France Joins the Club

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In flurry of articles surrounding last night's strikes on Syria, I noticed that a fairly important point has been largely missing from the coverage - it marked the first time France has fired naval land attack missiles in anger. Although the French naval contribution of just three missiles fired from the frigate Languedoc was rather small when compared to the dozens of Tomahawks fired from multiple American ships, it was still a major landmark for both the Marine Nationale and naval warfare as a whole.

Despite the fact that the United States Navy first used land attack missiles to devastating effect during the Gulf War back in 1991, the rest of the world's navies have been remarkably slow to obtain this revolutionary capability. The Royal Navy was the second to do so, and fired land attack missiles at Kosovo in 1999. However, its capability has always been limited to a small number of submarine launched Tomahawks purchased from the United States. It was not until 2015, and the Russian Navy's use of Kalibr during the Syrian Civil War, that a weapon other than Tomahawk was used.

Thus, with last night's employment of MdCN, the Marine Nationale became the world's fourth navy to fire land attack missiles in anger and the third to use its indigenous weapons. For the French this attack also marks another important first as, somewhat ironically given the widespread use of Exocet missiles in conflicts around the world, last night's attack was actually the first time the Marine Nationale ever fired a missile in combat.

These dual milestones serve to emphasis the capabilities of what is often an overlooked navy in the English speaking world. With the continuing decline of the Royal Navy and the successful French naval operations in Libya and now Syria, the Marine Nationale is now arguably the most powerful navy in Europe (this can also be seen in my World Navies of 2017 ranking).

However, today we are also seeing a general proliferation of what were once high end naval capabilities. While France was the first midsize state to use land attack missiles in battle, several others (such as South Korea, Taiwan, and India) are currently fielding similar weapons of their own. This move will certainly further increase the importance of navies as strategic instruments.

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