Overstretched, Needed to Defend Home, Blah, Blah, Blah

While all of the states leverage is, as ever, employed to make arms sales, and yacking “biz-tellectuals” write sonnets to the Rafale, or the near holiness of any other precious piece of overpriced rubbish the state tangled arms industries come out with, the French Army’s gear is thoroughly FUBAR. So much so that Sarko just penned a “reduction and improvement” program for the French armed services.

According to confidential defence documents leaked to the French press, less than half of France's Leclerc tanks – 142 out of 346 – are operational and even these regularly break down.

Less than half of its Puma helicopters, 37 per cent of its Lynx choppers and 33 per cent of its Super Frelon models – built 40 years ago – are in a fit state to fly, according to documents seen by Le Parisien newspaper.

Two thirds of France's Mirage F1 reconnaissance jets are unusable at present.

Like with the left in the US, the nattering is identical: they are a failure, but they shouldn’t be given a cent. They are “overstretched”, but should be reduced. As it is, there will be fewer soldiers ready for duty in the “la Grande armée de la République” then there are Girl Scouts in Canada. And of course even that would be considered excessive if we were talking about the Boy Scouts.

According to army officials, the precarious state of France's defence equipment almost led to catastrophe in April, when French special forces rescued the passengers and crew of a luxury yacht held by pirates off the Somali coast.

Although ultimately a success, the rescue operation nearly foundered at an early stage, when two of the frigates carrying troops suffered engine failure, and a launch laden with special forces' equipment sunk under its weight.

Later, an Atlantic 2 jet tracking the pirates above Somali territory suffered engine failure and had to make an emergency landing in Yemen.

"External operations, in the Ivory Coast and Lebanon are a fig leaf: we are able to keep up the pretence but in ten years our defence apparatus will fall apart," one high-ranking official said.

In truth, they have it kind of rough. They deploy their forces to various parts of Africa and the near East with the expectation of benignly satisfying the public’s need to imagine that they are there broadly doing good with kid gloves.

But it only works if you don’t have a lot of illusions about the world, and the violence in it, let them do their jobs, and give them a way to do it.

Moreover, every time the issue comes up, there is a parroted “that a reason for MORE Europe, not LESS Europe” routine that they go through: always a call for military intergrations. All well and good, but all of the parties are looking for a second peace dividend which lays the burden of a professional force at the feet of the UK and the smaller states with experienced forces such as the Danes and the Dutch – hardly a way to develop a broad, unified military force with a doctrine unique to their needs. In fact it would lean even MORE heavily on the US and the force segment retrained through US cooperation as we’ve seen with the Poles.

Again, if they really want it, they have to actually want it and show it. So far, other than the UK and the Dutch, as usual the other players remain in a staring contest over who can SEEM to take action in Afghanistan with the least possible risk.