Just like land and air forces, navies have been part of the global rearmament trend that began in the mid-2010s and intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. All countries are renewing their fleets, and the French navy has entered a phase of modernization that is unprecedented since the 1990s, according to Pierre Eric Pommellet, the CEO of Naval Group and president of the Groupement des Industries de Construction et Activités Navales (GICAN), the French maritime industry organization. GICAN organizes Euronaval, the world's leading naval defense show, held this year from Monday, November 4 to Thursday, November 7 in Villepinte, northeast of Paris.
Industry leaders, high-ranking officers, policymakers and experts are assessing heavy-duty equipment as well as the latest innovations, such as the high-speed anti-missile electromagnetic gun designed by the French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis, eastern France, and the swarm of autonomous underwater acoustic surveillance drones by Arkeocean. These innovations highlight the development of an emerging market for SMEs within the traditional defense industry, a field previously dominated by large corporations that was quite closed to smaller enterprises.
The industry has come a long way, having been atrophied by the West's "peace dividend" policy when the dying USSR and then the chaotic Russia of the 1990s no longer seemed like existential threats. Even during the Cold War, the military fleets concentrated in the North Atlantic did not play a global role like they had in World War II – a role they are playing again today, noted Nicolas Mazzucchi, a director of research at the Center for Strategic Naval Studies (CESM).
Global threat
This lull in defense investment led to the closure of many shipyards and a drastic reduction in fleet sizes. According to a 2022 parliamentary report, the French Navy has gone from 147 vessels in 1985 to just 80; between 1987 and 2015, the US Navy dropped from 594 vessels to 271, according to CESM, and has to entrust part of their maintenance to Japanese and South Korean shipyards. However, despite this attrition, there has been equipment modernization; a fleet's power and efficiency can no longer be measured in tonnage alone.
The lull ended in the early 2010s, when the West became concerned about China's Belt and Road Initiative, launched in 2013, the expansion of its naval ambitions beyond the China Sea and its goal of surpassing the United States by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the People's Republic.
You have 53.98% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.