General Beaufre’s Indirect Strategy

Posted on 5 January 2025 by Nicolas Blanchard-Farce

For General André Beaufre, indirect strategy is an indispensable complement to nuclear deterrence. In a world locked down by atomic weapons, the only remaining freedom of action lies in indirect strategy.

General Beaufre's Indirect Strategy — *French soldier in Indochina, 1954.*

You can start by reading our article on Nuclear Strategy According to General Beaufre.

Beaufre vs. Liddell Hart: Indirect Approach or Indirect Strategy?

In Strategy, Liddell Hart theorized the indirect approach. His central idea was to overturn the balance of opposing forces before the battle by maneuver rather than combat.

Read our article on Liddell Hart and the Indirect Approach.

However, this approach remains tied to geography and military victory. André Beaufre refines this concept, stripping away its limitations to develop indirect strategy. This strategy seeks decisive outcomes through means other than military victory.

Why an Indirect Strategy?

With nuclear weapons, freedom of action in conflicts diminishes. However, it must still be exploited, as it is the only way to shift the status quo. This requires subtle methods that make war almost unrecognizable.

Conception of Indirect Maneuver

Beaufre’s indirect strategy relies on two types of maneuvers: external and internal.

External Maneuver

In Beaufre’s vision, freedom of action does not depend on operations on the ground but on external factors.

The core of the maneuver unfolds outside the battlefield. The aim is to limit the adversary’s freedom of action on international and domestic stages through political, economic, and diplomatic means. However, this requires credible deterrence (nuclear or conventional) and a coherent political line. Beaufre’s indirect strategy must also target the adversary’s psychology.

Internal Maneuver

Military operations conducted in the geographical space where results are desired are called internal maneuvers. In indirect strategy, these operations are not the main effort, which lies in external maneuvering. They are based on three variables: material forces, moral forces, and duration.

If material forces are strong, moral forces can be weaker, and the conflict must be short.
If material forces are weaker, moral forces must be stronger, and the war will last longer. The preferred tactic is maneuver through attrition.

Maneuver Through Attrition

This involves forcing a much stronger adversary to accept unfavorable peace conditions by using limited means against them. The weakness of military forces is compensated by the superiority of moral forces over time.

Material Aspect

For the weaker party, the goal is endurance. The most suitable method is guerrilla warfare. Two key concepts underpin this approach:

Deterring the population from informing the enemy through systematic terror.
Expanding the threat geographically to create a protection dilemma for the enemy. The more troops they deploy for protection, the less they can act offensively, thereby weakening them.

The establishment of sanctuaries is also critical. These sanctuaries provide external resources (personnel, arms, supplies) and may be protected by nuclear deterrence if located within the territory of a nuclear-armed ally. However, guerrilla forces may still suffer significant attrition. For instance, in the 1950s, the Malayan insurgency partially failed because the British successfully deprived it of sanctuaries.

Psychological Aspect

Endurance is also key here. A clear and appealing political vision, combined with confidence in ultimate victory (e.g., Marxist emphasis on the inevitability of historical progress), can mobilize popular passions.

In such conflicts, psychological tactics are crucial. “The only successes are psychological,” writes Beaufre. Material victories must lead to psychological triumphs; otherwise, they are pointless.

The synergy between internal and external maneuvers allows conflicts to last, enabling significant gains at minimal costs.

The Artichoke Maneuver (or Salami Tactic)

This tactic involves a military action based on fait accompli, followed by a pause, and then its repetition elsewhere.

The internal maneuver requires a military success within 48 hours, such as the Anschluss or Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. External maneuvering is essential to secure freedom of action. The objective must appear limited to be acceptable to international opinion.

Countering Indirect Strategy According to Beaufre

Countering External Maneuver

External maneuvering is essential for guerrilla operations. The counter-strategy involves adopting an offensive political stance to threaten the vulnerabilities of the adversary and its allies. It also entails multiplying deterrents: maintaining nuclear deterrence, deploying complementary deterrents, and threatening enemy geographical and ideological positions.

On the ideological front, Beaufre noted that during decolonization wars, the West’s weakness lay in its inability to offer the Third World a sufficiently social model. Restoring the prestige of Western civilization was crucial to ensuring its success. Beaufre advocated for a unified Western organization to develop a global strategy.

Read also Beaufre’s Nuclear Strategy.

Countering Internal Maneuver

In key territories, the primary goal is to prevent a fait accompli. Against maneuver through attrition, the stronger party must adopt a political strategy to counter the adversary’s strengths, focusing on prestige and reforms. Militarily, this means countering guerrilla tactics by emphasizing psychological efforts, accepting some insecurity, allowing the adversary to establish a foothold to destroy it, and sealing borders tightly. However, enduring requires significant resources, and internal counter-maneuvers are a direct response to indirect attacks.

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Indirect strategy complements nuclear deterrence. The key remains freedom of action, which hinges on external maneuvering. Psychology plays a decisive role. However, in the final analysis, force is still indispensable.

General Beaufre’s Nuclear Strategy

Posted on 5 January 2025 by Nicolas Blanchard-Farce

In his Introduction to Strategy, General André Beaufre places significant emphasis on nuclear strategy. He combines nuclear deterrence with conventional capabilities.

THE IMPORTANCE AND UNIQUENESS OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPON

The nuclear weapon is not just a more powerful weapon; it grants its possessor a new strategic dimension. On the one hand, it can strike any point on the planet. On the other, it disrupts the traditional correlation between a state’s power and the size of its armed forces.

NUCLEAR DETERRENCE STRATEGY ACCORDING TO ANDRÉ BEAUFRE

Nuclear deterrence is rooted in uncertainty but must be complemented by conventional forces.

Nuclear Deterrence

According to General Beaufre, the credibility of nuclear deterrence depends on evaluating the balance between gains and losses. Leaders must feign irrationality, creating the impression they are willing to provoke disaster. This uncertainty becomes the only constant and the key to deterrence. Maintaining this uncertainty is essential.

There are two types of tactics:

Counterforce: Targeting enemy military forces, particularly nuclear delivery systems. This requires substantial resources.
Countervalue: Targeting the enemy’s major cities. The idea of using this strategy is so horrifying that it implies reliance on deterrence alone. However, it proves less intimidating and essentially offers only a scenario of mutual destruction.

Complementary Deterrence

Despite nuclear capabilities, each adversary retains some degree of freedom for action, whether in secondary theaters or minor engagements. Deterrence must therefore be supplemented, either through expeditionary conventional forces or by maintaining the risk of nuclear retaliation in local conflicts (tactical nuclear weapons).

Having a robust conventional force enables near-total deterrence, as the escalation of conventional conflict would inevitably lead to nuclear extremes.

WAR STRATEGY

The strategy for nuclear warfare differs from that of deterrence.

Given the risk of mutual destruction, a conflict between nuclear powers would likely begin with limited actions.

From this starting point, there are two main doctrines:

Massive Retaliation: Launching nuclear strikes to eliminate the adversary in response to any aggression, however minor. It should be noted that the United States abandoned the doctrine of massive retaliation as soon as the USSR became capable of striking American soil.
Flexible Response: Using only the necessary force while reserving the option for massive nuclear retaliation.

According to Beaufre, in the nuclear era, only two types of wars are feasible between nuclear powers: the fait accompli strategy or prolonged low-intensity conflict.

CONCLUSION

Nuclear strategy holds a central place in General Beaufre’s work. The nuclear weapon enables its possessor to achieve a new strategic stature. However, it does not render conventional forces obsolete, as the ability to act below the nuclear threshold remains essential.

Strategy according to General Beaufre’s “Introduction to Strategy”

Posted on 2 September 2024 by Nicolas Blanchard-Farce

In Introduction à la stratégie (Introduction to Strategy), French General André Beaufre presents the conclusions of his reflections on strategy in a dense, concise, and clear text.

According to Beaufre, the meaning of the term “strategy” is often misunderstood. Historically, it was the science and art of supreme command, transmitted by example. However, with the evolution of warfare, this empirical transmission became obsolete, giving way to strategic research.

Nevertheless, this research remains inevitably influenced by the conflicts of its time. Only an abstract approach truly allows one to grasp the nature of strategy.

The Purpose of Strategy According to Beaufre

Before defining strategy, one must understand its purpose. Strategy does not unfold in a vacuum; it has a clear goal:

“The purpose of strategy is to achieve the objectives set by politics by making the best use of available means.”

Beaufre’s Definition of Strategy

Following the purpose, comes the definition. The famous definition of strategy appears early in Beaufre’s work. It is “the art of the dialectic of wills using force to resolve their conflict.”

In war, each side seeks the opponent’s acceptance of the conditions it wishes to impose. Ultimately, it’s about convincing the other that continuing the fight is futile. Strategy thus targets the opponent’s will.

It is by placing a strategic problem within the psychological terrain of the adversary that one can properly assess the decisive factors. Therefore, the goal is to “reach a decision by creating and exploiting a situation that leads to a moral disintegration of the opponent, sufficient to make them accept the conditions one wants to impose.”

Thus, both sides aim simultaneously for the moral disintegration of the other. Strategic action is therefore dialectical: each side seeks to act while countering the actions of the other. Strategy becomes a struggle for freedom of action.

In the final analysis, according to Beaufre, strategy should be considered an art, as it requires the strategist to assess key elements based solely on their judgment. It is impossible to establish a set of rules that would apply in every circumstance.

The Means of Strategy According to Beaufre

Both belligerants choose their means by confronting the possibilities and vulnerabilities of the adversary. The question becomes: who do we want to defeat?

This leads to very concrete questions. For example: is capturing the enemy’s capital essential or not? Is the enemy particularly sensitive to human losses? The goal is to find the best way to achieve moral disintegration. From this confrontation of possibilities and the adversary’s vulnerabilities, a strategic objective emerges.

Strategic “Models”

General Beaufre identifies five strategic “models” based on means and objectives:

Very powerful means for a modest objective: exerting a direct threat (nuclear deterrence).
Modest objective, but insufficient means: limited freedom of action, requiring indirect pressure.
Important objective, but limited means and freedom of action: successive limited actions, like Hitler between 1935 and 1939.
Great freedom of action but weak means: prolonged total struggle of low military intensity, leading to the adversary’s moral exhaustion.
Strong military means: military victory through the destruction of the enemy’s forces and occupation of its territory. However, the objective remains the opponent’s will. This model only works with a quick victory; otherwise, its cost becomes disproportionate to the stakes.

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For General André Beaufre, strategy is “the art of the dialectic of wills using force to resolve their conflict.” It serves to “achieve the objectives set by politics by making the best use of available means.”

Strategic reasoning thus combines both material and psychological factors. It is a method of thinking that allows one to direct events rather than merely endure them.

When General Poirier Theorized Hybrid Warfare Before Hybrid Warfare

Posted on 24 August 2024 by Nicolas Blanchard-Farce

In Stratégie théorique II (Theoretical Strategy II), General Poirier describes a form of conflict that extends beyond the traditional concept of war under the pressure of nuclear weapons. This state between war and peace is reminiscent of what we now call “hybrid warfare”. Which, by the way, has always existed—but that’s another debate…

When General Poirier Theorized Hybrid Warfare Before Hybrid Warfare

Competitive Commerce

He introduces the concept of “Integral Strategy” into the theoretical field. In order to achieve their political goals while countering those of their adversaries, sociopolitical actors combine military, economic, and cultural strategies.

The state of conflictual tension without resorting to physical violence, which arises from the clash of different actors’ political goals, is called “competitive commerce.” However, with the advent of nuclear weapons, this state of tension evolves into what the general calls “generalized aggressiveness.”

Also read: Understanding Why, For de Gaulle, General Knowledge Is the True School of Command

Hybrid Warfare or Crisis Maneuver ?

Indeed, due to the prospect of a nuclear confrontation, the realization of a state’s political project is largely deprived of the military dimension of their integral strategy. This results in increased activity and aggressiveness in economic and cultural strategies, but with the obligation to remain “below the critical threshold of open conflict”. This blurs the distinction between peace and war in a “crisis maneuver.”

In this context, military strategy must use “sub-war forms.” Previously, war encompassed military strategy; now, it is merely one of its modalities.

Finally, let’s read the general’s description of this type of conflict. While expressing the reality of the Cold War, he almost exactly describe hybrid warfare:

“Localized and sporadic interventions, with varying degrees of controlled violence (unrest, attacks, sabotage, coups, piracy, terrorism, subversion, etc.) support ideological propaganda and economic pressures that become challenges, with bargaining that no longer hides the fact that it is blackmail.”

—Lucien Poirier, Stratégie théorique II

Try one of our Clausewitz articles. War is the Continuation of Politics by Other Means. Or Clausewitz’s Friction.

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