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Security - Defense

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As a result of global strategic competition, security and defense issues are marked by the return of major wars and nuclear deterrence, the transformation of terrorism and the race for military technologies.

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(Replay) Conférence navale de Paris : the return of naval combat

18 January 2023
Accroche

A conference organized by Ifri and the French Navy with British, French and American speakers to reflect on the evolution of naval strategy and the impact of new technologies on navies.

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Interview - Conférence navale de Paris: The Return Of Naval Combat

18 January 2023
Accroche

An interview with the chiefs of staff of the French, American, and British navies.

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France's strategic thinking in the Middle East is at a standstill

20 December 2022
Accroche

French President Emmanuel Macron was poised to arrive in Jordan for a two-day visit starting on Tuesday, December 20. French troops are deployed in the country as part of the Chammal military operation. Héloïse Fayet, a researcher with the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (French Institute of International Relations) who specializes in the armed forces present in the Middle East, told Le Monde that the terrorist threat in the region was almost eliminated. This, she said, should lead Paris to rethink its strategy. Ms. Fayet published a study in mid-November examining France's strategic posture in the Middle East.

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How Rwanda Became Africa’s Policeman

21 November 2022
Accroche

From Benin to Mozambique, President Paul Kagame is flexing his small country’s military muscle—and transforming the continent’s security landscape.

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French Navy bets on electronic warfare to counter anti-ship threats

07 October 2022
Accroche

With 2,000 miles of direct coastline and more than a dozen overseas territories, France’s naval vessels maintain a continuous presence in multiple maritime zones — from the North Sea to the Caribbean, and from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.

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Asia after the War in Ukraine: Re-imagining multilateralism and the risk of high-intensity conflict (video replay)

22 September 2022
Accroche

Annual conference of Ifri's Center for Asian Studies. The war in Ukraine has marked the return of high-intensity conflict in Europe and represents a profound, structural shift in the region’s strategic environment. It also takes place against a backdrop of a decades-long rebalancing of global power and the increase of strategic competition between the United States and China, in particular.

Interview with David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee

19 September 2022
Accroche

Can you describe the humanitarian impact of the war in Ukraine, in Europe, including with regards to displacement, and beyond the outside of Europe?

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France and AUKUS: A Necessary Reconciliation

15 September 2022
Accroche

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.

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Japan Times_logo

After support for Ukraine, Kishida aims for NATO unity on China

28 June 2022
Accroche

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.

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Russia's air force makes the difference in Donbas breakthrough

30 May 2022
Accroche

The frantic rate of attacks from the air seems to have contributed to the recent retreat of Ukrainian forces on the Donbas front.

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Naval Nuclear Propulsion: The Technical and Strategic Challenges of a Restricted Technology

Date de publication
08 November 2023
Accroche

The technical and operational capabilities of naval nuclear propulsion - discretion, power, autonomy and manoeuvrability - make this technology a strategic asset for nuclear deterrence.

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The national DDR policy for Boko Haram ex-combatants in the Extreme North of Cameroon. Issues, challenges and limits

Date de publication
27 October 2023
Accroche

Surprised and harassed by Boko Haram’s atrocities from mid-2013, the Cameroonian authorities initially responded with strong military and judicial responses that helped to contain the threat and regain control of the situation.

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The Wind Rose’s Directions: Russia’s Strategic Deterrence during the First Year of the War in Ukraine

Date de publication
28 August 2023
Accroche
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, and even before February 2022, the Russian government has conducted intense nuclear rhetoric and actions.
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TB2 Bayraktar: Big Strategy for a Little Drone

Date de publication
17 April 2023
Accroche

Since 2016, the tactical drone TB2 Bayraktar—“standard bearer” in Turkish—has received considerable media attention, particularly during the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. Thanks to Azerbaijan’s victory over its neighbor Armenia, the drone, manufactured by Baykar, is now a proven combat system with increasing numbers of export clients.

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Imagining Beyond the Imaginary. The Use of Red Teaming and Serious Games in Anticipation and Foresight

Date de publication
30 March 2023
Accroche

The Red Team Defence demonstrates the Ministry of the Armed Forces' desire to appropriate new foresight tools. Thus, brain games or serious games aim to bypass the weight of the military hierarchy, the standardisation of thoughts and cognitive biases in order to avoid strategic unthinking.

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Military Stockpiles: A Life-Insurance Policy in a High-Intensity Conflict?

Date de publication
06 December 2022
Accroche

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 significant drain on their operational capabilities. A significant amount of decommissioned systems were also donated, due to the lack of depth in operational fleets.

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Chinese Nuclear Force Modernization and Doctrinal Change

Date de publication
19 August 2022
Accroche

Dating back to the first test in 1964, the Chinese nuclear force modernization process is motivated by other nuclear powers’ modernization across the years, mostly from the United States and the Soviet Union, but also by domestic factors such as economic debates and tensions in the scientific community.

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Deus ex machina : les enjeux de l’autonomisation des systèmes d’armes

Date de publication
24 May 2022
Accroche

While the automatization of machines is part of an already long historical, conceptual, and technical trajectory, the exponential progress of artificial intelligence techniques, robotics and their military applications suggest the emergence of systems that integrate more autonomy. Indeed, despite campaigns calling for a moratorium on autonomous weapons, most military powers are developing programs focused on autonomy. 

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La paix par la force. La modernisation de la défense sud-coréenne sous la présidence Moon Jae-in

Date de publication
04 May 2022
Accroche

South Korea's defense modernization plan, Defense Reform 2.0, represents a significant effort in terms of military capabilities since 2018. The outgoing president, Moon Jae-in, has placed particular emphasis on high-tech acquisition as well as transforming the Korean defense industrial and technological base into a major domestic and international supplier.

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Arctic: Toward the End of the Exception? Strategic, Nuclear and Maritime Issues in the Region

Date de publication
26 April 2022
Accroche

Through multiple international initiatives, including the creation of the Arctic Council at the end of the Cold War in 1996, the Arctic appears to be one of the last areas of peaceful cooperation in the world. This “Arctic exception” is also devoid of any serious territorial dispute between the neighboring countries, some of which are nevertheless great powers: Russia, the United States, Canada, but also Sweden, Norway, Denmark (via Greenland), Iceland and Finland.

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French Navy bets on electronic warfare to counter anti-ship threats

07 October 2022
Accroche

With 2,000 miles of direct coastline and more than a dozen overseas territories, France’s naval vessels maintain a continuous presence in multiple maritime zones — from the North Sea to the Caribbean, and from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific.

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the_diplomate.jpg
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France and AUKUS: A Necessary Reconciliation

15 September 2022
Accroche

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.

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Japan Times_logo

After support for Ukraine, Kishida aims for NATO unity on China

28 June 2022
Accroche

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.

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French "State Action at Sea" as a Model for SE Asian Coast Guards

16 March 2022
Accroche

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 geostrategic environment, the security of maritime areas and, more broadly, security in the high seas, are subject to major threats and illegal activities as recently summarized in the last Information Fusion Centre (IFC) annual report: piracy and sea robbery, maritime terrorism, cyber-attacks and AIS spoofing, trafficking of all kinds, illegal fishing activities and maritime pollution.

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AUKUS, a Hot Topic at Beijing Xiangshan Forum Webinar 2021

28 October 2021
Accroche

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 and their nuclear submarine cooperation were heatedly discussed.

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France’s submarine trouble highlights its precarious status as a great power

22 September 2021
Accroche

French admiral says US has broken a pact among nuclear powers on the UN Security Council by agreeing to sell nuclear submarines.

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Paris attacks: Survivors hope for justice as France's biggest criminal trial in history begins

08 September 2021
Accroche

"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.

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DWlogo
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France hopes deporting more alleged radicals will bring security

04 July 2021
Accroche

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.

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Army colonel sworn in as Mali president as tensions with Paris grow

07 June 2021
Accroche

Assimi Goïta vows to uphold republican regime and democracy in Mali.

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France Halts Joint Military Operations with Mali Over Coup

03 June 2021
Accroche

PARIS - France said Thursday it would suspend joint military operations with Malian forces after the West African country's second coup in nine months, adding to international pressure for the military junta to return civilians to positions of power.

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Group of kamkazza combat drones against the background of sky and clouds, top view, 3d rendering. Concept: war in Ukraine, drone attack.
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 A soldier watching a sunset on an armored infantry fighting vehicle
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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.

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French soldiers during an exercise in the forest
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A soldier looking at a map on a laptop
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