Thanks to new missiles, France adapts its means of dissuasion to the "scenarios from blackmails and threats" caused by the dissemination of weapons of massive destruction (nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical). Since 2004, the French Army will have a conventional cruise missile, Scalp EG, then, at the beginning of 2007, of an airborne nuclear missile, Asmp-a. According to a Commission Report of defense, published Tuesday 4th November , it is a question of being able to deal with regional powers "proliferating", "new actors" on the international scene.
Vis-a-vis the risks which from now on regional powers equipped with weapons of massive destruction represent, France adapts its defence system. Since 2004, it will hold its first cruise missiles ready to strike, remotely safety, protected decision-making centres and unfavourable major infrastructures.
At the beginning of 2007, it should align nuclear airborne missiles whose characteristics will enable him to aim at a range of targets broader than today.
A number growing of States, often located in zones of strong tensions, are regarded as being, right now or in the long term, of the proliferating States: they cumulate know-how in the order of the ballistic missiles and that of the ammunition nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical. This threat - one speaks about about thirty new countries compared to the established powers - is unforeseeable. It constitutes a stake of dissuasion.
To counter such a challenge, the United States retained the option of small nuclear loads of weak energy - baptized mininukes -, with the study and supposed to currently get increased possibilities of flexibility in the choice of the possible responses to an aggression. The Americans develop a type of mininuke which takes as a starting point the the design of their withdrawn artillery shells of the service at the end of 1980.
Since 2004, the French Air Force will put in service cruise missiles Scalp EG which carry a traditional explosive load of 400 kilogrammes and which will be drawn by Mirage 2000 D with between 400 and 600 kilometers from their objective, according to the profile of flight. The first 110 missiles will have been delivered on a total order of 450, at a cost of 850 000 euros part. Later on, the Rafale of the Air Force and those of the Charles-of-Gaulle aircraft carrier will receive the Scalp. The United Kingdom in bought 900 (under the denomination of Storm Shadow), Italy 200, just as Greece, the Arab Emirates linked and Qatar.
The United States required to be made present this missile. Planes Tornado British released 35 Storm Shadowen Iraq, with almost 100 % of blows to the goal and a precision of the order of the meter, against bunkers of command and "hardened" targets known as. This capacity for double purpose of the Scalp - to bore protection of neuralgic objectives and, then, to explode in-depth inside - drew the attention of the Americans whose Tomahawk does not have equivalent performances and who, in similar circumstances, have recourse to powerful penetrating bombs delivering several tons of traditional TNT.
In the longer term, since 2007, France hopes on another missile - with nuclear warhead that one - to be caught of it in "centers political power, economic and soldier" of any possible attacker.
It is about the Asmp-a missile (air-to-ground with average carried, improved) which will arm 50 planes Mirage 2000 K3 and, later, as many Rafale in the Air Force without forgetting those to come in the Naval Aviation.
At a cost of 1,4 billion euros, this arsenal is presented, in a recent parliamentary report/ratio, like "participant largely in the credibility of dissuasion, in particular compared to regional powers" which would hold weapons of massive destruction. The energy of the nuclear load of Asmp-a must vary according to the type of strike and the anticipated results. Its precision, after 300 to 400 kilometers of trajectory, would be lower than 10 meters. Its immediate effects "collateral" (the blast and the radiological radiation) will be controlled with the impact.
At the time of these international crises, often more complex than in the past, the goal of France consists in addressing an ultimate warning to an attacker to mean to him that it is given to safeguard its interests.
Officially, the French persons in charge refute the charge according to which they would have joined with whole or part of the known strategic reflexion, in the United States, under the name of Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and subjected to the Congress at the end of 2001. The dissuasion is not perceived in the same way on the two sides from the Atlantic. With the difference of Washington, Paris persists in preaching not-employment. But the French do not deny any more - the remarks of M Chirac or Raffarin and the programming soldier 2003-2008 testify some - that they should adjust the panoply with the rise of these regional powers, allied or not with terrorism.
Accordingly, for France, the nuclear submarines strategic missile launchers continue to ensure striking as a second. But the project of modernization of their "vectors", with the service entrance in 2010 of the new M.51 missile on board Terrible, increases the options offered to the head of the State and to the government.
It is "a major expiry", admit the staffs, and also "a true technological jump".
Because of its increased range (more than 6 000 kilometers with its batch of complete nuclear warheads and the assistances to the penetration vis-a-vis a reinforced anti-missile shield, well more with only one load), of the methods of its trajectory and its furtivity, M.51 is more flexible of employment. It makes it possible to modulate striking - shooting step by step, split or resorting to the totality of the 16 missiles embarked on each of the four submarines envisaged - and to reach the most moved back zones of planet.
Jacques Isnard
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