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French Nuclear Deterrence Policy, Forces and Future

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French Nuclear Deterrence Policy, Forces and Future N° 01/2019 recherches & documents January 2019 French nuclear deterrence policy, forces and future BRUNO TERTRAIS, Deputy Director, Fondation pour la recherche stratégique WWW . FRSTRATEGIE . ORG Édité et diffusé par la Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique 4 bis rue des Pâtures – 75016 PARIS ISSN : 1966-5156 ISBN : 978-2-490100-17-0 EAN : 9782490100170 Author’s note: this monograph was designed as an unclassified and factual summary of French nuclear policy. It was originally written in French at the request of and with support from the French Ministry for the Armed Forces, and published as La France et la dissuasion nucléaire: concept, moyens, avenir (La Documentation française, new edition 2017). Translated, adapted and updated by the author with support from the French Ministry for the Armed Forces. The author remains solely responsible for its content. The author would like to extend a particular word of thanks to Sylvie Le Sage (Ministry of the Aremd Forces), who diligently and carefully reviewed this English translation. Any errors, however, remain his. WWW.FRSTRATEGIE.ORG 4 BIS RUE DES PÂTURES 75 016 PARIS TÉL. 01 43 13 77 77 FAX 01 43 13 77 78 SIRET 394 095 533 00052 TVA FR74 394 095 533 CODE APE 7220Z FONDATION RECONNUE D'UTILITÉ PUBLIQUE – DÉCRET DU 26 FÉVRIER 1993 Contents* CHAPTER I - HISTORICAL OVERVIEW ........................................................................................ 5 The origins of the programme ............................................................................................................. 5 The Fourth Republic: launching the nuclear effort ............................................................................. 6 De Gaulle and the nuclear weapon ..................................................................................................... 9 The Fifth Republic: an independent deterrent force ......................................................................... 10 France as a nuclear power ................................................................................................................. 13 The French deterrence concept ......................................................................................................... 16 The origins of French nuclear strategy ......................................................................................... 16 The French vision of deterrence ................................................................................................... 18 The place of nuclear weapons in defence policy .......................................................................... 19 Nuclear policymaking ....................................................................................................................... 20 The budgetary effort ......................................................................................................................... 22 The legitimacy of French deterrence ................................................................................................ 24 The international legal dimension ................................................................................................ 24 Domestic legitimacy ..................................................................................................................... 25 CHAPTER II - THE FRENCH DETERRENCE DOCTRINE ........................................................ 27 The notion of vital interests .............................................................................................................. 27 The notion of sufficiency .................................................................................................................. 31 Nuclear planning ............................................................................................................................... 33 Major powers and regional powers: a relevant distinction? ......................................................... 33 Unacceptable damage ................................................................................................................... 34 The “final warning” ...................................................................................................................... 38 Other doctrinal developments ........................................................................................................... 39 The uniqueness of the French concept .......................................................................................... 39 The issue of missile defence ......................................................................................................... 40 * Document completed in November 2018. FONDATION pour la RECHERCHE STRATÉGIQUE 3 FRENCH NUCLEAR DETERRENCE POLICY, FORCES, AND FUTURE RECHERCHES & DOCUMENTS N° 01/2019 CHAPTER III - THE INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................ 43 French deterrence, NATO and Europe: historical developments ..................................................... 43 Which European dimension? ............................................................................................................ 46 Bilateral cooperation with allies ....................................................................................................... 48 Franco-British cooperation ........................................................................................................... 49 Franco-American cooperation ...................................................................................................... 50 Paris, London, Washington: convergences and divergences of doctrine .......................................... 53 France and nuclear disarmament ....................................................................................................... 56 France and nuclear non-proliferation ................................................................................................ 58 CHAPTER IV - FRENCH NUCLEAR FORCES.............................................................................. 61 The current format ............................................................................................................................ 61 The sea-based component ............................................................................................................. 61 The airborne component ............................................................................................................... 63 The future of French nuclear forces .................................................................................................. 66 Warheads and the simulation program .............................................................................................. 67 Management and use of nuclear forces ............................................................................................. 70 CHAPTER V - CHALLENGES AND SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE .................................... 73 Domestic challenges ......................................................................................................................... 73 Sharing deterrence? ........................................................................................................................... 74 Force reductions? .............................................................................................................................. 75 APPENDIX: NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN THE DEFENSE AND NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGIC REVIEW OF 2017 ............................................................................................................... 77 KEY NUMBERS AND FIGURES (2018) .................................................................................................... 78 4 FONDATIO N pour la RECHERCHE STRATÉGIQUE CHAPTER I - HISTORICAL OVERVIEW The origins of the programme For France, the choice of the nuclear path, envisaged in 1945 and confirmed in the 1950s, resulted from an awareness of three limitations: 1 Firstly, the limits of its influence as a non-nuclear nation within the international community, notably within the Atlantic Alliance and the UN Security Council.2 This prompted, very early in the 1950s, the governments of the Fourth Republic to take the necessary steps so that France could procure nuclear weapons. At the time, an independent deterrent force was not in the cards: the idea was that the possession of nuclear weapons would have restored political and military equality between Paris, London and Washington. No one in Paris had forgotten France's exclusion from the Quebec Agreements (1943), which had laid the foundations for American-British nuclear cooperation, even though French scientists had been at the origin of the first works on the military applications of the atom (the work of Frédéric Joliot in the 1930s); or its absence from the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam, which had seen the fate of the continent decided in the absence of Paris.3 Moreover, some political leaders wanted France to have a military capability that clearly differentiated it from Germany.4 - Theny, the limits of the commitment of the United States towards its allies, which Paris noted on the occasion of the crisis of Diên Biên Phu (March- May 1954). Then came the first questions about the vulnerability of Ame- rican territory with the first Soviet intercontinental missile test in July 1957, and the launch of the Sputnik I satellite in October 1957. At the end of the 1950s, NATO began to revise its nuclear
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