The French Armed Forces are the military forces of France. They consist of four military branches – the Army, the Navy, the Air and Space Force and the National Gendarmerie. The National Guard serves as the French Armed Forces' military reserve force. As stipulated by France's constitution, the president of France serves as commander-in-chief of the French military. France has the eighth largest defence budget in the world and the second largest in the European Union (EU). It also has the largest military by size in the EU.As of 2021, the total active personnel of the French Armed Forces is 270,000. While the reserve personnel is 63,700, for a total of 333,000 personnel. If we include the active personnel of the National Gendarmerie, the total men power of all the French Armed Forces combined is 435,000 strong. A 2015 Credit Suisse report ranked the French Armed Forces as the world's sixth most powerful military.
"Rogue state" is a term applied by some international theorists to states that they consider threatening to the world's peace. These states meet certain criteria, such as being ruled by authoritarian or totalitarian governments that severely restrict human rights, sponsoring terrorism, or seeking to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. The term is used most by the United States ; in his speech at the United Nations (UN) in 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated this phrase. U.S. politicians have used the term to describe countries such as Iran, Syria, North Korea, Afghanistan, Cuba and Venezuela. The term has been applied by other countries as well.
The Iraq disarmament crisis was claimed as one of the primary issues that led to the multinational invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003.
Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council. The fifth president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was internationally condemned for his use of chemical weapons against Iranian and Kurdish civilians during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s. Saddam pursued an extensive biological weapons program and a nuclear weapons program, though no nuclear bomb was built. After the Gulf War, the United Nations located and destroyed large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and related equipment and materials; Iraq ceased its chemical, biological and nuclear programs.
This is a timeline of the events surrounding the United States-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion began on 19 March 2003 and lasted just over one month, including 26 days of major combat operations, in which a United States-led combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded the Republic of Iraq. Twenty-two days after the first day of the invasion, the capital city of Baghdad was captured by coalition forces on 9 April after the six-day-long Battle of Baghdad. This early stage of the war formally ended on 1 May when U.S. President George W. Bush declared the "end of major combat operations" in his Mission Accomplished speech, after which the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) was established as the first of several successive transitional governments leading up to the first Iraqi parliamentary election in January 2005. U.S. military forces later remained in Iraq until the withdrawal in 2011.
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was a fact-finding mission sent by the multinational force in Iraq to find the weapons of mass destruction alleged to be possessed by Iraq that had been the main ostensible reason for the invasion in 2003. Its final report, Comprehensive Report of the Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence on Iraq WMD, was submitted to Congress and the president in 2004. It consisted of a 1,400-member international team organized by the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency to hunt for the alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological agents, and any supporting research programs and infrastructure that could be used to develop WMD. The report acknowledged that only small stockpiles of chemical WMDs were found, the numbers being inadequate to pose a militarily significant threat.
The following lists events in the year 2003 in Iraq.
SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs is a tactical shooter video game developed by Zipper Interactive and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for PlayStation 2.
Arma: Armed Assault is a 2006 tactical shooter simulation video game developed by Bohemia Interactive and published by 505 Games in Europe and Atari in North America for Microsoft Windows. It is the first installment in the Arma series and is a spiritual successor to the 2001 video game Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, which was also developed by Bohemia. Set on the fictional Atlantic island of Sahrani, the game follows United States Armed Forces military advisors as they are caught in the midst of a conflict between the two rivalling nations on the island.
Battalion Wars, released as Assault!! Famicom Wars in Japan, is a 2005 real-time tactics game developed by Kuju London and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. The player controls a vast array of units ranging from infantry, armoured divisions and aircraft, completing missions through a mixture of unit management and strategic planning. In the game's story, the player operates as a commander of a battalion, who initially take part in a conflict between two nations that culminates in an eventual alliance between them, in response to a surprise attack by a third nation.
Front Mission 5: Scars of the War, also known in Japan as Front Mission Fifth: Scars of the War, is a tactical role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix, released in Japan on December 29, 2005. Front Mission 5: Scars of the War is the fifth main entry and ninth entry overall in the Front Mission series. Like other Front Mission titles, Front Mission 5: Scars of the War is part of a serialized storyline that follows the stories of various characters and their struggles involving mecha known as wanzers.
A dispute exists over the legitimacy of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The debate centers around the question whether the invasion was an unprovoked assault on an independent country that may have breached international law, or if the United Nations Security Council authorized the invasion. Those arguing for its legitimacy often point to Congressional Joint Resolution 114 and UN Security Council resolutions, such as Resolution 1441 and Resolution 678. Those arguing against its legitimacy also cite some of the same sources, stating they do not actually permit war but instead lay out conditions that must be met before war can be declared. Furthermore, the Security Council may only authorise the use of force against an "aggressor" in the interests of preserving peace, whereas the 2003 invasion of Iraq was not provoked by any aggressive military action.
The military history of Switzerland comprises centuries of armed actions, and the role of the Swiss military in conflicts and peacekeeping worldwide. Despite maintaining neutrality since its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499, Switzerland has been involved in military operations dating back to the hiring of Swiss mercenaries by foreign nations, including the Papal States.
Tom Clancy's EndWar is a strategy video game available on Microsoft Windows and all seventh-generation platforms except the Wii, with the timing and flow of gameplay differing across platforms. The console and PC version is a real-time tactics game designed by Ubisoft Shanghai, while the handheld versions feature turn-based tactics. It was released on Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, and Xbox 360 in November 2008. A Windows version was released in February 2009.
Arma 2 is a 2009 tactical shooter simulation video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive for Microsoft Windows. It is the second main entry in the Arma series and the third installment in the series overall. The game is set in the fictional Eastern European country of Chernarus during a civil war between the Chernarussian government and communist revolutionaries, and follows escalating tensions when the United States Marine Corps is deployed to defeat the rebels.
Camp Edwards is a United States military training installation located in western Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts. It was named after Major General Clarence Edwards, commander of the 26th Division in World War I. The base is currently the home of portions of the 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation Regiment, of the Massachusetts Army National Guard.
The Marine Corps Security Force Regiment is a dedicated security and anti-terrorism unit of the United States Marine Corps. It provides security forces to guard high-value naval installations, most notably those containing nuclear vessels and weapons. It also provides Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Teams (FAST) and Recapture Tactics Teams (RTT). Marines who complete Security Forces training are assigned a secondary Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) of 8152, while instructors can earn 8153.
Toy Soldiers is a 1991 American action film directed by Daniel Petrie Jr., with a screenplay by Petrie and David Koepp. It stars Sean Astin, Wil Wheaton, Louis Gossett Jr., Andrew Divoff, Mason Adams and Denholm Elliott.
Lone Soldier is an action-adventure/shooter video game developed by British studio Tempest Software for the PlayStation. The game was released in January 1996 in Europe and on 4 October 1996 in Japan. The game features a single playable main character, a lone soldier armed with various weapons, with the goal of killing enemy forces to progress, eventually defeating terrorist leaders and an intergalactic alien army. The game has a third person view, with the player battling through traditional war settings such as jungle, canyon and city, and also a more futuristic space environment.
