The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarter's Expenses?
"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?
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.
The French spend 2,2% GDP on defence.
Also they are flat broke.
Money TALKS...
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.
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.
World War I . Much of France’s best and brightest are buried in Flanders fields.
CC
To really get a grasp of what is going on here, I highly recommend the 1966 movie, “The Battle of Algiers”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers
It is an extremely harsh movie, but fairly well balanced. So much so that the US Pentagon screened to in 2003, to get insights about the Iraq occupation:
“The Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict at the Pentagon offered a screening of the movie on August 27, regarding it as a useful illustration of the problems faced in Iraq. A flyer for the screening read:
“How to win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas. Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar? The French have a plan. It succeeds tactically, but fails strategically. To understand why, come to a rare showing of this film.”
According to the Defense Department official (Directorate for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict) in charge of the screening, “Showing the film offers historical insight into the conduct of French operations in Algeria, and was intended to prompt informative discussion of the challenges faced by the French.”
Importantly, what matters *less* is that it was a foreign power occupying a Muslim nation, than the sheer number of Muslims involved. Had enough Muslims been in France, the violence would have been similar.
http://www.examiner.com/article/as-muslim-population-grows-what-can-happen-to-a-society
mecca's coordinates are:
21o25'N 39o49'E
Just sayin'...
Yeah sure. And French Intelligence is among the best as well.
Individual French servicemen, spies, and cops are among the very best in the world and are to be respected. The failure has always been in their military and political leadership.
Our nation owes a debt of gratitude to the French. DeGrass’s fleet stopped the British fleet from getting to Yorktown to help Cornwallis and the result was we won the Revolutionary War.
We all need a modern-day Charles Martel to lead this war. Unfortunately, we have elected a Pierre Laval to lead the US.