Can we still rely on nuclear deterrence?

On November 5, 1956, a Franco-British expeditionary force landed in Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal recently nationalized by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, in a military operation organized jointly with Israel which had seized the Egyptian Sinai a few days later. early. Despite the military successes of this coalition, the Franco-British troops withdrew after only a few days, when the Soviet Union threatened Paris and London with nuclear strikes. Even though NATO declared at that time that such Soviet action would lead to a similar response, Washington also put pressure on its two European allies to obtain their withdrawal, by carrying out an attack on the British Pound which lost 10% of its value. value in just a week.

This episode ends up convincing the French authorities of the need for an autonomous nuclear deterrent force, to be able to resist the "nuclear blackmail" carried out by Moscow, and not to depend on American decisions if the need arises. feel. Indeed, until then, the French military nuclear program was integrated into a purely NATO framework. The British took another route. Even if they also developed their own deterrent force, the Suez episode above all marked the shift of London towards an intimate alliance with Washington, an alliance which continues today.

If the French military nuclear program predates the arrival of General de Gaulle in power in 1958, it is however to him that we owe its acceleration, and in particular the development of vector programs such as the strategic bomber Mirage IV, the Pluton tactical surface-to-surface missiles or the Le Redoutable nuclear ballistic missile submarine, which will model French nuclear deterrence as we know it today. But with the arrival of this deterrence, a doctrine imposed itself in France making it the ultimate bulwark against any form of major aggression, to the point that in 2013, when the White Paper on La Defense and National Security, the French armies were reduced to two concepts, a nuclear deterrent with two components (air and submarine) to ensure the security of the nation, and a reinforced expeditionary force to protect the interests of the country on the planet. .

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