Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present:

From time to time, the UK faces strong domestic movements for abandonment of that country’snuclear status and nuclear deterrents. The primary reason for that is the fact that a considerablepart of British society sees no sense in the country having its own SNF when British militarypolicy, including nuclear policy, is so linked to the United States.Charles de Gaulle and his associates, with the participation of Frederic Joliot-Curie, a distinguishedphysicist and member of the French Communist Party, developed France’s nuclear forcesin defiance of the positions of the United States and Great Britain. France had commenced theimplementation of a program aimed at the development of its own nuclear weapons in 1945, butthe breakthrough in implementation was made only in 1958, when de Gaulle came to power.According to a number of estimates, France has spent three to four times more money than theUnited Kingdom to establish an independent nuclear force. This is the price that the French nationdecided to pay for the relatively high degree of independence enjoyed by its nuclear deterrentforces.It was also de Gaulle who established France’s missile industry, which was very much unwelcomedby the United States, and then France’s own electronic engineering industry and manyother things. This was all a manifestation of France’s national spirit, because its nuclear forces didnot have and still do not have a large military significance. France needed to have its own SNF tovindicate its status as a superpower, especially after it lost its colonies, first of all Algeria. Presidentde Gaulle developed the nation’s nuclear forces largely in order to compensate for that loss, whichwas very painful for France. Having developed France’s own weapons, de Gaulle withdrew fromthe NATO military command in 1967, made a stand against the location of the NATO headquartersin Paris, and expelled 30,000 employees of this organization from France.France maintains its operationally ready arsenal of about 350 nuclear warheads designated fordelivery by SLBMs, carrier-based and land-based strike aircraft. 108The basis of France’s nuclear deterrent forces is the Strategic Oceanic Force, which has four operationallyready SSBNs that are principally capable of operating in any region of the world’s oceans.This seagoing force includes three new Triomphant-class submarines, and one L’Inflexible-class(formerly Redoutable-class) submarine. The latter (L’Inflexible-class SSBN) was to be removedfrom operational status in 2010, when the fourth and the last Triomphant-class SSBN—Le Terrible—wasscheduled to be commissioned. The French SSBNs are armed with 16 AerospatialeM45 SLBMs (each missile carries up to 6 warheads). In 2010–2015, starting with Le Terrible, theTriomphant-class submarines are being upgraded to M51.1 SLBMs with a longer range. The newmissiles will carry up to six warheads, and their maximum range will be 8,000 km (the estimatedrange of M45 missiles was 4,000 km). 109 Thus, the French SNF are able to provide for the“tous azimuts” deterrence that was postulated by de Gaullists in the beginning of the 1960s.The French nuclear forces will remain independent of the United States after France, in conformitywith the decision of President Nicolas Sarkozy, fully returns to the NATO fold from whichde Gaulle withdrew in the 1960s. In March 2008, Sarkozy promised that France “could and shouldbe more transparent with respect to its nuclear arsenal than anyone ever has been.” 11054Ensuring Strategic Stability in the Past and Present: Theoretical and Applied Questions