Stardate 20030206.1237

(Captain's log): In response to my speculation about French motivations, I've received a lot of interesting mail proposing alternatives and asking questions.

One proposal from several readers was that Chirac is being motivated not by the possibility of discovery of French treachery, but rather of Chirac personal treachery. The speculation was that he, himself, had received some sort of massive bribe and was manipulating French foreign policy because of it, and for fear of discovery. I concede the possibility but I can't say I think it's likely. But if it is true, he's slime.

Another possibility is that France is trying to position itself as pro-Arab, anti-American, in hopes of deflecting any retaliatory terrorism away from itself. They may well be thinking in those kinds of terms, but the evidence so far has been that terrorism plans seem to be based solely on opportunity, without regard to the politics of the nation in which the plans take place. Basically, they're hitting where they can get away with it, not where they hate the government. That's why major successful terrorist attacks in the last year were in Indonesia and Kenya, neither of which were particularly polarized but both of which had piss-poor security. It's possible that France entertains this hope, but I don't think they believe it would work, especially since there have been plans for attacks in France discovered and broken up recently.

Yet another possibility suggested in more than one letter was that France had been informed by back-channels, "We have a nuke in France in some city we won't identify, and if you don't stop the Americans, we'll set it off." It's really not easy to quantify this possibility; all I can say is that I think it extremely unlikely. (I myself considered this one briefly when I was writing the article.) It doesn't seem to me that the French would be acting the way they have been in the face of this kind of threat. Rather, I think we'd be seeing a military crackdown on the Muslims in France and wholesale searching going on.

For all the vogue now to characterize the French as cowards, I don't view them that way. I know too much about French military history to think of them in those terms. I don't think they would respond to such a threat by abject surrender. What I think we'd be seeing was wholesale roundup and deportation of Arabs.

Finally, several suggested the possibility that it's all been an act. According to this idea, the French have actually been on board all along, and they've been pretending to be against us so as to be part of a great boomerang later which catches our enemies by surprise. Sorry, the problem with this idea is that events would not have developed the way they would have if it were true. In particular, at this point France has sustained massive foreign policy damage because of their position which future revelation would not correct, and if this were some sort of act then there would have been active attempts by all involved to make sure that this had not happened. And the reality is that French anti-Americanism is a long and established pattern dating back to the foundation of the Fifth Republic just after WWII. (In fact, in one form or another it goes back a lot further than that.) It would be nice to learn that the French really were on our side all along, but I don't believe it.

More than one person asked whether the French might actually interfere militarily against us. That, I must say, is the $64,000 question (or the sixty-four million corpse question). If I was wrong and they actually are still trying to prevent war, and if they saw the stakes as being sufficiently high, then direct military involvement is a logical extension of their diplomatic maneuvers. But I can't see it because I can't conceive of any motivation they might have which would justify the titanic risk involved in directly opposing us militarily. That is really rolling the dice; it could easily spiral into a mammoth catastrophe.

Once you start thinking in these terms, you're into the realm of paranoid nightmares. But let's take a look at it.

Let's clear something out of the way, first: once the tanks cross the Iraqi border, nothing can save Saddam. The only thing France could do once that takes place which could conceivably bring us up short would be to threaten to nuke us, and that's not going to happen. But I sat down this morning with my morning Starbucks and tried to make a list of everything I could think of that France might be able to do militarily, ignoring for the moment any issues of consequences and motivation and political reality. You must always pay attention to both intentions and capabilities, but for the moment this is only capabilities. They have the capability to:

Smuggle weapons in. It would have to be smuggling; any public shipment of weapons to Iraq would be considered an act of war against the US (and effectively as treason within the EU). Given the inefficiency of smuggling, about the only thing that would make sense would be anti-aircraft missiles or anti-ship missiles, with the latter much more of a concern. These would not be a threat to our carriers which will operate too far away, surrounded by defenses, in a cluttered area. But a lot of our ships will be operating close to Iraq, especially amphib support ships such as LHD's and cargo ships unloading supplies, and they could be imperiled by smuggled Exocets.

Provide strategic intelligence. In the run-up to war, France can give Iraq intelligence about American troop movements, possible attack plans, weapons capabilities and a lot of other things.

Set a tripwire. If they decide to play brinkmanship, then the idea would be to move some sort of French force into Iraq and deploy them so that there was a likelihood that some of them would become involved in any eventual war, in hopes of deterring us from starting it. So France sends several air transports carrying a company or two of the Foreign Legion who then go out and "observe" significant Iraqi military installations.

Provide tactical intelligence. This can happen in any of several ways. The De Gaulle is moving towards the region now, and presumably it has accompanying ships with it in flotilla. They could use their radars to try to spot the initial big airstrike and give Iraq early warning that it was coming (maybe one hour's notice). French jets could spot and tail major American naval groups (such as our carriers) and finger them for long range missile attack (i.e. nuclear Scud). Their jets could fly recon over our rear ground areas, potentially fingering major targets for Scud attack with chemical weapons.

There are several steps beyond this but all of them amount to open war: attack our ships, attack our aircraft, openly ship arms in quantity, move troops in at a brigade level or higher, deploy air wings to Iraq, threaten to nuke, actually use a nuke.

With respect to weapons smuggling, most of what they could send would be of negligible military value at this late date. I think that anti-ship missiles would be the biggest fear. Against that we would hope that our intelligence services might pick up on it and possibly intercept the shipment, or else finger the deployment location and make it a high priority target in the early bombing. Ground-based anti-ship missiles are a threat anyway and our ships operating in the region have defenses against such things. An LHD is publicly acknowledged to have chaff and flare launchers, ECM, Sea Sparrow defensive missiles and Phalanx gun mounts. The US Navy has had twenty years to consider the effects of Exocet missiles on USS Stark and to deploy defenses. And any high-value ship like an LHD will be accompanied by Ticonderoga or Arleigh Burke defensive ships, which also carry missiles and guns.

The Ticonderogas and Burkes carry the Aegis system, which includes a phased-array radar. What that means is that it doesn't require a big rotating antenna. (They've got those too, but they're secondary systems.) The antenna is a big flat plate, which is why ships carrying it always have large unadorned vertical sections on the superstructure. It can sweep its beam without requiring any physical motion. I've long wondered whether the radar had an undocumented mode where it could fix a beam on a bogie at elevated power levels. (I have no reason to believe such a capability exists or that it does not; I'm just speculating on what's technically possible.) We're not talking about levels which could burn something to a crisp, or even toast its semiconductors, but the levels might be high enough to cause operational malfunction of the electronics (by inducing EMI) and that would be good enough. The delivered power would not have to be very high; 50-100 watts of delivered power would be plenty, and a phase-array grid the size of the one they have is physically capable of doing that, if they've implemented the right kind of electronics behind it. If so, that would certainly be part of the anti-missile defenses which would be activated. If such a defense was used, it would seem as if the incoming missile had a guidance malfunction and crashed before hitting anything. There would be no other visual indication of what had happened.

Regardless of that, there are other defenses in place against such missiles. It's a peril, but not a deterrent. (And even without French smuggling, it's near certainty that Iraq has at least some such missiles now.)

As to strategic intelligence, it would mainly be what the French themselves dug up. I do not believe we've been giving them secret operational intelligence; I think we ceased doing so a long time ago. For instance, in 2001 in Afghanistan the French announced that hostilities would not begin for several weeks – about two days before the bombing began. I don't think that was disinformation – or rather, I do: I think we had been lying to the French. (And I think they were pissed.) I've been told by several people that there are in some cases clear operational guidelines which state that certain information is not to be shared with the French, even though other nations may be given the same data, because the French are not trusted. There's clear evidence from the past of the French leaking information to our enemies. That happened in Yugoslavia, in particular. So I don't think that the French are privy to any of our inner secrets which they could pass on, but they still know a lot which might be harmful. They know a lot about our equipment capabilities, for example; they know a lot about how our radars work and might be able to tell the Iraqis. And I suspect they are capable of providing a lot of information about what we can and cannot see with our spy satellites, which could be important. I'm not sure that such esoteric information would be of much use at this late date, but it's a problem and there's no easy solution for it.

The idea of a tripwire is one I don't think we need to consider until it happens. If the French did fly in some of the Foreign Legion (and that's who they would use, because they're considered expendable and this amounts to "human shields") then about all we could do would be to ignore them and fight anyway. I do not see us backing off because of it. But I don't think it will happen; it's a capability but I don't see any way there could be intention to justify it. (More on that later.)

If the de Gaulle tried to use the radars in its battle groups against us, I suspect we'd try to use ECM to fog them if we have that ability. It's an open question; but if we could, that would be the best answer. If it was perceived as a real operational threat and we didn't have ECM to counter it, we might have to shoot.

And that would be extremely bad. Likewise, if French aircraft from the de Gaulle seem to be flying scouting missions over any of our naval groups, or scouting our rear areas on the ground, or in any way were perceived as being hostile, then they'd be met by our jets and accompanied at all times, with the clear threat that if they actually did anything hostile they'd be shot down. (That's what always happened with Soviet jets which tried to fly over our ships during the Cold War.) There's something about having an F-14 or F-15 or F-16 "on your six" which tends to clarify your thinking.

Moving back into the realm of intentions, a lot of the capabilities the French have to screw us up are extraordinarily perilous for them because of the extreme risk of escalation and because of political fallout. An actual formal hostile military act against us, whether they shot first or we did, could cause catastrophe. I simply don't see any motivation they could conceivably have which would compel them to take such a risk.

According to Jane's, the de Gaulle is most likely to be carrying Rafale fighters, Super Entendard fighters, and (ironically) E-2C Hawkeyes. Jane's says that the Rafale has a range of 3700 km air-to-air or 2000 ground attack. The Super Entendard range is 1700 km.

"Range" is stated one-way rather than round-trip; it's distance traveled from take-off to landing. As a practical matter, operational range from the carrier is about one third of that. If you're operating at one-half, it means you have no margin for error and no fuel for maneuvering unless you can meet an air tanker. For practical purposes what this means is that they'd have to actually be in the Gulf itself in order to do anything interesting, and that means they're vulnerable. If a shooting war starts, the de Gaulle only survives in the Gulf as long as we don't want it dead. Sinking warships is the primary business of the US Navy; it has been its mission since it was created 200 years ago. There's no way that the de Gaulle task force could defend against a saturation strike with Harpoon and Penguin missiles. (When a hundred missiles arrive simultaneously from all directions, all you can do is pray.) And the Air Force also has the ability to contribute, if need be, or carry out the mission on its own. If the de Gaulle was operating outside the Gulf in open ocean (such as the Arabian sea), they would still be in peril. Air Force heavy bombers operating from Diego Garcia can reach any ship in the Indian Ocean, and are capable of carrying Harpoons.

The de Gaulle is claimed to be moving to the region. I don't think they'll be welcome. Will we warn them off? Tell them not to enter the Gulf? It will be interesting to see what happens with that. Technically, the Gulf is international waters, but it's also in practice now a war zone, and you enter such a place against warning at your own peril. As a practical matter, the waters in and around any military taskforce, no matter where it is, are restricted and always have been and hostile or neutral ships are never permitted in. And when that task force is at high alert in a war setting, they have no sense of humor about such incursions.

Nor could the French discount the possibility of shadowing American attack subs as soon as they emerge from the Red Sea into open ocean, following them until they reached the mouth of the Gulf. One entertains the fantasy of the de Gaulle hearing a loud clunk against its hull below the waterline, and then receiving a radio message that the next torpedo will be live.

The one thing which is certain is that if we decide they need to be sunk, they will be. They have no chance of surviving if we want them dead, and any naval professional knows it. A decision by the French government to use de Gaulle in this way amounts to a deliberate decision to sacrifice the entire task force.

Would the government of France actually deliberately sacrifice such a task force just to make a political point? I can't see it. And the danger of escalation is very real; the nightmare would be a nuclear exchange with the US. The general idea would be an assumption that the Yanks would back down and be afraid to escalate, but given the climate in Washington right now that is not something the French government would be smart to rely on, and they know it. Unsophisticated cowboys don't tend to back down.

Even the threat of a hidden nuke in one of their cities would not be enough, in my opinion, to cause them to risk a nuclear war with the US.

Even a lesser non-nuclear shooting war with the US would be a diplomatic and military catastrophe. Their economy would tank. It would instantly end the EU process, or at the very least eliminate France from it. It would instantly and totally polarize Europe into hard pro-American and pro-French factions, and right now it looks as if most of them would end up on our side. (Maybe no one would side with the French. It's hard to see even Schröder siding with the French in a shooting war against the US.) And for all the contempt and disgust of the average French voter for America right now, I cannot conceive of the idea of a shooting war with us being supported. I can't even see the government of France going to this level in response to a threat of a hidden nuke.

The military capability is there for them to interfere, but I cannot conceive of a plausible political scenario where they might actually be willing to do anything of that kind. The most they might do is to surreptitiously support Iraq through smuggling and by providing intelligence, and that would not be a catastrophic setback.

A direct French military intervention against us is the kind of thing that happens in movies. I don't see it happening in the real world.