French Policy in Africa: A Lonely Battle against Destabilization

Lellouche, Pierre; Moïsi, Dominique

doi:10.2307/2626765

Cited by 22 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…French forces in Africa never dropped below 7,900 until the Cold War's end and swelled to 14,000 on occasion. 191 Deploying forces of this size obliged France's Defence Ministry to professionalize more units, progressing from the 3rd RIMa in 1969-70 to two full divisions by the late 1970s. 192 France's expanding professional units changed, in turn, the Army's character.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preserving Power after Empire: The Credibility Trap and France’s Intervention in Chad, 1968–72

DeVore

2018

War in History

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France’s 1968–72 intervention in Chad constitutes a forgotten turning point in the Fifth Republic’s foreign relations. Interconnected institutions and treaties gave France a disproportionate influence over its African ex-colonies. French security guarantees underscored this system, however, whereby francophone African leaders continued to accept French economic and political leadership. French leaders discovered in Chad, however, that they had fewer choices and needed to dedicate more resources to fulfilling these commitments than President Charles de Gaulle had intended. Prosperous ex-colonies’ leaders judged French commitments’ value according to how France responded to crises in its least-valued ex-colonies. Thus, although French analysts viewed intervening in Chad as irrational from a cost–benefit perspective, they found themselves pressured into it.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preserving Power after Empire: The Credibility Trap and France’s Intervention in Chad, 1968–72

DeVore

2018

War in History

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“…France proposed that its former colonies engage in special cooperation agreements with France so that the latter could maintain privileged links in spite of their recent independence. 31 Ultimately, these defense agreements became an integral component of the complex network of economic, cultural, and political pacts that France established with countries in la francophonie. The pacts granted France a primary role in the external defense of its former colonies, relegating local forces to a primarily internal security role.…”

Section: Competitor Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It viewed the African continent as a "special European 39 Gerits, 2014;Gerits, 2019. 40 The two overt military interventions took place in the Central African Republic in 1967and Chad between 1968and 1971 the covert intervention refers to the shipment of French arms to Biafra (part of present-day Nigeria) in 1968 (Lellouche and Moisi, 1979). French Military Footprint and Activities in Africa Under De Gaulle responsibility," 41 and it saw France, in particular, as the single European power with the long-term political will and requisite military capabilities to ward off communist powers in the region.…”

Section: International Reactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Soviets, however, intervened decisively, flying in massive materiel support and transporting an estimated 12,000-25,000 Cuban combat troops and approximately 1,500 Soviet advisors. 31 In exchange for this military support, Addis Ababa provided the Soviets with military basing rights. Ethiopia's ports were not nearly as militarily useful to the Soviets as the facilities it had lost in Berbera, and the coastal regions of Ethiopia were insecure locations for foreign bases due to the Eritrean insurgency.…”

Section: Syria South Yemen and Ethiopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implications of a Global People's Liberation Army: Historical Lessons for Responding to China's Long-Term Global Basing Ambitions

2022

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This report documents research and analysis conducted as part of a project entitled Alternative Futures for Competition with China: The PLA Goes Global, sponsored by U.S. Army Pacific. The purpose of the project was to assess China's development of basing, access, and military capabilities that will allow it to project power beyond the Indo-Pacific region and examine the implications for the U.S. Army as it prepares to compete with China in a global context over the next ten to 20 years.This research was conducted within RAND Arroyo Center's Strategy, Doctrine, and Resources Program. RAND Arroyo Center, part of the RAND Corporation, is a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the United States Army.RAND operates under a "Federal-Wide Assurance" (FWA00003425) and complies with the Code of Federal Regulations for the Protection of Human Subjects Under United States Law (45 CFR 46), also known as "the Common Rule," as well as with the implementation guidance set forth in DoD Instruction 3216.02. As applicable, this compliance includes reviews and approvals by RAND's Institutional Review Board (the Human Subjects Protection Committee) and by the U.S. Army. The views of sources utilized in this report are solely their own and do not represent the official policy or position of DoD or the U.S. government. v SummaryAlthough Chinese economic might around the world has been clear for many years, in the military sphere, China has long been perceived as primarily a regional power. But in military matters, too, Beijing has voiced its determination to become a leading global power. Overseas military access and basing is a critical component of China's global military ambitions. With the opening of its first overseas military facility in Djibouti in 2017, China appeared to take a major step toward global power projection. The strategic implications of such access and basing outside of China's immediate periphery are hotly debated, however, with some observers warning of the perils of Chinese overseas basing and others arguing that China has not shown signs of becoming a "traditional" military actor in regions far from its shores. Faced with this uncertainty about China's long-term basing and access ambitions, what should U.S. decisionmakers and military planners do? In this report, we consider historical lessons to help anticipate what Chinese overseas access and basing might look like in ten to 20 years, that is, in the 2030s, by examining three case studies of overseas military access and basing among the United States' competitors: • French bases in francophone Africa during Charles de Gaulle's presidency • Soviet bases ringing the Mediterranean and Red Seas under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev • Russian bases in Syria during the ongoing Syrian civil war. 1France, the Soviet Union, and Russia-together with the United States (which we examine in Chapter 5)are the states with the largest networks of overseas military bases in the post-World War II period. These cases represent a range of comp...

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“…French officers remained in direct command of most of their armies, especially in the 11 states where treaties provided for French intervention upon invitation. In the early 1960s, the French helped suppress internal disorders in Cameroon, Mauritania, Senegal, Congo, Gabon, Niger and Chad (Chipman, 1989: 124;Lellouche and Moisi, 1979;Luckham, 1982). These vast institutional links concretized the 'family' rhetoric, building vested interests and veto points into French policy-making in ways that further ensured policy continuity.…”

Section: Europe's Special Relationshipsmentioning

confidence: 99%

After Empire: National Identity and Post-colonial Families of Nations

Brysk

Parsons

Sandholtz

2002

European Journal of International Relations

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The `special relationships' formed by Spain, France and Britain with their former colonies demonstrate that even ties initially based on political and economic domination transform the identities of both parties. In this study, we show how European post-colonial behavior in Africa, Asia and Latin America has been inspired by historically rooted subjective conceptions of national identity and norms of interstate community. We employ a constructivist approach to provide a generalizable, middle-range explanation of foreign policies that do not fit typical realist or economistic notions of rationality. Instead, we find that Spanish, French and British policies toward their former empires follow patterns suggested by colonialist and feminist theories of International Relations. By applying this approach to post-colonial relations, we show the importance of ideas and norms in the construction of unequal power relations and expand the constructivist research program.

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French Policy in Africa: A Lonely Battle against Destabilization

Cited by 22 publications

References 3 publications

Preserving Power after Empire: The Credibility Trap and France’s Intervention in Chad, 1968–72

Preserving Power after Empire: The Credibility Trap and France’s Intervention in Chad, 1968–72

Implications of a Global People's Liberation Army: Historical Lessons for Responding to China's Long-Term Global Basing Ambitions

After Empire: National Identity and Post-colonial Families of Nations

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