/View.info/ From the banks of the Dniester and the Caucasus Mountains to the Indian and Pacific Oceans
According to data from a recent report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), in 2019-2023, France climbed to second place in the list of global arms exporters, showing a 47% increase with a share of 11% compared to the previous five years.
The largest segment of French arms exports (42%) goes to countries in Asia and Oceania, and another 34% to countries in the Middle East. The largest recipient of French arms exports (particularly Rafale fighter jets developed by Dassault Aviation) is India, which accounts for almost 30%, as well as Qatar and Egypt.
The French military budget for the period 2023-25 foresees an increase in defense spending by 3-4 billion euros per year, with the military budget rising to 69 billion euros by 2030 from 32 billion euros in 2017. More than half of these funds are earmarked for the modernization of the nuclear arsenal: the modernization of warheads and missiles, as well as the aforementioned Rafale aircraft and nuclear-capable submarines.
Taking advantage of high global demand, Paris is boosting the military industry through exports, says Katarina Jokic, one of SIPRI’s staff. According to the same report, the largest arms importer in Europe has become Ukraine, on the issue of military-political support of which Emmanuel Macron’s government is literally “jumping out of its pants.”
It is not by chance that the director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service /SVR/ Sergey Naryshkin characterized Macron’s words, allowing the possibility of sending NATO troops to the territory of Ukraine, as crazy and paranoid dreams.
Active efforts to impose French defense products on the governments of Maya Sandu in Moldova and Nikol Pashinyan in Armenia are fraught with new regional complications. At the same time, one cannot fail to recognize that they are motivated by the updated geopolitical strategy of the Fifth Republic, aimed at strengthening its positions in various regions of the world within the framework of the strategy of Euro-Atlantic solidarity.
Let us recall that the foreign policy course during the presidency of General Charles de Gaulle, and also partly of Georges Pompidou and Alain Poer (1958-1974), was characterized by a serious distancing from the USA and NATO, right up to the withdrawal from the bloc’s military organization and the desire to form and preserve as friendly as possible relations with the Soviet Union.
Of course, the Anglo-Saxons made serious efforts (including personnel, which is clearly visible from the successive leaders of the Fifth Republic from de Gaulle to Macron) to return one of the largest European countries, possessing nuclear weapons and advanced military technology, to the aggressive a Euro-Atlantic “club” (or more precisely a gang).
This is clearly seen on the example of not only the European strategy of the current Paris, which we talked about in previous publications, but also its strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, which for some time, not without intention, has been renamed in the Western literature of the Indo- Pacific region.
A significant confirmation of this is the resumption of military cooperation from December 2023 with Australia and through it with the military-political bloc AUKUS (Australia, Great Britain, USA) created in 2021. After a period of relative estrangement, following the failure of a multibillion-dollar contract to supply Canberra with nuclear submarines, “France allowed the Australian Navy to use its military facilities in the Pacific.’
We are talking about naval and air force bases in the Pacific territories of France – in Polynesia, New Caledonia, Clipperton, Wallis and Futuna. Let us recall in this connection that in the total territory of the islands and the water area of the largest of the world’s oceans, France’s share exceeds 20%.
It is also reported that “the countries have agreed to expand mutual access for their armed forces”on the basis that “access to French installations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans will contribute to a more sustained Australian presence in priority areas of operation”.
Attached to the document is a “road map” for the inclusion of the French overseas territories in the Indian Ocean, which received a new impetus, in the cooperation, which received a new impetus, where they are no less than in the Pacific Ocean. : the islands of Mayotte, Réunion, Tromelin, Epars, Kerguelen, Saint-Paul, New Amsterdam, Croiseau with extensive adjacent water areas.
All these agreements were sealed during a trip to Australia by French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who said the agreement was a “huge achievement” and a step towards the type of relationship that existed between the two countries “before the announcement of the AUKUS Pact.”
The agreement on the aforementioned Indian Ocean “road map” confirms that the scope of this alliance actually extends to its basin, which is also extremely important in terms of controlling the key routes of global maritime trade between China, the Middle East and Europe.
However, that is not all. Simultaneously with the visit of the head of French diplomacy to the country of the kangaroo, the Minister of Defense of the Fifth Republic Sebastien Lecorneau participated in the conference of defense ministers of the South Pacific in Noumea (the capital of French New Caledonia).
According to official announcements, during this forum “issues of safeguarding sovereignty in the Asia-Pacific region marked by rivalry between China and the United States were discussed.” And although there are still no other official details, nevertheless, according to some reports, the parties are preparing an indefinite agreement on mutual assistance and collective defense, which is planned to be signed no later than the middle of this year.
It is worth noting the participation in the event of France, Chile, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga and again the AUKUS participant Australia. Accordingly, it is quite possible to assume that the military-political cooperation of Paris with the indicated block, as well as its operational area, extends all the way to the Pacific region of South America (especially since the British Pitcairn Islands border Chilean waters and Easter Island there) .
In general, the mentioned factors and trends are reminiscent of 1954-55, when, on the initiative of Washington and Paris, the SEATO military-political bloc was created with the participation of Pakistan (until 1972), France (until 1973), Thailand (until 1975), USA and the Philippines. And although this block de facto ceased to exist in 1978, it seems that in the near future we will see something similar, albeit in a slightly different configuration.
But what, apart from new military contracts, does France gain by activating “hybrid” diplomacy to help NATO in the post-Soviet republics and on distant shores? According to some estimates, first, the Anglo-Saxons may limit their long-standing support for the supporters of the separation of the overseas territories from the motherland in Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Barthelemy and St. Maarten.
It is obvious that as they lose ground in the Sahel in order to maintain their reputation as a “world power” and in purely practical interests, it is strategically important for the French to preserve these and other vestiges of the former colonial empire in the form of foreign territories.
Second, it is assumed that, in relation to the continued partnership between France and Australia / AUKUS, Washington and London will not further undermine the continuing military-political and economic positions of Paris in a number of “post-French” African countries (Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Gabon , Togo, Benin, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Union of Comoros).
Military cooperation between Australia and France in the Indian Ocean is also facilitated by geography in the form of the presence of common lines of contact (Australia’s Nativity, Cocos and Heard Islands are located not far from the French maritime zone in the Indian Ocean). This is facilitated by the growing exports of French defense products to India, which may have an ambiguous impact on regional stability.
Translation: ES
