niger. American RPAs are being employed for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions to support counterterrorism operations, principally French and Chadian, against Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Northern Mali. AQIM and its allies’ descent toward Bamako and the French military intervention in response were catalysts for the RPA deployment, but in reality many in the US Military have desired increased ISR collection in the region for years. What interest does the US have to deploy RPAs to Niger? This post focuses on the advantages of such a deployment, leaving the drawbacks to a later post.

It is in the interest of the United States to counter AQIM and other terrorist groups in the Sahel and to stabilize national governments in the face of the regional upheaval caused by the overthrow of Kaddafi in 2011 and the coup d’Etat in Mali in 2012. The ultimate goal is to set the conditions for regional reconciliation, stable democratic government and economic growth.

The Threat

2012 marked a rupture for AQIM and allies as they expanded their control over northern Mali and made a move on the capital at the end of the year. Over previous years, they intermittently succeeded and failed in a variety of terrorist attacks and kidnappings and collected ransom money to finance larger attacks, such as the bombing of the French Embassy in Mauritania in 2009. AQIM is now degraded, but hard work lies ahead: it has dispersed and its cells must be found, watched and prevented from regrouping.

Zooming out from Mali, AQIM represents part of a larger and growing problem. Other terrorist groups – such as Ansar al-Dine and Boko Haram – are increasingly active in tough to locate cells across the Sahel. Most of these terrorist groups have regional ambitions and a desire to attack western targets. Few have demonstrated both the intent and the capability to attack the American homeland or European continent, yet they are growing more ambitious. Supporting these terrorist groups in alliances of convenience, Touaregs control lands adjacent to international borders, facilitate arms transfers and logistical movements, and sometimes rebel against national governments.

In this context, RPAs based in Niger can conduct ISR and pass actionable intelligence to French, Chadian, Nigerien, and other local forces “on the ground” to track and pursue terrorists and their facilitators. Soldiers on the ground will be safer as RPAs’ “eyes in the sky” reduce the risk of their being ambushed. Manned aircraft also conduct ISR, but the geography and mission favors RPA.

Fit for the Geographical Environment

Niger is an excellent staging point to conduct airborne ISR against terrorism in the Sahel regardless of the aircraft deployed: it is near Northern Mali and right in the middle of the Sahel, a huge, land-locked, sparsely populated area with few good roads. Even under normal circumstances, the region’s international borders are too large to be patrolled. If the US has trouble patrolling the border with Mexico, imagine Niger’s problem: the country with the lowest human development index in the world (UN Development Program, 2012) must patrol borders with Chad, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Algeria, and Libya. Up until January, the US had little or no persistent ISR coverage over the region. The local countries’ governments did not either.

The US likely deployed MQ-9 Reapers to Niger (here is a decent but dated graphic comparing American RPA). The Reaper has a maximum range of 1,150 miles (1,850 kilometers) and the airborne endurance to conduct 24-hour ISR missions. Reapers provide persistent ISR coverage over all of Niger, and, assuming overflight rights are granted by neighboring countries, all of Nigeria, most of Mali and part of Chad, Libya, and Algeria.

The clear advantage of RPAs over other forms of ISR in the region, including manned aircraft, is their ability to loiter and provide a persistent “stare” to observe people, vehicles, caravans, camps, and buildings. Terrorist groups would have to observe strict, disciplined operational security to avoid being identified and tracked. At a minimum, this would disrupt their operations, possibly deterring some of their more brazen kidnapping stunts, saving Western lives and preventing ransom money from reaching AQIM.

An Opportunity for African, French and American Security Cooperation

International operations where US military RPA operators work closely with French and African soldiers on the ground leverage all parties’ strengths to locate and track terrorists and prevent them from carrying out future attacks. The US military technical expertise in operating RPAs to track terrorist groups, honed after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and combined with French and African language skills and cultural knowledge on the ground, make for an effective counter to terrorism in the Sahel. The French and Chadians, now deeply involved in counterterrorism operations in Northern Mali, need more RPA assets: Chad does not have RPAs and France does not possess the number and type of RPAs necessary to fully support their soldiers in harm’s way.

This presents a unique opportunity for Franco-American counterterrorism cooperation. The gains in support of Operation SERVAL could be significant, saving French soldier’s lives and preventing AQIM from slipping away. Patience and the establishment of the right international military-to-military relationships could also lead to effective and economical long-term cooperation to help stabilize the region. Even if such multinational coordination would be difficult, as sharing intelligence often is, the payoff would be worth the cost.

Such RPA cooperation would be only one aspect of a larger anti-terrorism effort emphasizing training, military-to-military engagement, and non-military cooperation such as economic and institutional development assistance, which over the long term are the most important. It would also be in synch with the kind of partnerships Washington is eager to develop to minimize its military footprint in distant theaters.

If the Situation in the Sahel Deteriorates

RPAs can provide actionable intelligence on the planning of future attacks, allowing the US to avoid, prevent or stop them. These assets could provide the US one more source of intelligence to climb the leadership hierarchies of terrorist groups in the Sahel, assess their activities, and find and arrest their most dangerous leaders. If they become a bigger problem in the future, for example launching attacks directly on the American homeland or the European continent, the US will be in a better position to strike them directly. Yet in the current context, working with African partners and the French to fight terrorism – with them in the lead – should be the main effort.

(Benoit Tessier / Reuters)

Etienne de Durand, Director Ifri’s Security Studies Center and one of Ultima Ratio’s lead authors, has just published a short piece in Foreign Affairs on the challenges France now faces in Mali. As always, feel free to react in the comments section below.

In spite of the thorny political issues that lie ahead, the overall success of France’s intervention in Mali cannot be denied. In just a few weeks, French troops repelled Islamist militants from population centers in northern Mali, restoring a degree of government control there. They also managed to dispel the notion that Europeans are necessarily inward-looking, bereft of significant military capabilities, and incapable of using force. But if the American debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq are any guide, Paris now faces a much more daunting challenge: turning its tactical achievements into a lasting victory or, at the very least, getting out of the country smoothly.

Read the paper on Foreign Affairs‘ website.

Ifri’s Security Studies Center has just published the issue #45 of its Proliferation Papers series entitled:

Command and Control in a Nuclear-Armed Iran

Dr. Shahram Chubin is a non-resident Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He was born in Iran and was educated in Britain and the US and is a Swiss national. He has been a Director of Regional Security Studies at the IISS (1977-81). He has taught at various universities including the Graduate School of International Studies in Geneva and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, besides lecturing at Oxford, Harvard, and Columbia universities as well as several military staff colleges. A specialist in the security problems of the Middle East region, he has been a consultant inter alia to the US Department of Defense, and the United Nations. He has also been a resident fellow at the Wilson Center and the Carnegie Endowment and fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Dr. Chubin has a PhD from Columbia University and has published widely, including in journals such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, Washington Quarterly, Survival, Daedalus, The Middle East Journal, The World Today and The Adelphi Papers.

His new Proliferation Paper can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

In the long standoff regarding its nuclear ambition, Iran has cultivated ambiguity and been loath to reliably assure the international community of its ultimate intentions, complicating Western efforts to understand, let alone constrain, Tehran’s endeavors. While many analyses have focused on how to prevent or contain a potential nuclear-armed Iran, the posture Iran would adopt once it has developed its nuclear weapons remains elusive. This paper highlights that while opting for command-and-control (C2) arrangements, Iran would have to reconcile two contrasting imperatives: first, to disperse assets and decentralize C2 to minimize the risks and potential damages of a disabling strike, which has been seen as a real – even imminent – threat in recent years. A contrasting concern emerged as the Iranian Revolutionay Guards’ Corps became a key formulator and executor of Tehran’s security policy: how to guard against the risk of unauthorized use of major weapons systems? Among the factors that could influence Iran’s choices in terms of C2 arrangements, this paper focuses on Tehran’s national security experience, the lessons it may have derived from it, as well as from the experience of other countries.

Contents:

Introduction

The Background

Iran’s Decision-Making, the IRGC and Command and Control

Conclusion

Ifri’s Defence Research Unit has just published the issue #36 bis of its Focus stratégique series entitled:

The Defense Budget in France: between Denial and Decline

Martial Foucault is a Professor of political science at the University of Montreal and Director of the European Union Centre of Excellence (University of Montreal/McGill University). Since 2010, he is associate editor of the Canadian Public Policy journal. His fields of studies are international political economy, public policies, electoral behavior and quantitative techniques.

His Focus stratégique can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

Although defense spending is the fourth budget item in France, it is rarely a matter of public debate. During the past three decades, defense has been affected in turn by the desire to rip the benefit of the post-Cold War “peace dividend”, the professionalization of 1997, and the increase of overseas operations after September 11, 2001. These fluctuations occurred in a constrained economic and social context, in which military spending has played the role of the expandable line – irrespective of the majority in power. Even if the new budgetary framework set up by the LOLF (Organic Law relating to the Finance Laws) was supposed to improve spending management, the goals of the 2008 White Paper on Security and Defense quickly emerged as unrealistic, given the rapid deterioration of public finance. After a decade of continuous growth of international military spending, it seems appropriate to examine and question the budgetary choices that will decide of the future of French defense capabilities.

Contents:

Introduction

Defense Budget: Less than Meets the Eye?

Unworkable Military Program Laws

Budget Choices: “Welfare vs. Warfare”?

International Comparisons: Stable or Downgrade?

Conclusion

Ifri’s Security Studies Center has just published the issue #44 of its Proliferation Papers series entitled:

Ballistic Missile Defense in Japan: Deterrence and Military Transformation

The author, Sugio Takahashi, is Senior Fellow with the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) and currently with Deputy Director of the Office of Strategic Planning of Ministry of Defense in Tokyo, Japan. He received MA and BA from the Waseda University and MA from George Washington University. Mr. Takahashi has published extensively in the areas of nuclear strategy, the Japan-U.S. alliance, and East Asian regional security including “Counter A2/AD in Japan – U.S. Defense Cooperation: Toward ‘Allied Air-Sea Battle’”and “Implications of Recent Challenges in Nuclear Deterrence on Japan’s Security: NPR, New START, ‘The World Without Nuclear Weapon’, and Extended Deterrence”.

His new Proliferation Paper can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

In December 2003, Japan decided to be the second country in the Asia-Pacific to deploy a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system. Started in the 1980s as a defense industry cooperation initiative, BMD efforts have been highly prioritized since the 1998 North Korean missile launch to cope with the clear and immediate threat from Pyongyang. However, BMD means more for Japan than a mere response to the ballistic threat: It has transformed the organization and command and control system of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF), brought Japan and the United States to deepen their operational cooperation, and changed Japanese thinking about extended deterrence.

Contents:

Introduction

Ballistic Missile Defense in Japan

Transforming the Self-Defense Forces

Implications for Northeast Asian Security

Conclusion

Ifri‘s Defence Research Unit has just published the issue #35 bis of its Focus stratégique series entitled:

The Battle over Fire Support: The CAS Challenge and the Future of Artillery

The author, Elie Tenenbaum, is a Junior Fellow at Ifri’s Security Studies Center and a PhD candidate in International History at Sciences Po. His doctoral dissertation pertains to the circulation of counterinsurgency knowledge during the Cold War.

His Focus stratégique can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article:

Traditionally, maneuver units are designed for mobility and control of the ground, while supporting forces (artillery, aviation) deliver fires to protect the former and ensure their freedom of action. As a result of the introduction of mobile artillery in the XVIII^th Century, and even more so with the development of an effective tactical aviation, fire support has played a crucial tactical role in the major conventional conflicts of the XX^th Century. No longer subject to the marginalization imposed by the nuclear era, fire support has now come to the crossroads: while Close Air Support often proved decisive during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, practical experience has nonetheless shown that artillery and mortars remain essential. The future of fire support will therefore depend on both budgetary constraints and strategic considerations: armed forces will have to define a new joint balance that takes into account the various components of fire support and is politically and financially sustainable.

Contents:

Introduction

The Origins of the Debate

Fire Support and the Expeditionary Model

Shaping the Future: Integration and Modernization

Conclusion: Time to Decide

Ifri’s Security Studies Center has just published the issue #43 of its Proliferation Papers series entitled:

Deterring the Weak : Problems and Prospects

The author, James Wirtz, is Dean of the School of International Graduate Studies and Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs of the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, CA. Among numerous publications, he has recently edited Over the Horizon Proliferation Threats (Stanford University Press, 2012) and Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (University of Chicago Press, 2009).  Professor Wirtz used to be President of the International Security and Arms Control Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and Chair of Intelligence Studies of the International Studies Association (ISA).

His new Proliferation Paper can be downloaded here.

Summary of the article :

Strong states often fail to deter vastly weaker competitors. This paper explores some reasons of this failure and identifies factors that can increase the prospects that deterrence will succeed in these situations. It argues that deterrence fails between strong and weak powers not because the weaker party miscalculates the military balance or fails to perceive the existence of deterrent threats, but because of a perception that it is possible to circumvent deterrence. This perception is often rooted in strategic, political and social factors that the leaders of weak states believe they can manipulate to their advantage, hoping to prevent the strong from bringing their superior military capability to bear in an effective way. To illustrate these points, the paper describes some of these strategic, political and social factors that lead to optimism on the part of the weak, and identifies several considerations that should govern the behavior of stronger powers as they contemplate efforts to deter weaker competitors.

Contents:

Introduction

The Optimism of the Weak

Strategic Optimism: The Problem of Surprise Attack

Political Optimism: The Balance of Power Paradox

Social Optimism: The Manipulation of the Risk of Death and Destruction in Local Conflicts

Responding to the New Complexity

Conclusion