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Society for Strategy
« A network and a process to analyze the crisis »
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La Violence qui vient, The Coming Violence, Arléa, Paris, 1997.
We are all feeling it: a dark and multiform violence is haunting this end of century. It is all the more dangerous that its forms are completely unprecedented. In about twenty-five countries civil war is taking place and about as much are suffering from severe internal crisis. All in all, almost every fourth state is in situation of disorder and anarchy. As for the others, they aren't far from it. In our industrialized societies insidious violences are appearing: mafias, militias or private cartels, terrorists and traffickers. We are confronted with a real metamorphosis of the violence. War in Bosnia was only a sign that these processes were on the way.
Facing these new threats, traditional military tools prove to be ineffective. And the states that didn't know how to adapt their security systems to this "new deal" are unable to cope. As for the strategic and polemological reflection, it is dramatically late facing these evolutions.
To fight effectively against violence, it's necessary to learn first how to think it. As it is necessary to rethink war to avoid suffering it. Written by a specialist, this iconoclastic book helps us facing this reality.
Incitation à la réflexion stratégique, Incitement to Strategic Thought, Economica, Paris, 1998.
The changes that have occurred in the order of war since the last fifty years made traditional strategy unable to control contemporary conflicts. Facing the challenges constituted by this new way of making war, officials, fully aware of the emergency of events, let themselves be persuaded by technical processes whose weakness and lack of results can be appreciated in the field. Denouncing this hazardous situation for the future of societies, this book is the cry for help of strategy: it proposes its rehabilitation by the renewal of a thought method and a policical organization. It's aimed at everyone, researchers, officers, future officials, attached to the existence and vitality of a scientific process.
Un Monde à repenser, Rethinking the World, Economica, Paris, 2001.
« September 11, 2001 »: the most murderous terrorist attack of all times! But this was also an attack that could, by its political, economic, cultural and social consequences, question an order and a world vision. Despite the shock of the events, the intensity of the US conterattack and the echo of it reflected endlessly by the media, it's important to try to look at it more objectively, which is necessary for reflection. What about this new "Gordian knot"? What "strategic variations" can we imagine and which one can we choose for the coming years of this new century?
The nineteen contributors (professors, high-ranking civil servants, military officers, consultants, officials) to the first book on strategic analysis after the attacks of the 9/11 try to bring answers to these two questions... Their diversified and complementary approaches are an illustration of the mistakes and traps that must be avoided and of the paths that must be followed.
Le Métier de soldat, The Profession of Soldier, Economica, Paris, 2002.
The narration of the funeral of General de Gaulle in Colombey on November 12, 1970, by one of the privileged persons who were attending the ceremony, is the historic pretext of this essay on the profession of soldier.
This tribute paid to the man of June 18, 1940 leads the author to ask the central question of discipline, the obedience of the soldier, and therefore of his relation to the politics, of his place in the society and of his function in the service of the nation.
This recurrent question through ages, from the warrior to the knight and to the technician, including in its African dimension, is put once again in theses times of crisis and of renewal of violence: has the soldier to be contented with his function of international fireman?
It seems that, facing the growing contemporary violence and its unclear actors, in a world deeply destabilized, we have to trust one of those who incarnate the service of the nation and the sense of common good. The soldier has to find a role that matches best the stakes and his place in the heart of society, as well as in the center of the nation: the place of protector of the community.
Stratégie, crise et chaos, Strategy, Crisis & Chaos, Economica, Paris, 2005.
Facing the complexity of contemporary crises, conventional strategic mechanisms used by the world actors prove to have a weak efficiency; they don't succeed in restoring order and consistency that are necessary for building the future. This established fact leads us firstly to wonder at the nature itself of strategy and at its historical structure, and secondly to proceed with analyzing the causes and with watching the effects of the global crisis of the present world.
This double approach reveals that the same factors are both inherent in the strategic theory and also disorganizing of any strategic mechanism. Therefore it would be necessary to take into account these parameters and to integrate them into an open and flexible system that gives them back their essential theoritical function while simultaneously assuring their practical efficiency.
This revaluation of the strategic system should allow to re-discover a toolbox and instruments without which our societies won't succeed in controlling the stakes of the 21st century.
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