Insufficient to contribute to the development of an optimal combat instrument, the training of the French armies did not make it possible either to take proper advantage of what already existed. This had serious consequences during the inter-war period, and the eight months of the "phoney war" did not bring about the recovery that could have been hoped for.

The French army was relatively poorly trained in May 1940, as evidenced by the panic that ensued, faced with the unexpected, and the lack of responsiveness of units in changing situations.

When one evokes the training of French army units before 1914, a stereotype comes to mind, the "great manoeuvres". The idea of their unsuitability is well established, and starting from this image of Epinal, we have come to consider that the French army was not trained on the eve of the war. The truth is far removed from this image that has become a caricature. In fact, looking back at the pre-war years, one can only conclude that the army was trained. How, moreover, would the large units have been able not only to maintain their cohesion, but also to return to the attack, after a retreat of several hundred kilometres, if they had not been trained in manoeuvre?

The honor guard is young, very young. He often comes out of a family cocoon where he is not constrained. At that time, there were many servants. If a large number of guards mastered horse riding, their condition took them away from the chores related to the maintenance of the mounts (grooming, food), those of its armament.

The main mission of the armed forces at rest is training. Training is used to prepare personnel (both officers and soldiers) and equipment for use in wartime.

In order to appear as a credible adversary and thus dissuade its opponent from taking a stand against it, the army must not only possess a significant number of materials and personnel, but also have the capacity to project them.

Strengthening the robustness of our fortress should not lead us to neglect the possibility of an assault against the mixed-hearted.On the contrary, theorizing about the importance of the "in-between" should encourage us to develop our capacity to intervene there. In this sense, therefore, the national territory should not be represented as a separate front from the one we would like to hold within the "in-between", but rather as a simple extension of the "world front" whose emergence is made possible by the development of technology, the refinement of cyber warfare and the continuous growth of the range of weapons.

The following article is a free opinion paper whose arguments and conclusions are those of its author alone.

While the fall of the USSR made the prospect of a direct confrontation between two major military powers unlikely, almost thirty years after the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union is still in the midst of a major crisis.The emergence and re-emergence of nations determined to challenge the international order raises questions about the ability of our forces to carry out a major battle.

A much more subjective notion than it seems, high intensity is above all a question of reference. Thus, in military literature as in soldier imagery, this qualifier seems to apply at all levels, from the general strategic context to the local tactical situation.

Tom Clancy's novel RedStorm Rising, also has a very special resonance with many military readers who entered the service in the 1980s. This work of fiction, published in 1986, is a very realistic account of a confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact on European soil and in the North Atlantic.