Our world is becoming increasingly contested and unpredictable and we are trending towards a return of great power strategic competition, characterized by more frequent challenges to the established rules-based international order. As a consequence, the risk of interstate conflict continues to...
Security and Defense
The relative simplicity of the Cold War has given way to a series of crises and conflicts involving heterogeneous actors and unpredictable situations. Today, security studies require an integrated approach that takes into account both regional and global dimensions, as well as political trends (coalitions, pressure from the media, strategic rivalries and limited wars) and military dynamics (nuclear and conventional capabilities, reduced force structures, types and methods of intervention).
Since the 1990s, Ifri’s Security Studies Center has stimulated debate and contributed to the improvement of strategic thinking in France through its conferences and widely read publications (in French and English). The Center also works on behalf of public and private policymakers through briefs and closed-door seminars.
Ifri's Security Studies Center analyzes traditional defense issues as well as the evolution of the broader field of security. The Center’s programs are designed to be enduring and cross disciplinary, and are conducted with the help of other Ifri research units. Through its innovative work, the Center has two objectives: influencing a wide public with its publications – in particular its two electronic paper series “Focus stratégique” and “Proliferation Papers” – and making recommendations to all the actors involved in public security. Accordingly, various reports and projects are realized on behalf of the Ministries of Defense, the Interior and Foreign Affairs.
Research Fellow, Director of Ifri's Security Studies Center
...Military Fellow, Security Studies Center
...Research Fellow, Security Studies Center
...Research Fellow, Head of the Defense Research Unit - LRD, Security Studies Center
...Research Fellow, Security Studies Center
...Research Fellow, Head of European and Transatlantic Security Program, Security Studies Center
...Deputy Director of Ifri, Editor-in-Chief of Politique étrangère, and research fellow at the Security Studies Center
...Military fellow within the Defense Research Unit of IfriI’s Center for Security Studies.
...Associate Research Fellow, Security Studies Center
...Advisor, Security Studies Center
...Associate Research Fellow, Security Studies Center
...Since 2012, the proliferation of jihadist groups across the Sahel has monopolized the attention of the authorities.forced by the threats they represent and the weakening of their regal power, states are gradually withdrawing from their peripheral rural territories. As a result, populations...
While a state of siege was declared a year ago in two Congolese provinces and Kenyan authorities organized a meeting in Nairobi between the Congolese government and armed groups, the pacification of the Congolese East remains unresolved. This study looks back at the Tshisekedi government's...
The war in Ukraine is a reminder of the place of attrition from high-intensity conflict in European armies that have been cut to the bone after three decades of budget cuts. All European forces have had to reduce their stocks to the bare minimum. As a result, support to Ukraine has meant a...
France has a historical presence in the Middle East, where it has many interests to defend: the fight against terrorism, the promotion of the arms industry, the dissemination of humanitarian values, etc. To this end, it has a number of resources at its disposal, notably military: French forces...
Back in September 2021, the announcement of AUKUS – the defense partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) was a shock to Paris.
The use of civilian technologies on the battlefield—one of the lessons that can be drawn from recent conflicts—is attracting growing interest from the armed forces of France and other nations. The growing number of examples of effective integration of civilian technologies...
The signing of the AUKUS partnership agreement between Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom in September 2021 seems to have reconstituted a natural coalition between “Anglo-Saxon” states. This solidarity generates contradictory judgments.
The tremendous demographic challenges facing China will not significantly affect the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in the immediate future, but will become more problematic in the medium and long term. The rapid aging of the population and the resulting socio-economic imbalances will put...
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has underlined the need to upgrade the European armed forces, the urgency of the fight against climate change—as illustrated by reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—requires the political...
One year on, the announcement of the Australia-U.K.-U.S alliance has not been accompanied by any major changes to France’s Indo-Pacific defense strategy.
When Prime Minister Fumio Kishida becomes the first Japanese leader to attend a NATO leaders summit on Wednesday, he’ll be looking to stress the need for unity in preventing China from taking the “wrong lessons” from the Ukraine war as the bloc looks to expand its footprint in the Indo-Pacific...
The frantic rate of attacks from the air seems to have contributed to the recent retreat of Ukrainian forces on the Donbas front.
Western countries are supplying Kyiv with heavy weapons, abandoning the caution shown at the start of the conflict. The aim is to restore the Ukrainian army's strength and block the Russian war effort in the Donbas.
South-East Asian countries like Philippines and Indonesia have to cope with an increasing number of maritime issues in order to exert their sovereign rights over their territorial waters, archipelagic waters and exclusive economic zones (EEZ). In the midst of a tense...
Technologies from big data to quantum computing, artificial intelligence and next-generation drones are fueling power struggles between nations and large industrial companies. Alice Pannier, head of the...
BEIJING, Oct. 28 -- The 5th session of Beijing Xiangshan Forum Webinar 2021 was held on the evening of October 26 around the topic of “Strategic Stability: Impasse and Way Out”, in which the establishment of the so-called trilateral security partnership, AUKUS, by the US, Britain and Australia...
French admiral says US has broken a pact among nuclear powers on the UN Security Council by agreeing to sell nuclear submarines.
"Still now I have the images of the corpses next to my feet": Olivier Laplaud and his wife were in the Bataclan enjoying themselves amongst a crowd of 1,500 people when everything changed in an instant.
France has repatriated more than half the people it defined as radical Islamists living in the country without a residence permit since 2018. Now it wants to extend the penalty and deport even more.