The new French Military Programming Law for 2024-2030 resolutely commits the French armed forces to the path of high intensity. However, this term continues to be the subject of debate and confusion within the defense community. 

The Franco-British Summit on March 10th, 2023, will mark a much-needed reset in bilateral cooperation, following years of strained relations. With a recently re-elected French president and a new British Prime minister, both sides are committed to making this summit a success and re-launching a positive agenda for bilateral cooperation. The summit, the first since Sandhurst in 2018, will focus on three key topics: migration, energy, and foreign policy. Defense cooperation will also be addressed, as it remains the cornerstone of the bilateral relationship, though it may take a less prominent part than on previous occasions.

Our world is becoming increasingly contested and unpredictable and we are trending towards a return of great power strategic competition, characterized by more frequent challenges to the established rules-based international order. As a consequence, the risk of interstate conflict continues to rise. This regressive evolution is most readily apparent in the maritime domain, where the concomitant impacts on the free flow of international trade and the control of illegal and unregulated fishing are interlaced with the prescient, yet growing challenge of environmental security. 

The year 2022 marks thirty years since the creation of the Commandement des operations spéciales (COS, Special Operations Command). Those three decades have been dominated by missions carried out in volatile environments, most often against irregular adversaries, primarily terrorist groups.