France and its allies need to consider the reality that high-intensity conflict is likely in the near future, top officials said this week.
As he stood on the stage to deliver a keynote speech, Gen. Fabien Mandon, France’s military chief of staff, summed up the theme of the Paris Naval Conference in six direct words.
“Today,” he said, “we are preparing for war.”
The tone of the event, which saw leaders from NATO sea services gather in Paris Feb. 2-3, was decidedly direct: that France and its allies need to consider the reality that high-intensity conflict is likely in the near future. And, according to Mandon, France is not yet fully prepared.
He warned that currently France has an “insufficient number of ships and armaments” and especially needs “more missiles with greater range and lethality.” As a result, he has “to make a bet that whatever we order today will still be appropriate in 60 years time.”
Vice Adm. Alban Lapointe, the deputy chief of the French Navy, later added that Europe must be prepared by 2030 for war “in every compartment” and “to achieve that we must reinforce our means, our support and our minds.”
The vibes were matched by a panel of the naval chiefs of staff, featuring Adm. Nicolas Vaujour of France, Adm. Giuseppe Berutti-Bergotto of Italy, Vice-Admiral Harold Liebregs of the Netherlands (and Benelux), Gen. Sir Gwyn Jenkins of the United Kingdom and Adm. Daryl Caudle of the United States.
In their respective speeches all five mentioned the diversity of threats, but only Caudle mentioned China. The others, perhaps naturally given that Moscow is waging a war in Europe, earmarked Russia as the principal threat.
