In an international environment where the threats are increasingly global, the idea of national defence is not what it used to be. A notion of defence that is meant to be increasingly vague and wider is today overshadowed by the idea of national security, and one talks of the ‘defence-security continuum’. The highly compartmentalised ‘French Capharnaum’ of government departments must adapt to this new notion of defence as a component of security itself. However, far from changing the traditional function of defence, the renewal of the idea of national power can only reinforce the importance of the Armed Forces’ defence mission.
Defence Versus National Security
At a time when our country is involved in very serious examination of our defence policy generally, with the work of the White Paper Commission on defence and national security, it would seem like the right moment to look a little more closely at those same terms that are the very basis of that examination, whether it is a matter of national or global defence, and of internal, external, national or international security. As the President of the Commission and senior member of the Council of State, Mr Jean-Claude Mallet, put it, ‘Defence and national security policy must be based on concepts that everyone can understand.’(1)
Our concept of national defence, defined nearly 50 years ago, has undergone, not without harm, the trials of time and events, and its relevance in relation to the ever more resonant concept of security has diminished. More than a continuum between the two concepts and a source of confusion rather than solutions, a new relationship of subordination now seems to have developed between them, a relationship full of challenges and synergies for the organisation and the resources of our nation, but also the cause of new problems linked to strategic interests.
We shall examine these complex developments in turn.
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