Frank Kuhn

* thought-provoking

Beyond Manoeuvre Theory for European Defence This article contributes to the debate about European defence in the light of the Russo-Ukraine war and growing doubts about US commitment to Europe. It argues that Europeans need to fundamentally re...

Finally found time to read this through-provoking paper on European defense by @lukasmengelkamp.bsky.social and @samvin.bsky.social. 📄💡

”A strategy reliant on operational level counter-attacking manoeuvre implies ceding territory. This is politically unacceptable and is also highly risky.”

Thrilled to see that the fully revised @eunpdc.bsky.social eLearning course on arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation is finally online! 🧑‍🎓

Together with Christopher Daase, I was responsible for the first learning unit which gives a general introduction to the field. Check it out below! 💻⬇️

Strategic Stability and Its Limits: Reflections on Schelling - Texas National Security Review Emerging technologies possess the potential to transform military competition and the international system in an uncertain, potentially destabilizing fashion. Are there ways to capture the benefits of...

“No matter how extraordinary emerging technologies may seem, strategists must remember that all military technologies are, in the end, instruments of statecraft. It may matter less what new technologies states possess than what they want to do with them.”

Visit to the Île Longue Operational Base. On Monday, 2 March 2026, the President of the Republic visited the Île Longue operational base.

Official translation of French President Macron’s Monday, 2 March speech on nuclear deterrence www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-...

Full report here: https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2025-12/251205_Rumbaugh_Depleting_Interceptor.pdf?VersionId=RpbsdtFvkVAuFNV3VNEydpFJI920fVDn

Useful report from @csis.org back in December on interceptor munitions. In the 2025 Israel-Iran exchanges over 12 days:

Iran - 500x ballistic missiles
US - 150x THAAD, 80x SM-3

US also used 200x SM-2 or SM-6 missiles against Houthis over a year.

Procurement rates of interceptors is chaotic

There is also a report from FRS about the potential benefits of dispersal: www.frstrategie.org/web/document...

That said, if dispersal results in your assets becoming more likely to be targeted (e.g. by coming into range of enemy SRBMs), then I would agree and this could increase vulnerability.

This logic is creating a larger number of potential targets which makes it difficult for the adversary to effectively cover them – essentially a form of a shell game (think MX debate and the various basing schemes).

Good question! The renewed interest in dispersal concepts emerged in the context of the A2/AD debate. So the working assumption for dispersal is that your assets can be targeted anyways and you need to find a way to ensure survivability through a different logic.

Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz Abstract. How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Accor...

This article by @proftalmadge.bsky.social has aged well.

Have they? There is no ground offensive against Iran planned so far, so any conclusions necessarily have to be limited?

Da es jetzt eine deutsch-französische Steuerungsgruppe zur Koordination der nuklearen und konventionellen Abschreckung geben wird, kann ich nur wärmstens die Lektüre von Guy Brossollets "Essai sur la non-bataille" (Essay über die Nicht-Schlacht) empfehlen. (Gibt es auch in deutscher Übersetzung.)🧵

Europa und der Iran-Krieg: Vielleicht bereit, irgendwas zu tun Die Bundesregierung will gestrandete Urlauber aus der Region ausfliegen. Über eine militärische Beteiligung Europas gibt es aber widersprüchliche Angaben.

“Mit einer vagen Erklärung über den Krieg in Iran haben Deutschland, Frankreich und Großbritannien Fragen über ihr militärisches Vorgehen in der Region ausgelöst”, schreibt die taz – mit einer Einschätzung von mir zu dem gemeinsamen Statement.

Geht leider seit Monaten so. Der Ersatzverkehr ist auch ein Witz. Am zuverlässigsten und schnellsten ist das Rennrad...

Interesting! I didn't know this! Can I find further information somewhere?

“It will strengthen our defence by giving it the field and will offer it a new, coherent strategic depth of security issues in 🇪🇺. Its value will, I believe, be very strong also for the partners who will enter into this logic with us, and whose territory will gain a strong link with our deterrence.”

Addentum: I think Macron also makes pretty clear that survivability will be the main motive for this, but acknowledges that allies might find it useful FOR OTHER reasons:

But was it ever implemented?

Some quick thoughts on Macron‘s speech and the announcement of deploying parts of the French Strategic Air Force an allied territory. 👇

The imperative of augmenting US theater nuclear forces This paper examines why the two-nuclear-peer threat makes the enhancement of US theater nuclear forces an urgent imperative.

So, from a survivability perspective, this makes a great deal of sense. There are also former US defense officials such as Greg Weaver who have advocated for a DCA dispersal concept: www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-res...

How Sweden’s austere basing system influenced the Gripen The Bas 90 system, which often nestled air strips amid forests and used highway roads as back-up runways, was partially dismantled after the end of the Cold War. However, in recent years the ideas beh...

Sweden also has its BAS-90 system which is very similar:

www.flightglobal.com/fixed-wing/h...

Defense Primer: Agile Combat Employment (ACE) Concept

www.congress.gov/crs_external...

Untethered Operations
Rapid Mobility and Forward Basing Are Keys to Airpower’s
Success in the Antiaccess/Area-Denial Environment

ia802300.us.archive.org/21/items/DTI...

Disperse and survive - Royal Aeronautical Society Over one year on from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Western air forces are now rediscovering the need for dispersed operations to survive and keep fighting. TIM ROBINSON FRAeS considers what a 21st...

On Agile Combat Employment, see for example:

www.aerosociety.com/news/dispers...

To be sure, allies may think about French nuclear deployments as something alike US deployments, but I the motivation from the French perspective could be more about survivability and flexibility than anything else. The better framework of reference might be conventional concepts of operations.

“This dispersion on European territory, in the manner of an archipelago of forces, will complicate the calculation of our opponents and give this advanced deterrence a lot of value for us.”

“In the same way that our strategic submarines naturally dilute in the oceans, guaranteeing a permanent striking capacity, our strategic air forces will be able to spread in the depth of the European continent.”

I'm just reading the speech and I am not sure if US nuclear sharing/foreign nuclear deployments are the right way to think about the dispersal of French strategic air force assets. At least to me, I understand it more as a dispersal concept to increase survivability, like Agile Combat Employment.

Déplacement sur la base opérationnelle de l’Ile Longue. Le Président de la République s'est rendu sur la base opérationnelle de l’Ile Longue le lundi 2 mars 2026.

Macron: “The evolution of the defenses of our competitors, the emergence of regional powers, the possibility of coordination between opponents and the risks related to proliferation, all after a careful examination, led me to this conclusion. An increase in our arsenal is essential.”