ADAPTING THE ARSENAL

A mammoth project to modernize France's nuclear arsenal will mark a milestone this year with the first land launch of the next-generation M51 ballistic missile.

Developed by EADS, the M51 will weigh half again as much as the existing M45, allowing it carry up to six warheads over an intercontinental range--classified, but in excess of 6,000-8,000 km.--with higher performance and safety margins. The M51 will be installed on second-generation Triomphant-class ballistic missile-carrying submarines, beginning with the fourth and final of the class, the Terrible, now under construction at the DCN shipyard in Cherbourg.

In addition to vastly increased throwweight and accuracy, the M51 and its aerial adjunct, the improved ASMPA nuclear cruise missile, will offer greater operational flexibility. This is in line with France's changing nuclear doctrine--notably with respect to regional powers. In an address at the Ile Longue nuclear submarine base in Brittany on Jan. 19, President Jacques Chirac said France would reserve the right to strike strategic nerve centers with a graduated deterrent as a "final warning" to enemy aggression--a veiled reference to North Korea and Iran.

A graduated deterrent--for example, ICBMs equipped with less than a full complement of warheads configured to explode at high altitude--could use electromagnetic shock waves to knock out enemy electronics, minimizing collateral damage.

Chirac insisted that the principles underlying French nuclear doctrine have not changed: There is still no question of fielding battlefield nuclear weapons or authorizing preemptive strikes, despite pressure to do so (AW&ST June 6, 2005, p. 27). "But the manner in which these principles are implemented has changed and will continue to change to meet 21st century threats," he said.

Chirac reiterated an offer to give the French nuclear arsenal a "European dimension." The offer is meant to encourage neighboring nations--notably the U.K., Europe's only other nuclear power--to adopt a European stance with respect to emerging threats, or even to share in future developments (see p. 60).

The M51 also reflects France's decision to rely henceforth on simulation, rather than atmospheric testing, to verify the reliability and safety of the country's nuclear arms. The missile will be fitted initially with miniaturized TN75 warheads that equip the M45--and benefit from the last round of atmospheric tests of that warhead in 1995. But it will eventually carry an all-new warhead, dubbed TNO, that will be developed using a giant simulator facility, the Megajoule Laser, which is under construction near Bordeaux in the heart of the country's nuclear complex (AW&ST July 17, p. 122).

France is also engaged in a series of spaceborne and aerial demonstrators to provide an early warning capability against enemy ICBMs, as well as an expanding theater antiballistic missile effort.

In briefings on Sept. 18-19, program officials indicated the M51 program is on track to enter the French arsenal on the Terrible in July 2010 (AW&ST Sept. 25, p. 42). A full-scale inert model of the missile, which entered full-scale development in 1998, has undergone water-surface breach tests, and each of the three solid-fuel propulsion stages has been tested successfully. The first stage was fired in early 2005.