Are We Entering a New World?

The years 2022-2023 will be remembered as marking the return of war and violence. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London had counted no fewer than 183 military conflicts in 2003. However, what's new is the return of war to Europe simultaneously with its immediate periphery, all against a backdrop of raw material crises, inflation, and the advent of AI, creating enormous instability in the system. After the major shift at the end of the Cold War, we are once again changing worlds.

The problem is that we are facing heads of state who have decided to make no concessions and not to play by our rules. They are openly revisionist, sometimes revanchist, nationalist, authoritarian or dictatorial, and have decided that the time has come to assert their geopolitical interests. Fortunately, they also have their weaknesses. As Kissinger said, "Geopolitics is also a relationship of weakness, not just strength." Yet, the "Global South" seeks its revenge and has a long memory, unlike Westerners. In Jacques Bainville's The Political Consequences of Peace, there is a brilliant passage about the metaphor of date stones: "For nations to see the consequences, they need disasters or the perspective of history. They resign themselves to living surrounded by invisible forces, like the genies from the Thousand and One Nights, which they harm without knowing it and who suddenly demand accountability."

In 1992, reacting to Fukuyama's book on the end of History, I had identified the great forces of tomorrow: demography, religion, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and the rise of Asia... We are there now. But our leaders have still not understood. Today, never has the gap between proclamations and reality been so wide. For example, the war in Ukraine was not thought out strategically; it is an emotional war. And we have created Kissinger's nightmare: a Russo-Chinese alliance, augmented by North Korea and Iran, four nuclear powers. A magnificent result that will leave Ukraine destroyed and probably amputated...

What do you think of France's foreign policy?

With nearly five decades of studying these issues, as both observer and participant, I have rarely seen such a disastrous period for our country. A perfectly shocking collapse that saddens and worries me. It all started spectacularly in September 2021 with the Australian submarine affair: France not only lost its contract but was suddenly dismissed and excluded from the region and from AUKUS, even though we hold major positions in the area. Perhaps most shocking is that, once again, this elicited only considerations from French officials aimed at minimizing the extent of the affront, especially from the Americans.

On the African dossier, I was still a deputy and moreover in charge of a fact-finding mission on Mali, when I saw Operation Serval transform into Barkhane, which for me was madness. How to take charge of the entire Sahel region, a territory as vast as Europe, with 3000 men? I never believed that the jihadist columns intended to take power in Mali, but once we had defeated them, we should have left. Because the crux of the matter is that governance of Bamako over all of Mali has never been established, especially in its northern part, and that France could not substitute for the Malian state. As in Afghanistan, there were insufficient means to establish civil-military systems to accompany the army and ensure it was accepted by civilian populations. Very quickly, the French army ended up being seen by local populations as an occupying force. Add to this the Russians stirring the pot via Wagner or social networks. In the end, a billion a year for ten years, 58 soldiers killed, and hundreds wounded, to be kicked out in the end, not only from Mali but also from Niger and Burkina. A dismal record.

In the Ukrainian affair, E. Macron's hesitations were very poorly understood and in this regard, he was forgiven less than the back-and-forth of the White House, which only engaged in the war afterwards, in late March 2022, when the Russian offensive on Kiev failed and in Washington, it was thought to "break Russia's back." This messy policy of Emmanuel Macron ended with the famous train journey with Olaf Scholz on June 16, 2022. On this occasion, E. Macron truly went to Canossa by promising Ukraine candidate status for EU membership. Such amateurism has only produced a neologism among Ukrainians, the verb "to macron."

In reality, the major continental European powers (Germany and France) have abdicated all free will in analyzing this crisis and have let themselves be dragged into a real proxy war between NATO and Russia, while at the same time Ursula Von der Leyen, for bureaucratic reasons, became frenetically bellicose. When you know the inner workings of the EU well, it's each time the states are scattered that the European Commission seeks to take the upper hand. It thus self-appointed itself as war chief, although it has neither the competence nor the mandate. Yet, the states followed...

I was against this war from the beginning because I think it was possible to avoid it, especially by taking into account Russia's security interests, particularly regarding NATO's expansion. Can one imagine the American reaction if Mexico and Canada were to form an alliance with Russia? After following American leadership, we are now engaged in vain European one-upmanship and we find ourselves in a situation where the European Union has just taken charge (December 2023) of three war zones at the same time: Ukraine, the Caucasus, and the Balkans! All of this would be laughable if it weren't in fact tragic when one knows that the EU is anything but a geopolitical instrument, which was even built against the very idea of geopolitics.

How to explain this downgrading?

The French president has no counter-power in foreign policy. He literally does whatever he wants. So, the quality of his policy depends on his training on these issues. Emmanuel Macron actually relies on no one, certainly not the first concerned, i.e., French diplomats who are unanimously respected around the world. The diplomatic cell has literally crushed the Quai, which itself was broken. This adds a generational problem: De Gaulle had fought in the war, as had Giscard and Mitterrand, which gave them a certain instinct. Emmanuel Macron drowns in his own words. He is a great seducer. This leads to vast misunderstandings.

Add to this that for 30 years our country has weakened. France has completely fallen behind Germany, and it is a former minister of foreign trade who tells you this. The delta between the French deficit and German surpluses approaches 200 billion, or ten points of GDP. Our country is impoverishing, its industrial base is shrinking, it is subject to a single currency that is de facto German. If one removes luxury, aeronautics, and pharmacy, France has little to argue for in exports.

Our army has become a "bonsai" army, dedicating a third of its budget to preserving its nuclear capability. The format for external intervention of our army, decided thirty years ago, is certainly qualitatively efficient, with very dedicated people, but quantitatively very small. If we are called to intervene on multiple fronts, or if unfortunately, adverse events were to occur in Europe, the situation would quickly become untenable. For instance, we have delivered half of our Caesar cannons and a few old AMX 10s, but we can hardly do more. The budget disarmament of our armies has been a constant for the past 10 years, and I remember debates in the Assembly on these matters in front of a nearly empty chamber. Defense has long been the adjustment variable...