The reality of today’s conflicts in Iraq and Lebanon faces us with the need to think about the structure of our forces. In France and in Western armed forces, the plans inherited from the Cold War, and pressure from NATO, have led us towards more compact structures for our forces, equipped above all for the higher end of the operational spectrum–with top-heavy command structures and lacking troops on the ground. What is the right balance between the fighting forces and the headquarters staffs–the teeth and the tail? What priorities should be given to equipments? The forces must have a greater capacity for light, mobile intervention while maintaining a powerful, if reduced, nucleus.
The Structure of Armed Forces: Striking the Right Balance between Teeth and Tail
‘It is strategy which must direct the inventors.’
General Beauffre, The Introduction to Strategy
The start of the twenty-first century has been marked, for France’s armed forces, by a marked tendency to develop command capabilities, on the one hand, and to pursue the procurement of major equipments on the other. Moreover, the structure of our Army has become more compressed and has changed in nature since the end of the twentieth century: 350,000 servicemen and women, instead of the 550,000 who were there before the end of National Service and the transition to all-professional forces, with a high percentage of senior officers (involved in management), a predominance of ‘systems’, and thus a fall in the proportion of personnel available on the ground.
The consequences of this change of size and shape, noticeable in all Western armed forces, are evident in current conflicts, where the number of infantry, whose role is to be in contact, on the ground, seems to be pretty small compared with the total numbers involved. The coalition in Afghanistan seeks more, fresh troops without success.
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