The ongoing budgetary crisis, which keeps harming many countries, causes an accelerated weakening of European armed forces. Thus, the question of military resurgence is urgent, at least for those countries that deem necessary maintaining a credible defense tool. Military resurgence is everything but simple. The sharper the drop in capabilities, the more difficult, costly and long the resurgence will be. A swift consolidation may be enough to patch up an apparatus that suffers from minor shortcomings. Should these multiply up to the point of endangering the coherence of the system, a much more substantial build-up would be needed. Ultimately, only a massive, enduring and global effort of reconstruction could efficiently deal with the actual collapse of armed forces. Consequently, this paper highlights the critical importance of threshold effects when considering the development and sustainment of such an effort, effects which must be taken into account before any crippling decision is taken. More specifically, loss of either military or industrial skills has to be carefully thought on and controlled, otherwise the resurgence will fail, however ample the funding may be.

This content is available in French: Les chausse-trapes de la remontée en puissance : Défis et écueils du redressement militaire