{"id":30437,"date":"2022-06-13T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2022\/06\/13\/how-frances-army-chief-is-avoiding-getting-sucked-into-a-ukrainian-tunnel\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:29:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:29:42","slug":"how-frances-army-chief-is-avoiding-getting-sucked-into-a-ukrainian-tunnel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/global\/europe\/2022\/06\/13\/how-frances-army-chief-is-avoiding-getting-sucked-into-a-ukrainian-tunnel\/","title":{"rendered":"How France\u2019s Army chief is avoiding getting sucked into a \u2018Ukrainian tunnel\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

STUTTGART, Germany \u2014 The French Army is in the midst of a broad equipment overhaul as it replenishes its ammunition arsenals, procures upgraded armored vehicles and teams up with its German counterparts to develop a new battle tank. While many of these efforts have been in the works for years, Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a> sharply demonstrated what European armies should expect in modern land warfare, and how to prepare for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chief of the French Army Gen. Pierre Schill shared his perspective on the service\u2019s path forward in an interview with Defense News ahead of the biennial Eurosatory industry conference in Paris. High on Schill\u2019s mind is seeing the Scorpion program fully implemented<\/a>, figuring out the \u201ceternal dialectics between sword and shield\u201d that characterize tank warfare<\/a>, and avoiding getting sucked into what he called a \u201cUkrainian tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you view the French Army evolving over the course of the military\u2019s 2019-2025 strategic planning and budgeting period, known as the French Military Planning law?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relying on the \u201cAu contact!\u201d model launched by former Army chief Gen. Jean-Pierre Bosser, which thoroughly reorganized the Army by providing it with high versatility, the \u201cOperational Superiority\u201d plan has a clear ambition: to harden the Army. In the framework of the 2019-2025 military budget law and beyond, by the year 2030, the goal is to form an army able to participate in all conflicts, up to a major engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four objectives have been defined to achieve it: troops up to the challenge of future clashes; capabilities enabling us to out-class our adversaries; training focused on the major engagement; and an operational way of functioning. Over the last decades, the Army has acquired valuable operational experience in Afghanistan, in the Central African Republic and in the Sahel, which proved to be pivotal for the efficiency of our operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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French soldiers are seen outside of a Griffon armored vehicle near Gao, Mali, in October 2021. (Courtesy of the French Armed Forces Ministry)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hardening the Army does not mean questioning this experience of peacekeeping operations and counterinsurgency conflicts. Like a pianist, we need to work our second hand to make the most of the \u201ckeyboard of action,\u201d as former Army Gen. Andr\u00e9 Beaufre called it. The Army must be able to produce effects and to provide strategic solutions for the various engagement scenarios, ranging from the direct confrontation of wills to indirect approaches, and to compromise with the major and minor modes of conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense is a critical topic for society: What price are we ready to pay, and how do we want to defend our country? The 2019-2025 FMP focuses on repair and stepping up to materialize the ambition. The modernization initiated with the Scorpion modernization program is probably the most significant since the end of World War II. It will renew our armored vehicles that have been in service for 40 years and will multiply their efficiency by placing them into a network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomorrow, units will share the information in near-real time to define the best possible tactical combination to protect themselves and destroy the enemy. The ambition of collaborative combat consists of understanding, deciding and acting more quickly than the adversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much more than a mere reequipping of the Land Force, Scorpion represents an evolution in the way of operating on the battlefield with the development of collaborative combat. Connectivity will enable a really dynamic allocation of sensors and shooters, and it will provide new tactical perspectives, owing in particular to the ability to fire beyond the line of sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hardening also means anticipating and thinking about our future needs. That is the purpose of the Titan project, which will describe and define the composition and organization of our future battlefield capabilities \u2014 the upgraded Leclerc tank, new armored personnel carriers, Tiger MkIII attack helicopters, the Caesar self-propelled howitzer, and the Multiple Launch Rocket System, or LRU \u2014 by 2040, and will extend collaborative combat to the joint and allied levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\t