General Jean-Marc Vigilant explains why, in his opinion, the Americans must hand over

While France commemorates the 80th anniversary of the Landings and the European elections take place in a few days, General Jean-Marc Vigilant defends European governance of NATO forces.

Former director of the war school and president of the EuroDéfense-France think tank, General Jean-Marc Vigilant is no longer in active service. He now speaks on his behalf. He has held numerous responsibilities, notably at NATO. European defense is an important theme of the electoral campaign which is ending against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and the D-Day commemorations which begin on Wednesday June 5. According to him, it is important that the NATO defense forces come under European command.

franceinfo: In recent hours, Ukraine claims to have struck Russian soil with American medium-range missiles. France authorizes the use of these long-range missiles itself to strike bases in Russia. In return, Russia threatens French soldiers who are present on Ukrainian soil. Is this a shift that we are witnessing?

Jean-Marc Vigilant: It’s actually an evolution. We must clearly see that when Russia sends this message and the Western media relay it, it is simply seeking to enter into what we call information warfare, cognitive warfare. The objective is not to reach the political authorities or the military, but public opinion to reduce possible support for a decision that the President of the Republic, as head of the armed forces, would take to send soldiers French on Ukrainian soil. To instill fear in our opinion. Ultimately, Russia’s strength is only our weakness and our fear, we Westerners.

Is the European Union capable of guaranteeing peace at its borders against

The defense of Europe is made up of two facets: on the one hand the European institutions, but also NATO. There is no army. Armies belong to nations and NATO, like the European Union, are the two sides of our continent’s security. NATO is the organization created for collective defense. And even if we always have the feeling of associating NATO and the United States, my proposal is that we look at NATO as the Americans do, as a European organization in which they participate and of which they have command. today, but which ensures the protection of the European continent.

Are you campaigning for Europeans to lead NATO?

Not exactly. I am campaigning for us to change our view of NATO.

“What we do not perceive is that, seen from the United States, NATO is something small, it is a regional organization. The military organization, the American defense organization is much bigger than NATO.”

Jean-Marc Vigilant, president of the EuroDéfense-France think tank

at franceinfo

It is an organization that allows the United States to project its power anywhere on earth and it has divided its defense into six large zones, into such large regional commands: one for North America, another for America South, one for Europe, one for Africa, one for the Middle East and Central Asia and a last one for the Indo-Pacific. The American general who commands this organization is also the military commander of NATO operations in Europe. We call him the Saceur. He is a man who wears two hats, who has two functions and who answers to two different leaders, on the one hand, to the North Atlantic Council, which is made up of the 32 heads of state of NATO but also to the President of the United States, as commander of the military forces stationed in Europe. It’s not a conflict of interests, it’s a convergence. But simply, we Europeans must understand that in the event of a major conflict in Europe, the majority of American forces will not come under NATO command. And the Americans have clearly expressed this since the last major operation in Europe, which was the Kosovo war.

Are you saying that it would be logical for the supreme commander of NATO’s allied forces to be a Frenchman or a Briton?

In any case, we can ask ourselves the question because we see today that this American general who bears these two responsibilities, he is one day a week at most, in this NATO general staff. Most of the time, he is at his American headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, or on bilateral visits with partner countries.

Joe Biden arrives on a state visit to France. If Emmanuel Macron spoke about your idea, we can imagine his reaction: no way!

This is a conversation that must be had with the Americans, knowing that asking for or considering having this responsibility, not for political control which will always be exercised in 30 countries but for control of military operations, goes hand in hand with a greater investment by European countries in their own defense.

So this means that we must further increase European budgets, the budgets of our countries?

This is the meaning of history and it is also the demand of the Americans since the Bush junior administration. They think we don’t put enough money into our own defense. So, if we increase our defense effort, if we develop our military capabilities, logically, we can claim to command the military part of this alliance.

All armies learn from history. 80 years later, are there still military or political lessons to be learned from the Landings?

Quite. Moreover, this is why the officers of each promotion start their year by visiting the D-Day beaches. We call it a “Battlefield trip”, therefore a trip to a battlefield so, on the one hand, that they become aware of the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of a very large-scale military operation, and then that the We see that beyond the sacrifice of these thousands of men during the Landings, there was also a great difficulty at the strategic level in the multinational command of this operation.