The year 2024 has been marked by profound upheavals: the American election, the war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East and the redefinition of France's presence in Africa. More broadly, international balances, military alliances and the role of multilateral organisations are undergoing rapid change, while new threats are emerging: disruptive technologies, foreign interference, disinformation campaigns and so on. It is against this shifting backdrop that the third edition of L'Année de la défense nationale (ADN), entitled "Strategic Uncertainties", is being published. True to its ambition, the book brings together analyses by civilian and military experts to shed light on the major developments in defence and security over the past year. Each contribution is based on reference documents, giving readers a better understanding of the issues and enabling them to form their own opinions. The launch evening will be an opportunity to discover the book and to talk to several of its authors. It's a great opportunity to take a step back from current strategic issues and reflect together on the challenges ahead.
Discover an extract from the issue:
Here's a summary of four articles:
The report to Parliament on arms exports: understanding a foreign policy tool and French economic leverage by Jade Guiberteau Ricard
The report to Parliament on arms exports: behind its tables and figures, a genuine tool for foreign policy, democratic transparency and economic power.
Let's delve into what this article by Jade Guiberteau Ricard, Research Assistant in the Military Expenditure and Arms Production programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, reveals.
Since 2022, the war in Ukraine has led to a worldwide surge in military spending.
In 2023: a record 2,443 billion dollars spent.
France remains 5th in the world budget with 61.3 billion, up +21 % since 2014.
Paradoxically, world arms trade has fallen slightly. Why did this happen?
- Production lead times
- Deferred deliveries
- Disposal of equipment already in service (in particular to Ukraine).
But France came out on top, becoming the worldᵉ s 2nd largest arms exporter.
Each year, a report to Parliament details French arms exports.
It is a rare and valuable source on a highly confidential subject.
The aim is to provide information without compromising industrial or diplomatic secrets.
This report sheds light on three key stages in the arms trade:
- Licences: administrative authorisations
- Orders: signature and payment
- Deliveries: a tangible reality
Each stage has a political dimension: a sale may be suspended (e.g. the Mistral missiles destined for Russia in 2014).
Arms exports serve two strategic objectives:
- Supporting international security and defence partnerships.
- Ensuring the long-term future of a strong, autonomous defence industry.
The French defence industry is a legacy of General de Gaulle, who wanted strategic autonomy based on a national industry capable of producing... and exporting:
- 29,000 companies (SMEs, ETIs, major groups)
- A dedicated government body: the DGA, which has been supporting this mission since 1961
- A pillar of European strategic autonomy
- An economy where exports and sovereignty go hand in hand
Arms exports are also an instrument of foreign policy:
- Strengthening strategic partnerships
- Supporting the national defence industry
- Increasing France's international influence
To sum up :
Arms exports are at the crossroads of politics, industry and diplomacy.
They reflect France's vision of strategic autonomy and balanced power.
The report to Parliament is therefore much more than a simple statistical table:
- a tool for democratic transparency
- economic leverage for the defence technological and industrial base
It is an instrument of power and influence.
Destabilisation online: analysis of foreign interference by the Baku Initiative Group Service for Vigilance and Protection against Foreign Digital Interference (VIGINUM)
Foreign interference and disinformation: the Baku Initiative Group (BIG), a body linked to Azerbaijan, has been waging a vast hybrid campaign against France since 2023.
Objective: to destabilise Paris via its overseas territories.
Summary of the Viginum analysis.
In July 2023, the Azerbaijani think tank AIR Center created the Baku Initiative Group (BIG) at a conference in Baku on «eliminating colonialism».
The aim of the BIG is to challenge French sovereignty over its overseas territories.
The organisation combines :
- digital actions (bots, trolls, coordinated hashtags)
- physical actions (conferences, invitations, funding).
Why is France being targeted?
Baku reacts to French support for Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
- Azerbaijan is mobilising the narrative of «French colonialism» to undermine the legitimacy of Paris.
- A strategy already used by Russia and other powers in Africa.
The BIG's favourite targets :
- New Caledonia - exploiting the tensions surrounding the freeing of the electorate.
- Polynesia - exploitation of French nuclear tests.
- Martinique - hijacking of the movement against the high cost of living.
- Corsica - online support for the «Nazione» movement.
In 2023, VIGINUM detects the “Olimpiya” campaign:
- visuals calling for a boycott of the Paris 2024 Olympics
- videos linking France to images of riots
- anti-colonial discourse against Paris
Objective: to undermine France's international image.
Operating mode: a hybrid device.
- coordinated and massive campaigns on X with thousands of identical posts generated by bots and trolls.
- international conferences with pro-independence activists
- relayed by the Azeri state media
After the VIGINUM revelations, the BIG's accounts were deleted...
But Baku is adapting:
- Less digital, more physical action.
- Increasing number of «memorandums of cooperation» with independence movements.
- Creation of the «International Front for the Liberation of the Last French Colonies» (FILDECOF),
The BIG is also going international.
- Cooperation with African pro-Russian media.
- Pan-Africanist figures such as Kemi Seba invited to Baku.
- The aim was to give its anti-colonial propaganda a global reach.
In a nutshell:
The Baku Initiative Group is an instrument of influence and destabilisation in the service of Azerbaijan.
Its action is hybrid and transnational, combining digital technology, parallel diplomacy and ideological exploitation.
For France, this affair illustrates the new faces of information warfare:
- Targeted disinformation.
- Hybrid modes of action.
- Exploiting internal fractures for geopolitical ends.
Drug trafficking: understanding a global threat by Clotilde Champeyrache
Drug trafficking, a global and systemic threat
In France, drug trafficking is no longer a news item: it is a social, economic and political phenomenon that is undermining the rule of law.
Clotilde Champeyrache, lecturer at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, explains.
Drug trafficking, a global and systemic threat
Drug use is exploding everywhere, including in France.
- 900,000 daily cannabis users,
- 1.1 million French people have already taken cocaine.
But beyond public health, drug trafficking is undermining our institutions and our economy.
The phenomenon is changing its face
Visible points of sale are giving way to sales on social networks and home delivery.
The result is a wider, more discreet spread, which is also affecting rural areas.
The drug now comes to the user.
The criminal economy adapts
Traffickers are becoming more professional: diversification, alliances between networks, outsourcing sales to “expendable” young people.
At the top of the chain, the bosses remain invisible.
A threat that goes beyond drugs
Profits from drug trafficking (up to €6 billion a year in France) fuel :
- money laundering,
- corruption,
- infiltration of the legal economy.
Some networks are looking for power, not just money.
Infiltration into the real economy
Criminals invest in construction, logistics and property.
These sectors are used to launder money and forge links with the political world.
A silent danger: the erosion of trust in the State and the law.
The danger is no longer just health, but political.
Some criminal groups seek local legitimacy, supporting families or voters.
A “mafia” hold that undermines democracy.
For Clotilde Champeyrache, the answer must change:
- target organisations, not consumers
- confiscate assets
- track down economic infiltration
- strengthening criminal intelligence
To sum up :
Champeyrache reminds us that drug trafficking is not simply a question of law and order, but a battle for social cohesion and the legitimacy of the State. Drug trafficking reveals a wider crisis: that of our sovereignty and our relationship with the law. Regaining control also means restoring coherence between the economy, the law and democracy.
The winning strategy: Hayat Tahrir al-Cham against transnational jihadism in Syria by Arthur Stein
The winning strategy: Hayat Tahrir al-Cham against transnational jihadism in Syria. In 2024, Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) overthrew Bashar al-Assad and seized Damascus, Arthur Stein, an analyst at the IHEDN, analyses how the group turned its back on global jihadism in order to consolidate its power.
The Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Cham or HTC (in French, Organisation de libération du Levant), born of splits between Jabhat al-Nosra, al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (EI), has established itself as a dominant force in Syria.
Initially affiliated with the EI, then with AQ, the movement gradually broke away from both to focus on a national objective:
- topple Assad
- establish stable local governance
- political legitimacy
This ideological refocusing is accompanied by an armed struggle against transnational jihadist groups.
Between 2017 and 2022, HTC is conducting more than 50 operations against the Islamic State in the Idlib region, dismantling its local networks.
Why this change of direction?
To survive and prosper. HTC is seeking to legitimise itself with three audiences:
- the local population
- other Syrian factions
- the international community
By suppressing global jihadism, HTC wants to appear as a “responsible” player capable of governing and stabilising Idlib and, from now on, Damascus.
A strategy to avoid foreign strikes and hope for sanctions relief.
But this struggle is also a power strategy:
HTC is eliminating its rivals to monopolise violence, prevent defections and consolidate its hegemony.
This is less a case of deradicalisation than of political calculation.
This pragmatism, far removed from the jihadist one-upmanship of AQ and the EI, is paying off. HTC has transformed its governance, built institutions and brought relative stability to the Idlib region.
Today :
With HTC in power in Damascus, the question arises: can EI and AQ be reborn?
Stein believes that HTC's success reduces the risk of a return of global jihadism more than its failure could.
In other words:
- Hayat Tahrir al-Cham, born of jihadism, could well become its gravedigger in Syria.
- A strategic rather than a religious shift, but one with major geopolitical implications.
