On 12 February, Corentin Brustlein, Director of the Centre des Etudes de Sécurité de l’Institut Français des Relations Internationales (Ifri, the French Institute of International Relation’s Security Studies Center) held a conference at ENSTA Bretagne on "the United States’ Defense Strategy from Obama to Trump".
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This 3rd conference on the major issues concerning geopolitics and defense strategy was presided over by Vice Admiral of the Fleet Jean-Louis Lozier, Préfet Maritime de l’Atlantique . It was attended by ENSTA Bretagne, Ecole Navale and IMT Atlantique students.
Summary
As the world’s leading military power, the United States seems to have begun a profound reevaluation of their defense strategy. After the post Cold War decade of budget cuts and a second quasi-exclusive phase of “war against terrorism”, Washington has started to turn a corner aiming to hold on to its military superiority in relation to all its potential opponents.
Whereas the position adopted in 2018 clearly demonstrated this state of mind, in keeping with the end of Obama’s presidency, the presidential style and preferences of Donald Trump have since equally affected budgetary planning and the United States’ strategic choices, generating a lot of uncertainty for their allies.
Speaker
Dr Corentin Brustlein, professor at Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University, joined Ifri in 2008 as a researcher in their Laboratoire de Recherche sur la Défense (LRD) (Defense Research Laboratory). His work is on nuclear and conventional deterrence, arms control, military balance and French and American defense policies. Before joining Ifri, he taught international relations and strategic studies for 5 years at the Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University.
He is the author of many Ifri studies (including The Erosion of Strategic Stability and the Future of Arms Control in Europe, November 2018), and co-author of La Suprématie Aérienne en Péril, Menaces et Contre-Stratégies à l’Horizon 2030 (La Documentation Française, 2014) (on the erosion of Western air supremacy). Since 2018, he has served on the United Nations General Secretary’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters and teaches at the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po).
