Before a trip to Châteauroux this Saturday, April 25, 2026, at the invitation of the regional association Centre-Val de Loire of the listeners of the Institute of Advanced Studies in National Defense, General of the Army Corps Bruno Baratz, commander of future combat, answered questions from La Nouvelle République.
“The future combat looks how?”
General of the Army Corps Bruno Baratz, commander of future combat: “The robotization of the battlefield will intensify. There is a new relationship to be found between very high technology, which ensures our superiority, with less technological tools [cheaper] but more easily industrializable. We see this in Iran or elsewhere. This is also what the Russians are doing in Ukraine, with waves of drones, used as saturation weapons to create breaches and then launch missiles. It is important to have industrial production capabilities in France.”
“Can we only set ethical limits on the combat of tomorrow or is it an endless race?”
“We need to maintain a strong ethical line, based on the French humanistic approach. Because combat is one thing, but one must also live after the combat. When I commanded in the Sahel, we set up regular points during which the men were invited to talk about abnormal behaviors they had observed in partners, or to reflect on practical cases, in order to have an ethical framework. This is something that is essential to work on and must not be flouted, at the risk of serious psychological problems. The lines will inevitably evolve over time, with the evolution of our own societies. But the French do not fight like Americans, nor like Germans.”
“Where will the war take place tomorrow?”
“Due to the transparency of the battlefields due to the multiplicity of different sensors, we now see everything that happens in the combat zone. To escape this, the belligerents invest urban space, even underground like Hamas, in order to avoid being seen. The trend is therefore towards urban combat. The city will remain a priority target in the wars of the future.”
“What role for nuclear weapons in future combat?”
“It remains the foundation of national defense.”
