| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
The French counterinsurgency has a tradition of its own, going back particularly to the experience of colonial wars, within which those of France in Algeria since 1830 stand out. This article focuses on the bequest of the Algerian War of 1954-62, but the strategies applied in it can only be understood against the background of earlier French theory and practice. It saw what, in the 20th century, would be regarded as particularly cruel behaviour on the part of the colonial power's forces, given that this was a Western liberal democracy, which in turn needs to be explained in terms of previous French experiences since 1940. It raised moral problems which are of an enduring nature, and highlighted the aberrancy of a concept that had dominated Western thinking since Napoleon: the aberrant emphasis on military victory, when the aim of a just war should always be a good and lasting peace.
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