Search on Ifri.org

About Ifri

Frequent searches

Suggestions

From Cuba to Ukraine: Strategic Signaling and Nuclear Deterrence

Politique étrangère Articles from Politique Etrangère
|
Date de publication
|
Accroche

Strategic signaling—the range of signs and maneuvers intended, in peace time, to lend credibility to any threat to use nuclear weapons—is back.

Image principale
Visuel de Cuba à l'Ukraine
Table of contents
Table of contents
body

The war in Ukraine has taken it in a new direction for both Russia and the West. It can involve both nuclear and conventional forces. Attention must also be given to technological developments that may affect access to information and its interpretation.

Héloïse Fayet is Research Fellow and head of the Deterrence and Proliferation program at Ifri's Security Studies Center.

Article published in French only in Politique étrangère, Vol. 89, No. 4, Winter 2024.

Decoration

Available in:

Themes and regions

Share

Decoration
Author(s)
Photo
heloise fayet

Héloïse FAYET

Intitulé du poste

Research Fellow and Head of the Deterrence and Proliferation program, Security Studies Center, Ifri

Image principale
 A soldier watching a sunset on an armored infantry fighting vehicle
Security Studies Center
Accroche centre

Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.

Image principale

France has a new nuclear doctrine of ‘forward deterrence’ for Europe. What does it mean?

Date de publication
05 March 2026
Accroche

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech on France’s nuclear deterrence at the Île Longue naval base near Brest in Brittany, which hosts the country’s nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines. Such addresses are a well-established presidential ritual, typically delivered once per presidential term and receiving moderate attention. This one, however, was highly anticipated in France and abroad, given the profound geopolitical shifts since Macron’s first nuclear speech in February 2020.

Image principale

Bundeswehr: From Zeitenwende (historic turning point) to Epochenbruch (epochal shift)

Date de publication
25 February 2026
Accroche

The Zeitenwende (historic turning point) announced by Olaf Scholz on February 27, 2022, is shifting into high gear. Financially supported by the March 2025 reform of Germany’s “debt break” and backed by a broad political and societal consensus to strengthen and modernize the Bundeswehr, Germany's military capabilities are set to rapidly increase over the coming years. Expected to assume a central role in the defense of the European continent in the context of changing transatlantic relations, Berlin’s military-political position on the continent is being radically transformed. 

Johanna MÖHRING
Image principale

Main Battle Tank: Obsolescence or Renaissance?

Date de publication
17 November 2025
Accroche

Since February 2022, Russian and Ukrainian forces combined have lost more than 5,000 battle tanks, a much higher volume than all the European armor combined. Spearhead of the Soviet doctrine from which the two belligerents came, tanks were deployed in large numbers from the first day and proved to be a prime target for UAVs that became more numerous and efficient over the months. The large number of UAV strike videos against tanks has also led a certain number of observers to conclude, once again, that armor is obsolete on a modern battlefield. This approach must, however, be nuanced by a deeper study of the losses and their origin, UAVs rarely being the sole origin of the loss itself, often caused by a combination of factors such as mines, artillery or other anti-tank weapons.

Image principale

Mapping the MilTech War: Eight Lessons from Ukraine’s Battlefield

Date de publication
12 February 2026
Accroche

This report maps out the evolution of key technologies that have emerged or developed in the last 4 years of the war in Ukraine. Its goal is to derive the lessons the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could learn to strengthen its defensive capabilities and prepare for modern war, which is large-scale and conventional in nature.

Élie TENENBAUM Bohdan KOSTIUK Daryna-Maryna PATIUK Anastasya SHAPOCHKINA

How can this study be cited?

From Cuba to Ukraine: Strategic Signaling and Nuclear Deterrence, from Ifri by
Copy