Posted on 11/23/2015 11:35:27 AM PST by DoodleDawg
France's military may suffer from a poor reputation in American popular imagination, dating from historical events like the rapid fall to Nazi Germany in World War II and the colonial-era defeat at Dien Bien Phu. This is a mistake: The French airstrikes on Islamic State positions in Syria are only the beginning of the counterattack against ISIS, as French officials themselves are promising. And as anyone familiar with France's military capabilities can attest, when it comes to war the French are among the very best. Moreover, whatever France does probably will not look like anything the U.S. would do. There is a French way of warfare that reflects the French military's lack of resources and its modest sense of what it can achieve. They specialize in carefully apportioned and usually small but lethal operations, often behind the scenes; they can go bigger if they have help from the U.S. and other allies—which they will probably have in any case and know how to put to good use.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
"Whenever possible, they try to limit the use of the military to missions for which militaries really can be of use. Meaning, militaries are good at violence: if violence is what is required, then send in the military. Otherwise, not. The French military abhors mission creep and want no part in things such as "nation building." In Mali, for example, the French military sees itself as good at killing members of a few terrorist groups; that is what they do, and they refuse to get involved in anything else, such as sorting out Mali's political mess or involving themselves in the conflict among Mali's various armed rebel groups and between them and the Malian state."
is there still a foreign legion?
Yes there is.
According to Google, yes.
The Anglo-American approach has (almost) always been to try to improve the civilizations which they find themselves controlling, with varying levels of success, while whenever the French colonized, it was because they wanted to run the joint and get the goods. In general, the former French colonies are much worse at running themselves than the former British colonies: places like Jamaica, Kenya, and Nigeria have problems, but Haiti, Ivory Coast, and Mali are all basically basket cases.
WW2 wasn’t even really the exception to the rule. The Brits made no move during the Sitskrieg either, for example. Yet the French soldiers really stood their ground (and took the hits to go with it) to permit the English and some of their compatriots to escape.
The French Soldier and average citizen has never been a surrender monkey.
In WW2 you had to look higher up the chain of command to find those.
The French have moment of baffling incompetence which give way to incredible valor and accomplishment. They have been this way since the early Iron Age.
A woman I know who is from Africa echoes this point.
The French spend 2,2% GDP on defence.
Also they are flat broke.
Money TALKS...
Algiers.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
Good observation: “They specialize in carefully apportioned and usually small but lethal operations, often behind the scenes”.
The French military is not into American-style “shock and awe”, nor into Russian-style brute force; they prefer: identify a target, destroy it, get out, shut up. Doesn’t make for headline news, but does get the job done.
Partly this may be because the British mostly ended up with the better bits in the colonial competition game.
Nigeria had more “civilization” to begin with, and much more in the way of exportable resources, for one.
Same for Vietnam vs Malaysia.
The British had colonies that paid for themselves, mostly, the French colonies were all money sinks.
I'm not the French Military Basher that some here are. However, following this line in the article, the peice spends all the rest of the words parcing the effectiveness of "pin prick" aggression that France is capable of. It also throws in how much more powerful they can be with American help. The article doesn't do much to intimidate the enemies of France.
Contrast this to any reports about the Russian Military. They are ruthless, inhumane, killers that leave death and destruction at every step.
America used to keep a stable of Warrior Generals under lock and key. Break Glass in case of emergency type Military Leaders. Schwarzkopf and Franks may have been the last of the Great Warriors. The best generals were always the hardest to rein in by politicians. And that is the way it should be. Give them a mission and let them execute with no strings attached. Patton, Eisenhower, Macarther, Grant, Sherman, Washington, Jackson... These were guys that Presidents begrudgingly unleashed on enemies. These were the men that men would fight and die for. These were the men that loved our country enough to orchestrate death and destruction in whatever brutal form necessary to accomplish the mission.
The French were always very very capable at colonial warfare. Their system was good at selecting the best, most adventurous officers and letting them do as they pleased, more or less.
They have always been good at the little wars and still are.
That was NOT the system in the metropolitan army.
They never could, since Napoleon, run the big citizen army as well as the Germans could.
Or perhaps their problem is that in anything big they have always had to deal with the Germans, who were better at it.
A positive change from the good old days when French military rifles were never fired and only dropped once.
There’s a great book about life in the FFL called A Mouth Full of Rocks. And it’s cheap, too.
http://www.amazon.com/Mouthful-Rocks-Through-Corsica-Foreign/dp/0747505799
World War I . Much of France’s best and brightest are buried in Flanders fields.
CC
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