Transforming strategic culture: France after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

This article asks whether Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine constitutes a critical juncture for French strategic culture. It argues that the answer is yes, but unevenly. Building on a dynamic, non-essentialist conception of strategic culture as a constellation of narratives and practices, the article distinguishes between two intertwined levels: the political–strategic level (national role conceptions, autonomy, deterrence, and institutional authority) and the operational–tactical level (service cultures, doctrine, force models, and professional heuristics). Methodologically, it applies discourse and narrative analysis to trace three dimensions of change: narrative shifts, institutional recalibration, and doctrinal contestation. The findings show the strongest critical-juncture dynamics at the political–strategic level, where Russia is reframed as a structural threat, and strategic autonomy is increasingly linked to European resilience and deterrence credibility. In the nuclear domain, the doctrinal core remains largely continuous, but recent presidential discourse signals significant institutional and narrative expansion of the European role of French deterrence. Civil–military relations are more ambiguous, with 2015 appearing as an earlier initiating shock and 2022 acting mainly as an accelerator. At the operational–tactical level, 2022 re-ranks preparedness and intensifies doctrinal contestation, but without yet producing a settled new force-model equilibrium.