French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he would cut France's nuclear arsenal to fewer than 300 warheads, seeking to balance defense of the nation -- he mentioned the threat from Iran -- against budgetary and changed strategic considerations.
In his first major speech as president on the French deterrent, Sarkozy also urged the US and China to fully commit to a treaty banning tests of nuclear weapons.
In addition, Sarkozy shifted somewhat from the nuclear doctrine of his predecessor, Jacques Chirac, by being slightly more ambiguous about the circumstances that might lead France to employ its nuclear weapons.
Sarkozy's decision to reveal the rough size of France's arsenal -- the Defense Ministry said the exact number of warheads is still secret -- appeared aimed at prodding other nuclear powers to be equally transparent.
AIRBORNE
Many of France's nuclear weapons are carried aboard submarines, with the rest on warplanes. Sarkozy said the airborne component would be cut by one-third, specifying that that included nuclear weapons, missiles and planes.
"After this reduction, our arsenal will include less than 300 nuclear warheads," he said on Friday. "That is half the maximum number of warheads that we had during the Cold War."
He also said that none of France's weapons is targeted at any nation.
SQUADRONS
France's airborne nukes are carried by three Air Force squadrons of Mirage 2000N and another Navy flotilla of upgraded Super Etendard jets.
They are all to be replaced by high-tech Rafale jets, in Air Force and Navy versions.
French defense expert Francois Heisbourg said the air fleet modernization allowed the size of the nuclear arsenal to be trimmed.
"When you have better planes taking over for older planes, you can afford to reduce the numbers," said Heisbourg, special adviser to the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think-tank.
"That doesn't make us virtuous guys in itself, although of course it's nicer to say the numbers are going down than the numbers are going up. What does make us more virtuous than we were before is by saying `By the way, that means we're going to have 300.' And that meaning is, `Oh by the way, dear Chinese friends, you better tell us how many you've got.'"
The Federation of American Scientists, which tracks nuclear arsenals around the globe, said in a status report for this year that France had 348 strategic nuclear weapons. It lists 193 for sites and for negotiations on treaties to ban short and intermediate-range ground-to-ground missiles and to ban the manufacturing of fissile material for nuclear weapons. He also pressured to China and the US to ratify a nuclear test ban treaty they signed in 1996. France ratified it a decade ago.
RATIFICATION
Heisbourg said ratification by China and the US would "put pressure on countries that have been building things that look like test sites, like the North Koreans or, indeed, the Iranians."
He also said a global treaty banning intermediate-range missiles could put severe pressure on India, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS