Suchergebnisse

Foreign military operations, that used to be legal and legitimate in the past, have seen their meaning change totally during the Twentieth Century after the prohibition of the use of force in international relations. They have not disappeared but have taken a new meaning and significance. For France, they represent a way to continue existing as a major power though it tries to give its foreign operations a mission of general interest. It seems necessary that they should be launched within a legal and multilateral framework and that they should appear legitimate to public opinion. Yet foreign operations that last too long risk being contested from within the country and resisted, even militarily, from outside. Adapted from the source document.

In a globalised world, France has acquired an important capacity to project forces owing to its amphibious force both for limited operations independently carried out as well as for larger operations within a coalition. It is also a perfect dual means, which allows France to aid people hit by natural disasters. It needs to be upgraded to have perfect coherence. Adapted from the source document.

Since 2004, the CPCO (Centre for the Planning & Conduct of Operations) has been the tool which the Defence Staff has used to allow the Chief of Defence Staff to plan & conduct military operations that involve France. Its now mature organisation is closely linked to France's decision-making structure & allows France to maintain its place in operations carried out within a multinational framework. Adapted from the source document.

This article examines the shift towards a new paradigm of information use in the military. "Network-centric operations" here refers to the expanded capacity of forces to gather, interpret, transmit, and share information with immediate relevance to the battlefield in order to optimize military reaction time, strategy planning, and administrative decision-making. These initiatives are all the more in demand given the changing landscape of conflict, where the offensives of non-state enemies demand constant vigilance, renewal of information, and rapid countermeasures. Reactivity and interoperability also serve to bring action closer to desired effect, and as such make combat more efficient through maximal damage to intended targets with minimal collateral damage and loss of troops. After exploring these aspects of network-centric combat, this article also poses questions about the consequences of indirect warfare and technological superiority, namely, recourse to terrorist tactics.

Private persons whether individuals or legal entities have always taken part in military operations and the best and most famous example was the one of mercenaries. But, since the 1990's, this participation has been renewed by the increasing activity of the private military companies. These companies have contracts for various tasks and some of them are directly linked to armed missions. The participation of private entities in military operations raises a lot of legal questions. It is necessary to as certain the law which will apply to them, whether they are mercenaries or employees of private military companies. The definition of their status is also crucial in order to determine the liability for their acts. Several fundamental questions arise not only as far the liability of these companies is concerned but also, and perhaps even more, as far as the liability of States employing these companies is concerned. ; La participation de personnes privées à des opérations militaires n'est pas récente et s'est longtemps illustrée par le phénomène des mercenaires, mais elle a pris beaucoup d'ampleur depuis les années 1990 et le recours à des sociétés militaires privées. Ces sociétés se voient confier des tâches qui ne sont pas directement liées au cœur de métier des armées étatiques, mais certaines d'entre elles peuvent concerner des prestations armées. Le recours à des personnes privées dans le cadre d'opérations militaires soulève de nombreuses difficultés juridiques. Il est en effet essentiel de déterminer le droit qui est applicable à ces personnes, qu'elles soient qualifiées de mercenaires ou qu'il s'agisse d'employés de sociétés militaires privées. La définition de leur statut est quant à elle fondamentale afin d'examiner la possibilité de retenir leur responsabilité en cas de nécessité. La question de la responsabilité des sociétés militaires privées elles-mêmes est également posée, tout comme celle, primordiale, de la responsabilité des États qui emploient de telles sociétés.

The aim of this article is to examine the similarities and differences between the use of force after 1990 and colonial police operations of the 19th and 20th Centuries. Our goal is to analyze and compare three aspects of these armed operations: the underlying ideologies, the aims and goals, and the means and methods. The article tends to demonstrate that today we assist to "the return of history", the pre-Cold War history, rather than to the "end of history". Despite some obvious differences between the two types of interventions, the article states that there are more similarities than divergences between these operations and that we are witnessing the emergence of a form of neocolonialism based on the liberal ideology.