Les mutations du renseignement militaire : dissiper le brouillard de la guerre ?
Military intelligence has evolved significantly as a result of advanced technology and the changing character of war.
In the 1990s, military intelligence was at the core of the “revolution in military affairs”, carrying the hope that it would help dissipate the fog of war and increase transparency on the battlefield. However, because of the last two decades of military operations, this transformation has proved challenging. Confronted with increasingly complex opponents, Western armed forces have had to adopt the concept of “military interest intelligence”, which widens the scope of its mission. In France, this transformation has borne many questions regarding intelligence organization and capabilities at both the service and joint levels. Given current technological challenges, both for collection and analysis, the future of military intelligence depends, more than ever, upon the amount of human and financial resources political and military leaders choose to allocate to this domain.
This content is available in French : « Les mutations du renseignement militaire : dissiper le brouillard de la guerre ? »
Author(s)
Related centers and programs
Discover our other research centers and programs
Security Studies Center
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.
Find out more
Discover all our analyses
Fury from the Skies. A Strategic Analysis of Air Campaign against Iran
What is the outcome of Operations Roaring Lion (RL) and Epic Fury (EF), launched by Israel and the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran on February 28, 2026?
Finland: The Ally Who Came in from the Cold
Among all European countries, Finland is perhaps the one whose strategic culture and military model have changed the least since the end of the Cold War. Built after the end of the Second World War to deter a potential new Soviet invasion, this model enabled Finland to serve as an example of European rearmament.
Stability under Pressure. A Pakistani View on Nuclear Deterrence after Pahalgam
The May 2025 India-Pakistan crisis after the Pahalgam attack has generated a familiar but incomplete debate: did nuclear deterrence work, or did it merely allow both sides to fight a limited war under the nuclear shadow? The better answer is that deterrence worked at the level at which it was designed to work. It prevented a general war and an uncontrolled vertical escalation, and kept nuclear weapons in the background. But it did not prevent India from attempting to carve out space for conventional action, nor did it prevent Pakistan from responding conventionally to restore deterrence credibility.
