CHAPTER 7

FRANCE’S NUCLEAR DETERRENCE STRATEGY: CONCEPTS AND OPERATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION

David S. Yost*

This essay offers a survey of operational implementation issues in ’s nuclear deterrence strategy since the late 1970s.1 The survey begins with a brief account of the development of France’s nuclear posture. It then turns to the political and strategic purposes of the posture. While the French have consistently upheld basic objectives such as ensuring the nation’s decision-making autonomy and its security from aggression by major powers, they have modifi ed a number of operational principles and priorities. In some cases, they have signifi ed these modifi cations by introducing new terms to describe their strategic conceptions. They have usually abandoned the previous terms without fanfare or explanation, and only specialists have taken note of the evident adjustments in strategic policy. The insistence that France’s strategy remains one of non-use enables the French to minimize the potential awkwardness of certain issues, including relations with allies and potential adversaries and the strategy’s moral and political legitimacy. ______* The views expressed are the author’s alone and do not represent those of the Department of the Navy or any US government agency. Special thanks are owed to Antoine Azaïs, Thérèse Delpech, Michel Picard, and Bruno Tertrais, among others, for their comments on earlier drafts of this essay. Portions of this essay draw on the author’s previous works, particularly France’s Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, Part I: Capabilities and Doctrine and Part II: Strategic and Arms Control Implications, Adelphi Papers no. 194 and 195 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, Winter 1984/85); “French Nuclear Targeting,” in Desmond Ball and Jeffrey Richelson, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1986); and “Nuclear Weapons Issues in France,” in John C. Hopkins and Weixing Hu, eds., Strategic Views from the Second Tier: The Nuclear Weapons Policies of France, Britain, and China (San Diego, California: Institute on Global Confl ict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego, 1994).

197 New international circumstances have been more important than technical factors in leading the French to modify their strategic priorities and operational concepts since the late 1970s. Concepts of “proportional deterrence” and “anti-cities” targeting occupied center stage in French strategic discourse when the main object of France’s nuclear posture was the Soviet Union. During that era, several arguments against fl exible targeting carried the day: above all, the limitations of French means in any contest with the Soviet Union. However, while the utility for France of targeting fl exibility options was implausible vis à vis the USSR, in post-Cold War circumstances more discriminate nuclear options have gained importance in French analyses of contingencies involving regional powers armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The history of French nuclear employment policy has been a gradual movement away from underscoring “anti-cities” threats with massive demographic effects to a greater emphasis on administrative, political, and military targets. The French have nonetheless continued to uphold the principle of non-use, thereby expressing their rejection of nuclear “war-fi ghting” concepts and their confi dence that their threats of punishment will deter their adversaries and that actual nuclear strikes will not be required. Indeed, French commentators have at times implicitly praised Paris for developing a strategy of non-emploi — that is, of non-use — and have contrasted the French approach with that of Washington and Moscow, accused of designing strategies for the operational use of nuclear arms. France’s nuclear deterrence strategy has nonetheless obviously had operational dimensions, because a nuclear posture in