The Quest for Relevant Air Power

French Air Force │ 83
the course of the Iraq crisis in early 2003. In contrast to this impression,
the FAF has made valuable contributions in combined
operations. For instance, the FAF was the first European air force
to deploy combat aircraft for Operation Enduring Freedom.
How Has the French Air Force Adapted
to the Uncertainties Created by Shifting
Defence and Alliance Policies?
This section first analyses France’s post–Cold War defence policy
and its influence on the FAF’s evolution. France’s alliance policies
are described next, along with a view towards how they have affected
its Air Force.
Defence Policy
In the post–Cold War era, French defence policy has been articulated
primarily through three key documents—the 1994 Defence
White Book, published under the late presidency of François
Mitterrand; Jacques Chirac’s reform, A New Defence 1997–2015;
and the 2008 Defence White Book published in the early presidency
of Nicolas Sarkozy. While the 1994 Defence White Book
represented a cautious adjustment to the post–Cold War environment,
A New Defence initiated far-reaching reforms in the second
half of the 1990s. The 2008 Defence White Book ushered an era of a
renewed relationship between France and the transatlantic alliance.
The 1994 White Book primarily described the emerging geostrategic
environment immediately after the end of the Cold War
and laid out broad directions for the French defence architecture.
Conspicuously, it avoided referring to critical issues such as the future
composition of the nuclear forces. 7 A New Defence, on the other
hand, was regarded as arguably the most substantial revision of
French defence policy since the 1966 withdrawal from NATO’s integrated
military command structure. 8 It set the background for a
major military reform, the Armed Forces Model 2015. 9 This longterm
plan was then broken down into so-called military planning
laws, each covering a five-year period and providing a framework
for force structuring and defence spending. In his foreword to the
2008 White Book, Sarkozy, while acknowledging the importance of