Retired French army lieutenant general Jean-Paul Perruche served as deputy commander of NATO forces in Kosovo, as head of the French mission at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, SHAPE, and latterly as director general of the European Union Military Staff.
As a senior French officer with a significant insight into US and European defence strategies, Mediapart turned to Perruche for his analysis of the military challenges now facing Europe, as demonstrated by the war in Ukraine. The conflict has highlighted Europe’s heavy dependence on US military support, and created divisions between EU countries, notably between France and Germany, over their strategic approach to the new threats.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
In the interview below, Perruche warns that America, amid heightening tensions with China over Taiwan, may well not be in a position to help Europe in future conflicts, and argues for the building of a realistic European military autonomy that reflects the combined defence budgets of EU member states. “It’s really quite pitiful that we are incapable of doing anything, whereas we have four times the budget of the Russians,” he says. “It’s tragic.”
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Mediapart: On October 13th Germany launched [with other European partners] the European Sky Shield Initiative air defence project which it spearheaded. France, however, has not joined the procurement pact, which will largely involve Israeli and US equipment. Are common European defence projects doomed to failure as long as the war in Ukraine lasts?
Jean-Paul Perruche: Indeed, what is called ‘European defence’ is in a rather bad position. The war in Ukraine has led to a big comeback of the United States as a ‘guarantor of security’ for Europe. There were serious doubts about this during the Trump presidency.
Things have evolved very much. We have returned into a ‘Cold War’ scenario because it is the United States which today has the leading role regarding policies in support of Ukraine. In this context, the Germans have realised that they were really very under-armed. They have decided to spend 100 billion euros more on their defence budget and chose this reorientation towards the US.
Why? We [France] are a nuclear power. The Germans can’t become one. This sort of inferiority complex of Germany in relation to France has been reinforced following the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union, because the UK played a kind of ‘mediation’ role between French policies that were focussed on strategic autonomy and German policies which remained very attached to the US, and therefore NATO.
So there is, on the German side, both a question of competition with France, and a desire to remain dependent upon the Americans in defence matters, in all circumstances. But it’s a problem. What would the European Union have done if the Americans had not decided to support the Ukrainians? No doubt what would have been said was: ‘We take note. Don’t go too hard on the Ukrainians. Oh, you’re putting [toppled pro-Russia Ukrainian president] Viktor Yanukovych back in Kyiv? OK’. Things would have ended like that.
Mediapart: Germany says it must rapidly re-arm and that, to move fast, it must purchase equipment that is already available, whatever its provenance. Is that an understandable argument?
J-P.P.: It is clear that the security guaranty that France can offer Europe is very far from being able to compensate the guaranty that the US can provide. France has its own air defence systems but the German [air defence] shield project is, in respect of its dimensions, very superior to what has been conceived by France. We have very few systems, [and] very weak industrial capability. So yes, one can nevertheless understand the urgent reaction of European countries as a whole, and Germany in particular.
Mediapart: In this context, is the ‘strategic autonomy’ position of France, and which has been reasserted by the French head of state since a number of years, still tenable? Are the French not obliged in the short term to adopt a “reticent Atlanticism” – to borrow the term used by defence studies researcher and lecturer Olivier Schmitt – but which is nevertheless Atlanticism?
J-P.P.: We cannot be anti-Atlantic, because the Americans help us almost everywhere. Can you imagine France engaging in a conflict of high intensity without the Americans? No, that is excluded, everyone has excluded it, from our elected politicians to our military chiefs. French artillery amounts to 72 Caesar howitzers, and there are now 18 less [editor’s note, the number handed to Ukraine]. Compare that to the figures of losses during the first week of the war between Russia and Ukraine. It is very, very weak.
France cannot currently, in my opinion, do without the US. […] If the Europeans are serious, [and] that they come to the tragic acknowledgment that – taken by surprise by the Russian offensive against Ukraine – they have no military means to put credible negotiations in place, then they must do something about that.
It must be done also because the Americans are asking us to do it, and that they have proved in the past – I refer you to Libya or Bosnia – that they are not ready to intervene in every type of circumstance.
Mediapart: What do you mean by saying the Europeans must “do something”?
J-P.P.: It is necessary to create what I call a common European military capacity. It is in the interest of the Europeans, both to take into account the situations in which the Americans don’t want to intervene, and also to reinforce their own capacity, even within the trans-Atlantic alliance [NATO].
For example, if one day there is a military intervention in Taiwan, will the Americans continue to give tens of billions to Ukraine? I am not at all sure. Europeans must absolutely be aware of that.
Take good note, I am not talking about a ‘European army’, because to have a European army there must be a European government, but rather a European capacity for common action. And that is possible.
Mediapart: What would that consist of?
J-P.P.: One must go about it like NATO did during the time of the Cold War, carrying out operational military planning. That means taking different scenarios, different types of threats towards European security, and to define military action to be taken by Europeans in such cases – to detail the military needs that each scenario would suppose, and to see who could provide them.
This list of scenarios already exists. It’s the Strategic Compass.
Mediapart: But that’s something of a hotchpotch that mixes terrorism, organised crime, hybrid conflicts and world health crises.
J-P.P.: Indeed, there must be a definition of very serious threats, those that aren’t really, those that we have no control over, [and] where we are dependent. But once we have laid down our priorities we can define realistic scenarios. After that, an operational command chain must be established. Currently, the EU has only a ‘superior head’ in the operational command chain, what is called the political level. Whereas to organise an operation, two other levels are needed – the operation higher command and the forces’ higher command. The fact of not having a permanent chain of command, unlike NATO, means an ad hoc chain has to be created for each operation. That complicates the possibilities of being able to react rapidly.
Mediapart: But there has been talk of reinforcing European defence for years, particularly in France. Why would it suddenly work today, above all when taking into account what you have said about the complicated relationship with Germany?
J-P.P.: As matters stand now, the European partners must be placed before their responsibilities. “What do you want? Don’t talk of strategic autonomy if you don’t have the military capacity for common action.” There is a choice to be made. There must be a halt to smokescreens and dissimulations behind declarations.
When you look at the declarations at European summits over the past five or six years, they are always full of drive: “We can only do things together”, “Each country cannot assure its defence on its own”, “Europe wants to be respected”, “the power that is Europe”. You have the whole range. But when you look at the actions taken, what gets done? Battlegroups, chiefs-of-staff. But there are already too many chiefs-of-staff!
From the starting point of the Strategic Compass, people must be told, “Now, let’s be serious. We are going to deal with these threats. Let’s reflect together on the manner to deal with these threats, with or without the Americans”, and while having beforehand explained to the Americans that we aren’t doing this against them.
That’s how the problem presents itself, and it’s relatively simple. We’re talking about concrete things. Vladimir Putin’s defence budget is 65 billion euros. The total of the budgets of the Twenty-Seven [EU member states] is 240 billion euros. It’s really quite pitiful that we are incapable of doing anything, whereas we have four times the budget of the Russians. It’s tragic.
Mediapart: Speaking of budgets, French aid to Ukraine represents very little at the moment.
J-P.P.: France can only give what it has. It has a complete army, but one that is made up of small parts. It is sometimes described as a “bonsai army”; If you cut the branches of a bonsai [miniature tree] to give them to someone, it doesn’t amount to a great deal. Furthermore, France’s economic situation must be taken into account. We have a large debt, and times are uncertain.
Mediapart: On that point, we are told that the France’s state budget is not extendable, but at the same time numerous expert researchers, and politicians, argue that the French army should be reinforced to be able to deal with eventual conflicts of ‘high intensity’. What can be done?
J-P.P.: One must know what one wants – to continue to be a ‘major power’ or not – and above all to align our foreign policies on our capabilities. The war in Ukraine demonstrates that there is a risk that France loses credibility if its means don’t correspond with its ambitions. A policy of ‘grandeur’, of a “big nation’, runs the risk of not being taken seriously if there is not the means behind it.
There are, therefore, two solutions. Either we take into account that we can’t invest as much as we would like in defence, in which case we fix priorities and frameworks for engagement – Atlantic alliance, regional coalitions, and so on – or much more must be spent. But we don’t have 100, or 200, billion euros to be taken out of a trade surplus, such as Germany can. We have a reduced margin for manoeuvre and, as you know, healthcare has needs, education has needs.
Mediapart: The Russian leadership has for several days now alleged that Ukraine is preparing to use a ‘dirty bomb’. Some fear that this is simply a ploy by Vladimir Putin to ready people for the use of a nuclear ‘retaliation’. What is your opinion in this debate about the Russian nuclear threat?
J-P.P.: I may be wrong, but I am left perplexed about this threat. That does not mean it shouldn’t be taken seriously. Roosevelt said, “never underestimate a man who overestimates himself”, and we are truly in that position with Mr Putin.
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- The original French text of this interview can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse