Anglo-French Cooperation Deepening

For the first time since the Suez Crisis of '56, the Brits and French are looking to converge their military strategies.

One day in February last year, HMS Vanguard was calmly patrolling beneath the waters of the mid-Atlantic. Suddenly, to the alarm of its crew, the submarine – one of the quartet that forms part of Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent – hit a very large object with a bang. At first the Vanguard’s commander was unsure what had happened. But soon all was revealed: a French nuclear submarine, Le Triomphant, had been undertaking exactly the same role in precisely the same part of the Atlantic. Neither commander saw the other coming. Both boats – damaged, bruised, their crews much embarrassed – hurriedly returned to port.

The collision was reported with a mixture of amusement and alarm on both sides of the Channel. Yet some would argue that the event said much about the military relationship between Britain and France. On the one hand, the two have more in common with each other than they have with any other state. They are the European Union’s only major military powers – the only ones to spend more than 2 per cent of national income on defence; the only ones with nuclear weapons; the only ones with permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council and with what might be called a global vision. Yet throughout the previous half century Britain and France have often seen each other as rivals rather than allies, each competing on the world stage indifferent to what the other is doing.

Now, however, something may be changing. In recent months, senior figures in the British and French defence establishments – politicians, military chiefs, defence industrialists, think-tankers – have been talking about the need to step up co-operation amid significant budgetary pressures and a fear that the US may be turning away from Europe.

To be sure, both sides are engaging with a certain nervousness – and a sense of déjà vu. Back in 1998 Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac – then respectively UK prime minister and French president – unveiled a grand vision for a defence alliance at a summit in the French port of St Malo that was hailed at the time as a new entente cordiale. Within a few years the two leaders had fallen out over the US-led invasion of Iraq. Yet today, talk about bilateral defence co-operation is once again in vogue.

The immediate driver of this new entente is the significant pressure on defence spending in both countries. France recently agreed a defence budget that will rise by only 1 per cent a year in real terms between 2012 and 2025. The British, whose forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been overstretched since 2003, are immersed arguably in a bigger crisis. Whichever party wins the British general election – expected in early May – might have to cut defence spending by up to 15 per cent over the next six years, according to the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank. The UK Ministry of Defence therefore recently published a policy paper in which it asked whether it could use its partnership with France to improve existing capabilities.

By: Brant