The ongoing global financial crisis has had an increasing strain on the defence budgets of different European countries. In the case of France, an intelligent and anticipatory/ preventive planning has mitigated the effects of the crisis but challenges remain, which have to be taken seriously and addressed effectively, if France wants to maintain its strategic autonomy.

The WMD insinuation by the West, the debate over the impending genocide in Aleppo, and the swelling ranks of refugees, all point to an orchestrated shift in the narrative of the conflict that makes external intervention an ‘inevitability’.