French aircraft carrier FS Charles de Gaulle (File photo/Huanqiu)
France is holding a military exercise codenamed Orion 2023. The exercise started in May 2022 and will end in May 2023. The participating troops almost cover all military branches of France and its European allies.
It is reported that the exercise mobilized 30 ships including the French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and two helicopter carriers, as well as hundreds of fighter jets. More than 7,000 troops from France, as well as troops from the UK, Spain, the US, Germany, etc., participated in the exercise. Military observer Shao Yongling said that the scale of this exercise is relatively rare in French history, and the courses are set targetedly.
During the exercise, France dispatched space forces, cyber forces, and military drones, and used many new combat styles. Shao believes that the previous exercises were mostly aimed at one imaginary simulated enemy or a broader threat, but from the courses in the Orion 2023 exercise such as "multinational forces conducting large-scale air-to-ground confrontation", this exercise is aimed at a scenario similar to a general war.
Some French military experts have believed that although French officials do not clearly regard Russia as a simulated enemy, the exercise is much similar to the Russia-Ukraine conflict in terms of form and scene setting. In this regard, Shao analyzed that the protracted conflict between Russia and Ukraine will intensify the spillover effect, which will affect Poland, the Baltic countries, and even Moldova, and the possibility of NATO's immediate participation cannot be ruled out. France might be worried that there would be a military confrontation with Russia in Eastern Europe and that Ukraine would lose one day, so it has started to make corresponding plans and preparations.
Shao believes that in the face of the spillover risk of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France might intend to enhance its capability to deal with geopolitical conflicts and intensified strategic competition through exercises and highlight its role as a European military leader. In this exercise, the most direct consideration of France is very much likely to arouse the sense of crisis in France and other European countries, that is, the development of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has the possibility to spill over to Europe in the future. At the same time, France wants to show Russia a gesture that Europe is ready to respond to Russian military pressure. And the exercise could be used to highlight the independence of the European military on this issue.
In addition, this exercise could also be regarded as a continuation of French President Emmanuel Macron's European strategic autonomy thinking, which means France much probably wants to lead its allies to build an armed force that is independent of NATO and has certain competitiveness.
Editor's note: Originally published on military.cnr.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.
