Appointed the new Chief of Staff of the French Armies (CEMA), the current boss of the Army, Legionnaire Thierry Burkhard, is a respected general with extensive operational experience, whose strategic vision is turned towards conflicts of tomorrow, which he predicts will be harder and more complex.
General Burkhard, who will celebrate his 57th birthday on July 30, will take over from General François Lecointre a few days earlier. The latter bows out after 4 years at the head of the armed forces, a period marked in particular by the rise in the defense budget, following long years of famine.
“Harsher, high intensity conflicts”
In the immediate future, the new “CEMA” will have the delicate mission of supervising the announced reduction of the French military presence in the Sahel, after more than eight years of massive engagement. This re-articulation will result in the tightening of a system which today mobilizes more than 5,000 men, the closure of bases in northern Mali and reinforced support for local armies with the help of European reinforcements. Thierry Burkhard will also have to orchestrate a major strategic shift, at a time when conflict is changing face at high speed. “It has been more than ten years since the army has focused on the threat of militarized terrorism at the moment”, yet it “must change scale and prepare for harsher, high intensity conflicts”, while the strategic competition on the world stage is accelerating, he explained last November.
A paradigm shift that requires adapting the operational preparation of soldiers, investing in new areas of confrontation – space, cyber, seabed, social networks – and continuing to modernize equipment. The armies will have to “think about the integration of robots and artificial intelligence in the battle space” in particular by 2040, noted recently the one who until now assumed the functions of chief of staff of Land Force. General Burkhard “will have to consolidate a reflection on the vision of the armies in the future strategic review which will inevitably follow the presidential election of 2022, analyze the conflictuality in 10 or 20 years and anticipate the army model which results from it”, underlined the beginning. June General Lecointre.
“One of the most remarkable officers of his generation”
Married and father of three children, Thierry Burkhard takes on the supreme position preceded by a solid reputation. “Thierry Burkhard’s strategic vision and charisma make him one of the most remarkable officers of his generation. As soon as he was appointed head of the Army in July 2019, he was unanimous, ”underlines Cédric Perrin, senator for the Territoire de Belfort where the future chief of staff was born. Le Saint-Cyrien, who began his career as an officer in the Foreign Legion, in the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP), can draw on extensive field experience.
He was thus sent to Guyana, Iraq, the former Yugoslavia, Chad, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire and Afghanistan. In 2005, he became one of the deputies to the head of the Center for Preparation and Conduct of Operations (CPCO), from which all French military operations are steered. He will take command in 2017. From 2008, he commands for two years the prestigious 13th demi-brigade of the foreign legion (13th DBLE) in Djibouti.
Former spokesperson for the armies
But the more subdued spheres of power are not foreign to him. In 2013, he joined the National Intelligence Coordinator’s team for two years at the Elysée. Both charismatic and accessible, hands on hips when addressing his men, the officer is also experienced in the art of communication, which he practices in a frank and direct manner. Deputy to the communications advisor to the Chief of Defense Staff from 2007 to 2008, he also served as spokesperson for the staff from 2010 to 2013, the year of the launch of Operation Serval in Mali.
An inclination which predisposes him to take a close interest in “information warfare” and in the means of countering the disinformation campaigns which regularly target the armies. The general staff should soon publish “a doctrine which describes our actions in this matter and we are equipping ourselves with the means to better discern the attempts to manipulate information against us,” General Lecointre affirmed in the Senate at the beginning of June. “It is a field in which we will be more and more active”.