Forces terrestres et réassurance : Quelles options pour l'Alliance ?
Born into the Cold War, the very notion of ‘reassurance’ was revived in the wake of the 2014 Ukraine crisis as NATO had to label the measures destined to reassert the lasting relevance of collective defense towards its member states.
This has led to an increased role for land forces, despite the serious political, economic and operational difficulties involved. NATO has striven to revitalize its concept of rapid response by means of the VJTF, however, some issues remain unsolved regarding the range of actions to be undertaken in order to uphold reassurance as a lasting principle. The main problem is related to the delicate balance to be maintained between a posture of firmness – based on rapid reaction capacities – and a risk of escalation associated with potential worsening of tensions. For land forces, this translates into a return towards the know-how and practice that two decades of expeditionary warfare have kept out of the picture.
This content is available in French : Forces terrestres et réassurance: Quelles options pour l'Alliance?
Guillaume LASCONJARIAS
Former Associate Research Fellow, Security Studies Center
Security Studies Center
Heir to a tradition dating back to the founding of Ifri, the Security Studies Center provides public and private decision-makers as well as the general public with the keys to understanding power relations and contemporary modes of conflict as well as those to come. Through its positioning at the juncture of politics and operations, the credibility of its civil-military team and the wide distribution of its publications in French and English, the Center for Security Studies constitutes in the French landscape of think tanks a unique center of research and influence on the national and international defense debate.
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