In 1991, after the collapse of its state, Somalia was plunged into anarchy with all the economic consequences this implies for an already miserable population. The following year, faced with the impossibility for humanitarian organizations to provide food supplies with a minimum of security, the United Nations organized a first military operation. Encouraged by its success, in March 1993 the UN decided to go further by disarming the warlords, first and foremost the most dangerous of them all, Mohamed Farah Aïdid. Several operations were launched in the heart of Mogadishu against his organization, the Somali National Alliance. The last of them, carried out on 13 October 1993, proved to be a failure, well known thanks to Marc Bowden's book Black Hawk Down and the film of the same name. What is less well known is that a few months earlier, in June, the French of Operation Oryx [1] had successfully carried out a similar action in the same area and against the same opponents. Since this phenomenon is historically rare, it may be interesting, excluding any cocardier spirit, to compare the two operations.

1]The oryx is a species of gazelle.

Does the combination of unprecedented operational and technological challenges, as well as the acceleration of time, not raise the question of adapting the role of the actors of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?The combination of unprecedented operational and technological challenges and the acceleration of time raise the question of adapting the role of those involved in the Ministry of Defence, which for the past twenty years or so has shared responsibility for preparing for a future whose prospects are gradually being renewed and tightened.

On May¹, 2003, on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, President Bush announced the end of the fighting. For most of the American troops on the ground, the war is really over and all that remains, pending the rapid relief, is to help the "freedom-loving" Iraqis to set up new institutions.

Disillusionment is cruel. The majority of Iraqis, thankful to be rid of a disgraced regime, demanded above all the possibility of finally living in security. Inhibited by decades of dictatorship, they do not understand that such powerful Americans do not firmly seize power to restore order and electricity in a matter of weeks.

At the same time that new weapons are developing, war is becoming industrial and international conventions are replacing morality, the 20th century ^brings great novelty in uniforms and the way of waging war; the perfectly visible soldier is no longer a necessity, on the contrary.

According to the usual historiography, it was the invention of smokeless powder in 1885 by the French engineer Vieille - with the progress of chemistry - that would disrupt the importance of colours in uniforms. As its name suggests, this powder produces little smoke and the battlefield becomes transparent; it is no longer necessary to wear bright colours to be seen. Is this classic explanation acceptable or sufficient?

In the mid-1990s, African States affirmed their willingness to take resolute responsibility for crisis prevention and management and to develop the capacity to conduct peace support operations on the continent.

Attentive to these concerns, France, within the framework of a new partnership built on relations of equals with African countries, has developed, in collaboration with international organizations, the programme for Strengthening African Peacekeeping Capabilities (Recamp). Between 1997 and 1998, this programme was first implemented in the Central African Republic, within the framework of the Bangui Agreements Monitoring Mission (Misab).

The assassination of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya has given rise to countless comments, debates and articles, the most common point of which has been to denounce, either in succession or simultaneouslyThe most common point has been to denounce a political crime, an action by the secret services, a gesture of intimidation by the mafia and, more generally, the mafia's hold over the whole of the political, economic and social life of this country.

"I sense in our officers a paralyzing, base incuriosity. Too many bodies, too few heads. The perfect general would know all the things of heaven and earth. So if you see it that way, and if you agree with me, please use me as a text that preaches the necessity of studying more than the history books do, that of a greater seriousness in military art. With two thousand years of examples behind us, we have no excuse, when we fight, if we fight badly".

1. E. Lawrence (correspondence with B.H. Liddle Hart)

Thucydides of Athens was born between 465 and 460 B.C. He was in his thirties when the Peloponnesian War broke out, a twenty-seven-year war in which he took part. We do not know what campaigns he took part in during the early years of the war. In 424, he was elected strategist, i .e. magistrate in charge of commanding the armed forces. Placed at the head of the Athenian naval expedition in Thrace, his first campaign as a general turned out badly. He could not arrive in time to prevent the Spartan Brasidas from taking Amphipolis, which earned him a sentence of exile. In the absence of any testimony, it is impossible to assess his share of responsibility in this failure or even to judge his military qualities. It was during this exile that he devoted himself to his History of the Peloponnesian War. Recalled after the fall of Athens in 404 and the amnesty decreed by the victors, he returned to his home town and died shortly afterwards.Between 399 and 396 he died without having completed his work, which was interrupted in the middle of the twenty-first year of the war.

On 12 July 2006, the HEZBOLLAH launched an attack against Israel at the Israeli-Lebanese border, resulting in the death of 8 TSAHAL soldiers and the capture of two others. Israel retaliated, in the aftermath, with a large-scale air, sea and land campaign in Lebanon and against the positions of the "Party of God".

On 12 August, the Lebanese and Israeli governments accepted United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 1701 and the conditions for a ceasefire from 14 August.

By mid-July, France had become involved in the crisis. The aim was both to participate in the protection of nationals and to respond to the political will to intervene rapidly and visibly in Lebanon at a time when the situation in the theatre was far from being stabilized.

When French journalist Marcelle Padovani interviewed him in the early 1990s, the most famous anti-mafia judge, Giovanni Falcone, replied: "I am simply a servant of the State in terra infedilium [1]". 1] Beyond the illustration of failure and immobility, reflecting a situation that has remained unchanged for more than a century, it is the relationship of the mafias to the territory, detached from the national bond, that is evoked here.

1] "Sono semplicemente un servitore dello Stato in terra infedilium" in "L'Italia del tempo presente - Famiglia, società civile, Stato 1980-1996" by Paul Ginsborg, ed. Einaudi, Torino 1998