Prénom de l'expert

Corentin

Nom de l'expert

BRUSTLEIN

The ability to penetrate remote and contested theaters of operation is a crucial asset for any expeditionary military power.

What will become of US foreign policy under Donald Trump? A selection of Ifri researchers has come together to offer their thoughts on this question. Our experts cover an array of topics through 14 contributions, ranging from the future Sino-American relations, through US engagement in the Middle East, to the prospects of a renewed transatlantic relationship. This analysis intends to help readers anticipate the outcomes of this election in order to facilitate decision-making.

Over the last few decades, in order to limit the risk of collateral damage, tailoring the effects of firepower has become a main concern for Western armed forces.

Force projection has become a general posture and a fundamental dimension of the influence Western powers intend to exert over the world by means of their armed forces.

For more than a decade, US defense circles have been concerned about the emergence of capabilities and strategies, which, as they spread, risk imperiling the United States" position in the world by their ability to disrupt or prevent force projection operations. Though most of the literature on such “anti-access” strategies focuses on the military aspects of the threat, this Focus stratégique - the second and last part of a two-part study - adopts a different perspective.

The concept of strategic surprise has rarely been defined precisely and generally conveys the idea of a badly or non-anticipated threat which unexpectedly hits a state, shaking its conceptions and its position towards security. Until the 1980s strategic surprise would take the form of a nuclear surprise attack. In the 1990s, the idea of a so-called "computer Pearl Harbor" was put forward, which would neutralize the complex systems supporting western societies. With the 9/11 attacks, the threat of a strategic surprise suddenly materialized. After delineating the legitimate scope of the notion of "strategic surprise", highlighting the variability of its effects and underlining the importance of the "target" and of its vulnerability, this paper aims exploring some possible trails and answers, which would attempt to reduce not only the probability of an attack but also its impact.