{"id":894,"date":"2020-09-14T21:17:29","date_gmt":"2020-09-14T19:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/?p=894"},"modified":"2020-09-14T21:18:04","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T19:18:04","slug":"four-times-a-year-france-nukes-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/four-times-a-year-france-nukes-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Times A Year, France \u2018Nukes\u2019 Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Four Times A Year, France \u2018Nukes\u2019 Itself<\/strong><\/p>\n

David Axe, Forbes, 14.9.2020<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A Rafale with an ASMPA missile. MBDA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every three months, dozens of French air force fighters, tankers and radar planes take off at bases across France, form up over the Atlantic Ocean then split up and practice penetrating air-defenses and dropping nuclear bombs on French soil.<\/p>\n

These quarterly exercises, code name \u201cPoker,\u201d don\u2019t just prepare French forces for nuclear war\u2014they\u2019re also a increasingly important diplomatic tool as France aims to fill the void a destabilizing United States has left in Europe.<\/p>\n

According to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, the latest Poker involves a nuclear assault force including a dozen French air force Rafale fighter-bombers plus three aerial tankers\u2014C-135FRs or A330s\u2014and an E-3 radar plane. The defending forces include eight fighters\u2014either Rafales or Mirage 2000s\u2014plus at least one tanker.<\/p>\n

The plan is for the attacking forces from several bases to form up off France\u2019s northwest coast. The tankers will then drag the fighters south to the France-Spain border then east across France to the Mediterranean Sea.<\/p>\n

There, the nuclear Rafales will split from the E-3 and tankers, descend to low level and attempt to slip past defending fighters and surface-to-air missile systems before simulating nuclear attacks\u2014most likely by way of 300-mile ASMP-A scramjet cruise missiles.<\/p>\n

The weapons will be dummies. French policy bars warplanes from carrying live nukes during peacetime.<\/p>\n

The Poker war games usually follow the same basic plan. The duration of the strikers\u2019 sorties\u2014up to four hours\u2014matches the flight time from French bases to western Russia and back. Paris began organizing Poker exercises shortly after forming its airborne nuclear-strike force with Mirage IV bombers and C-135FRs back in 1964.<\/p>\n

Paris\u2019 nuclear deterrent also includes four French navy submarines each with 16 M51 intercontinental ballistic missiles. The French navy\u2019s own Rafale fighters, flying from the fleet\u2019s sole aircraft carrier, also can carry nukes. France\u2019s atomic arsenal includes around 300 warheads.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s nuclear force-structure is unique in Europe. Where the United Kingdom deploys all its atomic weapons on submarines, France stubbornly maintains air-deliverable nukes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe airborne component has specific advantages,\u201d the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris explained in a 2019 study. \u201cThe first one is accuracy, which is much better today than that of the sea-based ballistic component.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the reason why, if it can participate in the full-spectrum of nuclear missions, it is particularly valuable either for the exercise of the warning or for a limited and tailored planning.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, nuclear-armed Rafales gives Paris the option of signalling its intention to wage nuclear war \u2026 or conducting limited atomic strikes. All without giving away the location of the more powerfully-armed submarines.<\/p>\n

Poker is the mechanism by which the French air force exercises this particular atomic muscle. But there\u2019s also a diplomatic component.<\/p>\n

As the United States under President Donald Trump began to pull back from international alliances while also ramping up its production of new, and provocative, types of nuclear weapons, French president Emmanuel Macron began engaging in a kind of atomic diplomacy.<\/p>\n

America\u2019s European allies once could count on American nukes for deterrence. Macron and his administration have urged them to look to France, instead. The French government rarely announces the Poker war games, but it made an exception in February 2019. \u201cWe Europeans cannot remain spectators of our own security,\u201d defense minister Florence Parly said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance\u2019s vital interests now have a European dimension,\u201d Macron said this February. He invited France\u2019s European allies to join in the French military\u2019s nuclear war games, presumably including the Poker exercises. \u201cEuropean partners who want to do so will be able to be associated to French deterrence forces\u2019 war games,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear what exactly this might mean. It\u2019s also unclear whether any countries have accepted Macron\u2019s invitation.<\/p>\n

But the offer stands\u2014and the opportunities are plenty. France pretends to nuke itself four times a year, and it shows no sign of stopping.<\/p>\n

Get the best of Forbes to your inbox with the latest insights from experts across the globe.
\nFollow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four Times A Year, France \u2018Nukes\u2019 Itself David Axe, Forbes, 14.9.2020 Every three months, dozens of French air force fighters, tankers and radar planes take off at bases across France, form up over the Atlantic Ocean then split up and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":900,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/luftverteidigung.ch\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}