Training foreign armies. Changing practices from the 1950s to 2010

Résumé 0

Summed up by the concept of “foreign internal defense,” the policy of training foreign armies is experiencing, through feedback on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, several major changes. The outsourcing of military assistance missions to foreign countries is certainly its main feature: where State armies cannot or do not want to respond to requests addressed to them, private military companies, playing the role of informal extensions of States, now take over the job. This outsourcing is increasingly becoming a critical axis of the overhaul of the indirect strategy of the great powers. This article is an opportunity to assess the main changes that are affecting both the practices and organization of training structures and the modes of expression of military diplomacy. Although the tactical and technical aspects of the training of foreign armies have not really evolved, the political (the transition from a purely military assistance to a global approach linked to the development of sovereignty) and strategic (through the dissemination of military standards) dimensions of these programs are now central issues.