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Explaining defence policy: the Mitterrand years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Anand Menon
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Extract

Defence is a policy sector central to international relations. If war and conflict lie at the heart of traditional, Realist analyses of interstate relations, this derives in no small part from the claim that states are continually putting themselves in a position of readiness to wage such wars and triumph in conflict. If, as some commentators maintain, the nature of military doctrine, and national defence policies—offensive or defensive—can condition the nature of interstate relations, an explanation of the nature of national defence policies is vital in order to fully comprehend the nature of international relations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , July 1995 , pp. 279 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1995

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References

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35 The notable exception to this was François de Rose, himself considered among military and political circles as something of a ‘dissident’ on defence questions. See Le Monde, 13 July 1983Google Scholar.

36 See Le Monde, 19–20 June 1983Google Scholar.

37 Note the following lines by two prominent French specialists: ‘Those few voices in France which cast doubt on the credibility of the French nuclear deterrent are proclaiming (or rather trying to proclaim) self-fulfilling prophecies. If the majority of politicians, military men, and experts were to repeat that our nuclear force is nothing but a new Magjnot line, no-one doubts that it would automatically become so. A potential adversary would then merely have to draw the logical conclusions from this “consensus”: the French nuclear force does not deter because it is the French who are deterring themselves from making use of it.’ Boniface, P. and Heisbourg, F., La Puce, les Hommes et la Bombe. L'Europe Face aux Nouveaux Dejis Technologiques (Paris, 1986), pp. 234–5Google Scholar. For a revised opinion, see Boniface, P., Vive la Bombe (Paris, 1992), pp. 97–109Google Scholar.

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45 Of the sort he had called for prior to 1981.

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49 In 1989, for instance, 49 per cent of the total business of Aérospatiale, 71 per cent of that of Matra, and 79 per cent of that of Thomson-CSF was military. See J.-G. Branger, Avis présenté au nom de la Commission de la Défense Nationale et des Forces Armieés sur le projet de loi de finances pour 1990 Tome V Defense Recherche et Industrie d‘Armament. Annexe au proces-verbal de la seance du 12 octobre 1989, Paris, National Assembly, No. 923, p. 9.

50 A confidential study predicted that stopping the export of arms could add as many as one million to the list of the unemployed. See Le Nouvel Observateur, 3 June 1983Google Scholar.

51 That of General Delaunay, Chief of Staff of the Land Army.

52 Le Figaro, 3 May 1988Google Scholar.

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55 France was the only Western country to increase its defence budget in 1990. L'évènement du Jeudi, 15 July 1990Google Scholar.

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57 Former Prime Minister L. Fabius called for cuts in defence spending in 1990, see Le Monde, 10 July 1990Google Scholar.

58 Guisnel, Les Généraux, p. 175.

59 Joxe, P., Allocution à la Cérémonie de ClÔlure de la Session Pleniere du Cours Supérieur Intérarmees, in Propos sur la Défense, no. 24, November-December 1991, p. 121Google Scholar.

60 A member of the Bureau des Affaires Stratégiques des Pactes, the department which effectively runs Alliance policy in the Quai d'Orsay, told me that ‘the fundamental principles which guide our actions towards NATO are political principles’. Interview, Paris, 1991.

61 Boniface argues that, whilst the politicians may think they choose the men for the top military posts, all they actually can do is ratify choices made several years previously within the military hierarchies. L'Armée, enquête sur 30000 soldats méconnus (Paris, 1992), p. 297Google Scholar.

62 See J. Guisnel, Les Généraux, pp. 123–43. Boniface makes the interesting point that it is only the military who are allowed such domination of decision-making in their own sphere of expertise. Farmers and teachers, for instance, do not necessarily hold high advisory positions within the ministries responsible for their professions. L'Armée, p. 296.

63 Jean d'Albion (pseud.) states that each Chef d'état-Major sees himself first and foremost as the head of the union of his own branch of the forces. Une France sans défense (Paris, 1991), p. 203Google Scholar.

64 Thus, of crucial importance to the outcome of the struggles over the Rafale was the fact that, until Saulnier (an Air Force General) left his post in November 1987, the Air Force occupied three of these four positions.

65 Boniface argues that, whilst politicians may think they choose the men for the top military posts, all they actually do is ratify choices made several years previously within the military hierarchy. L'Armee, p. 296.

66 Created by the ordonnance of 1962Google Scholar, the CEM A was given a role in the formulation of programme laws under the terms of the 1972 White Paper. The decree of 8 February 1982 specified that the CEMA be consulted on matters of planning and military programme laws. See Haenel, H. and Pichon, R., La Defense Nationale (Paris, 1989), pp. 32–7Google Scholar.

67 Both Generals Méry and Saulnier pointed out to me the difficulties involved in making such inter-service choices. Interviews, Paris, 1991. See also Guisnel, J., Les Généraux, p. 174Google Scholar, and J. d'Albion (pseud.), Une France, pp. 202–5.

68 Sanguinetti, A. ‘Défense de la France ou Subventions aux Lobbies?’, Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1990Google Scholar. See also J. d'Albion, Une France sans Defense, p. 203.

69 In some cases, the desires of arms producers have taken precedence over those of the military itself. This had been the case, as we have seen, in the 1970s during the so-called ‘sale of the century’. Again, in the case of the Rafale in the 1980s, the French Navy was more interested in purchasing the American Crusader than the Dassault aircraft for its aircraft carriers. Despite the protestations of the Navy, however, its objections were overruled.

70 See Kolodziej, E., Making and Marketing Arms: the French experience and its implications for the international system (Princeton, 1987), pp. 241–2Google Scholar. See also A. Sanguinetti, ‘D'fense de la France’.

71 Kolodziej, E., Making and Marketing Arms, pp. 239–98. See also Le Monde, Affaires, 10 June 1989Google Scholar.

72 Les Généraux, p. 215.

73 Short tenure meant a relative inability to follow long-term programmes efficiently. This was equally true at the political level. Jack Hayward makes the point for economic policy-equally relevant for defence-that whilst in Britain, despite relatively short ministerial tenure, the permanent secretary of each ministry provides for effective bureaucratic coordination, and scrutiny of long-term initiatives, the more transitory French system of directeurs de cabinet fails to provide such constancy. See Hayward, J., The State and the Market Economy: Industrial Patriotism and Economic Intervention in France (Brighton, 1986), pp. 40–1Google Scholar. The problem of controlling the military was exacerbated for political leaders by the fact that, unlike his political cabinet, the Minister of Defence had relatively little control over the composition of his military cabinet. See P. Boniface, L'Armee, pp. 295–6. On the relative powerlessness of the Defence Minister with regard to the military, see F. Cailletaux, controller-general of the armed forces, cited in A. Sanguinetti, ‘Defense de la France’.

74 Giraud's predecessor, Paul Quiles, had also attempted to prevent continued development of the plane-which continued anyway. See Le Nouvel Observateur, 23–29 September 1988Google Scholar.

75 Hubert Védrine, a former special diplomatic adviser to the President, and then Secretary-General of the élysée, informed me that Mitterrand became increasingly dubious, during the course of the 1980s, as to the utility of the weapon. Vedrine himself expressed the opinion that the Hades did not fit in with French nuclear strategy, and was particularly useless given the existence of another weapon-the medium-range air-to-ground missile (Air-sol moyen portée, ASMP) to deliver the final warning shot on Soviet territory. Cheysson assured me that the Hadès performed no useful function, and served to please certain interest groups. Jean-Pierre Maulny, Secretary of the Socialist group within the National Assembly informed me that Jean-Louis Bianco, a close adviser of Mitterrand, had made attempts to get the programme cancelled in October 1988, but was defeated. Interviews, Paris, 1991. So incongruous did the possession of these weapons seem in a country whose rhetoric continually eschewed the notion of flexible response, that an early Defence Council meeting under Mitterrand actually decided to consult Elysee archives to discover why the decision to construct them had been taken. They had in fact only been produced in the first place in order to satisfy the demands of the Land Army that nuclear weapons not be assigned solely to the Air Force and Navy. Interview with Clause Cheysson, Paris, 1991.

76 On the Hadès, see J. Guisnel, Les Généraux, pp. 182–90. Francois Schlosser further points out that the Hadès launcher was designed to work for the S-4 missile as well, which lay the path open for the latter to be produced. This is a nice example of the way in which arms projects build their own momentum. See his ‘Quand les Industriels Dictent Leur Loi…’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 23–29 September 1988. Another good example of the lack of tight political control was the case of the proposed French mobile missile; although vetoed by the President of the Republic himself, the DGA in fact continued to work on the project for several months following the Presidential elections of 1988. See Boniface, I'Armee, pp. 293–4. Nor were politicians themselves averse to diverting funds for their own personal projects. Thus Jolyon Howorth claims that Giraud attempted to use funds earmarked for the Hadés for his own long-range mobile missile project. See J. Howorth, ‘Francois Mitterrand and the “Domaine Reserve”’, p. 57, n. 11.

77 As one commentator has put it, ‘the masters of our defence today are the researchers, the engineers, the industrialists and the financiers’. See Politics, 2–8 June 1989.

78 Some analysts have claimed that the Rafale project was forced through, not by the military, but solely by Dassault and the DGA. See the interview with Hubert de Beaufort and General Jacques de Zelicourt in L'Evenement du Jeudi, 1–7 November 1990Google Scholar.

79 Rocard stated that there were several unsatisfactory elements to the way in which the Rafale dossier had been handled, and noted that the project ‘est dans un etat de sinistre avance’. See Le Figaro, 17–18 September 1988Google Scholar.

80 MacLean (ed.), Nuclear Weapons, p. 173.

81 Examples of such ‘cross-fertilization’ were Hugues de l'Estoile and Gérard Hibon, both of whom left high-ranking posts within the state arms complex to move to the private sector-Breguet-Dassault and Aerospatiale respectively. See Le Monde, Affaires, 10 June 1989Google Scholar.

82 Cited in Carlier, C., Marcel Dassault (Paris, 1992), p. 345Google Scholar.

83 Marion, P., Le Pouvoir Sans Visage, Essai sur le Complexe Militaro-Industriel (Paris, 1990), p. 45Google Scholar.

84 Cited in Le Figaro, 17–18 September 1988Google Scholar, emphasis added.

85 See Hernu in Le Monde, 5–6 September 1982Google Scholar, and 6 April 1982.

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87 A 1989 Parliamentary report stated that France's defence policy choices meant its arms industry should be able to make anything, and should be at the forefront of all technological fields. J.-G. Branger, Avis, p. 5.

88 On the possibly detrimental effects of exports, see Hébert, J.-P., ‘Bénéfices Illusoires et Calculs Politiques’, Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1988Google Scholar. In the desperate quest for foreign customers, the arms industry in fact used measures-notably on-site production-which some claimed actually risked the longer-term competitiveness of the arms industry by building the foundations for future competitors. See L'Express, 15 February 1985, and Le Monde, 17 April 1985. On the infeasibility of maintaining capacity in all sectors, see the report of the Centre de Prevision et d'Analyse cited in Liberation, 9 March 1990Google Scholar. On military spending and the civilian economy, see Nation s Unies, Conséquences économiques et Sociales de la Course aux Armemenls et des Depenses Militaires (New York, 1975)Google Scholar, and Chesnais, F., Compétivité Internationale et Dépenses Militaires (Paris, 1990)Google Scholar.

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90 Interview with Hubert Vedrine, Paris, 1991.

91 For more on the different ‘tables’ at which foreign policy discussions are held, see Putnam, R., ‘Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: the logic of two-level games’, International Organisation, vol. 42, 3 (1988), pp. 427–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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93 ‘Tactical resources are those that are relevant to immediate bureaucratic [or indeed any] battles… strategic resources reflect the ability to structure the distribution of … advantages [flowing from a particular constitutional and institutional position] before any particular battle.’ Freedman, ‘Logic’, p. 445.

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97 Richardson and Jordan, Governing Under Pressure, pp. 43–4.

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100 The groups on the ‘receiving end’ of Alliance policy were, of course, foreign allies, rather than a domestic group such as teachers or farmers who could resort to industrial action in order to impose a ‘rational’ solution.

101 Hence, Mitterrand claimed that Socialist adherence to nuclear deterrence was ‘not a question of ideological choice’. Speech to Danish Parliament, 29 April 1982, text supplied by French Embassy, London.

102 See Rosenau, J., The Scientific Study of Foreign Policy (New York, 1971), p. 100Google Scholar.