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PX Biker_Beate Bachmann
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It’s Time to Duck Donald

2 August 2025
Trump’s entire approach, from his personal brand to his governance and foreign policy, is a coherent expression of a strategy focused on perception, repetition, and a disregard for conventional norms. The world, preparing for war after decades of relative peace, is left to wonder how America will eventually “wake up” from this “deconstruction” and what the future holds. Not to forget a skillful exploitation of perception rather than facts, all in the service of a quest for personal power, ”unable to distinguish his personal interests from those of the nation,” as his former National Security Advisor John Bolton so

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Vice-Amiral Christian Girard — Photo © DR
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The 2025 National Strategic Review: update or overhaul?

26 July 2025
On 14 July, an update to the National Strategic Review (RNS 2025) was published. This update, commissioned by the French President of the Republic, complements the work carried out in 2022. It proposes the actions needed to adapt our defence to a new, deteriorating environment and outlines the country’s overall defence and rearmament, including moral rearmament, of the nation. Several questions arise: do we have the means to achieve our ambitions? Will we have the political will to implement them in order to right the ship after so many years of deliberate under-investment, so that France can, in the near future, hope to have the means to face a war of the intensity that the Russians are preparing in Europe for 2028-2030? As the 2022 national strategic review is being updated, Vice-Admiral (2s) Christian Girard [**] questions the foundations of French defence and the strategy that underpins it.

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Northrop Grumman B2-Spirit Bomber beim Abwurf einer GBU-57 – Foto: US Air Force
Special Reports

« Midnight Hammer »: For Whom the Bell Tolls ?

22 June 2025
At midnight (French time), President Trump decided to strike a decisive blow. There is no doubt that this decision will have serious consequences. Even if the Trump administration in Washington denies wanting to bring down the Iranian government, the mullahs’ regime is no longer what it used to be. One can imagine the joy of the anxious Israelis who were waiting for this help that will come from the sky and the sea. Help that was undoubtedly delayed because Netanyahu forced Donald Trump’s hand and, by attacking Iran, stole some of his thunder by denting his rather inflated ego… It took guts. Bibi did it. He took a gamble and he won. American deterrence is therefore back, and in the Middle East, there is total relief. In Russia and China, the message has been received. Iran was a threat to far too many people! Europe tried to make its voice heard: this episode, one of many, will show that it remains unheard.

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US Navy Photo USS Georgia (SSGN)
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« A Nail in Iran’s Nuke Coffin »

22 June 2025
In the end, it’s not Israel that did the dirty work (as Mr Mertz had put it), but against all odds the United States. And as a bonus, Iran’s unreachable nuclear facilities offered a superb real-life testbed for the B-2-GBU-57 tandem.
During the past two or three days, some media reported that a number of Northrop B-2 stealth bombers had been flown to Diego Garcia and Guam. Whether true or not, it really served as a deceptive move. Indeed, the B-2 bombers that dropped their GBU-57s on the three Iranian covert nuclear facilities deep south of Teheran actually flew in from the opposite direction, all the way from their Whiteman base in Missouri after an over 11,000km flight (this is a minimum assuming an unlikely straight-line route). Knowing that the B-2s are subsonic aircraft and that they actually flew back to their homebase says a lot in terms of crew determination, endurance and preparation, and logistics (particularly regarding air-refuelling operations).

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Zelensky felicite le général Vasyl Maljuk — Photo Présidence ukrainienne
Special Reports

Operation Spider Web: Strategic Analysis

3 June 2025
Operation Pavutina, carried out on June 1, 2025, by Ukrainian intel-ligence services, primarily the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), marked a turning point in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. It illus-trated Ukraine’s growing capacity to conduct complex asymmetric warfare operations and strike deep into Russian territory.
This operation inflicted both considerable material and psycho-logical damage on Russia, calling into question its air defense posture and strategic depth. Key successes of the operation include the successful targeting of multi-ple strategic Russian airbases, the destruction or damage of a substantial number of high-value Russian aircraft, and the innova-tive use of FPV (First-Person View) drones launched from within Russian territory. Strategically, the operation temporarily diminished Russia’s long-range strike capa-bilities and significantly boosted Ukrainian morale,

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Poutine dans le bureau ovale — Photo IA © European-Security
Françoise Thom

Russia’s Plan for the United States

13 April 2025
“The interests of Russian oligarchs converge with those of Big Tech magnates. Putin and the major oligarchs, both Russian and American, believe themselves to be above the law. Putin’s con-tempt for the law goes so far that he calls into question the very notion of the state, precisely because a state is based on a legal framework and has borders, which he dislikes. Trumpism aims to replace the state with a Putin-style ‘vertical power structure’, in which officials are chosen for their loyalty rather than their compe-tence. The dismantling of the state is accompanied by deregulation, which benefits the big oligarchs who aspire to become masters of financial flows. This is why Kremlin strategists understood very early on what services Western libertarians could provide them,‘ writes Françoise Thom in Le Monde, adding: ’Douguin’s ideas have permeated Putin’s regime and inspired the policy of destroying the United States that has been implemented for the past 20 years. The aim is to inflict on the US the same blows that it allegedly dealt to the USSR under Gorbachev, depriving it of its allies, unilaterally disarming it, ruining its economy

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Kaptrek Pro Pilot Defense_11c
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Significantly increasing added value on the pitch with Kaptrek

13 March 2025
Recently, in an interview with Le Figaro, Air Force Gen. Jean-Paul Paloméros, former Chief of Staff of the French Air and Space Force before becoming NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation (SACT) in Norfolk, USA, advocated using ‘a breakthrough strategy, learning from the asymmetrical and techno-logical approach of the Ukrainians who changed the art of war’. There is no shortage of successful start-ups in France, including in the defence sector. Their problem is to exist, if not to survive, in a world where the major market players intend to reserve the exclusive rights to budgets. As a result, only large projects are supported. To have a chance of breaking through, they have three choices: either to be incor-porated and dissolved into a large group, at the risk of disappearing with their flagship product, or to go bankrupt and be bought out at a low price by predators armed with their capital who are on the lookout, or, last but not least, to emigrate. There are dozens of examples we could mention. We may be far from taking into account the real needs of our soldiers in the field, who are used to suffering when it comes to budgets.

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Steve Bannon Feb. 2025
Françoise Thom

The Lessons of Trumpism for Europeans: How to Avoid a ‘Self-Putinization’ of the EU

25 February 2025
‘The frenzy of self-destruction that has taken hold of the United States has literally stunned those Americans who sense the danger they are in, but are powerless to prevent the collapse of their democracy. In Europe, the stupor is no less and the shock has petrified minds.’ Françoise Thom recalls the intellectual origins of Trumpism, sets out its principles and explains how the mythology of the deep state and the betrayal of the elites have been exploited by Kremlin propagandists to create chaos in the United States. The big bosses of the digital world have also played a harmful role in the dismantling of the American state. Finally, she proposes measures to be taken urgently in Europe to avoid suffering the same fate as the Americans. We need to analyse and understand how the United States got to this point, because we are being affected by the same forces that we see at work across the Atlantic. The American experience should teach us something.

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Dr. Olena Snigyr
Information Warfare

The Kremlin Mobilises the Church for War… for Africa

4 July 2024
The Kremlin uses the Russian Orthodox Church to spread disinformation, weaponize historical memory and conjure the perception of protecting ‘traditional values’ across Africa. In its confrontation with the West, Russia seeks allies among the countries of the Global South, particularly in Africa. Recently, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has become involved in this effort. On 29 December 2021, the ROC decided to establish its own exarchate in Africa, encompas-sing all African countries. Its activity is already noticeable in almost 30 African countries and its declared ambitions are to expand its influence throughout the whole continent. By Dr. Olena Snigyr, chief consultant in the Research Center for Russian Federation Problems at the Ukrainian National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS)

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