Lucien Poirier (1918 – 10 January 2013) was a

general A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

of the

French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (, , ), is the principal Army, land warfare force of France, and the largest component of the French Armed Forces; it is responsible to the Government of France, alongside the French Navy, Fren ...

and a theoretician of

nuclear deterrence Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy d ...

Military career

Poirier began his military service at the beginning of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, after graduating from Special Military School of Saint-Cyr, and he was imprisoned in Germany until 1945. After the war, Poirier continued in the military with the

French Foreign Legion The French Foreign Legion (, also known simply as , "the Legion") is a corps of the French Army created to allow List of militaries that recruit foreigners, foreign nationals into French service. The Legion was founded in 1831 and today consis ...

(beginning as a Captain) in conflicts in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

(

First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally as the French-Indochina War) was fought between French Fourth Republic, France and Việ ...

) and

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

(

Algerian War The Algerian War (also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence) ''; '' (and sometimes in Algeria as the ''War of 1 November'') was an armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (Algeri ...

). Poirier took part in the design of the French doctrine for use of nuclear weapons, the so-called "weak-to-strong strategy" (''statégie du faible au fort''), intended to deter the much stronger

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

from invading France and Europe.

Academic career

Poirier began to write while in the French Army in 1968. After being promoted to General in 1974, he retired to become an academic specializing in military strategy at Université de Paris (now Pantheon-Sorbonne University l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Pantheon-Sorbonne University à l’Ecole normale supérieure (ENS) and

École nationale d'administration The (; ENA; ) was a French ''grande école'', created in 1945 by the then Provisional Government of the French Republic, provisional chief of government Charles de Gaulle and principal co-author of the Constitution of France, 1958 Constitution M ...

(ENA). Poirier authored several books on the subject of military strategy and nuclear deterrence: * ''Des stratégies nucléaires'', Paris Hachette, 1977. * ''Essais de stratégie théorique'', Institut de stratégie comparée, 1982. * ''Stratégies nucléaires'', Bruxelles, Complexe, 1988. * ''La Crise des fondements'', Paris, ISC/Economica, 1994. * ''La réserve et l'attente : l'avenir des armes nucléaires françaises'', with François Géré, Economica, Paris, 2001, 329 pp.

Later life

Porier remained active into his 90s and died on 9 or 10 January 2013. He was 94.

References

External links

*
''Lucien Poirier : "je crois en la vertu rationalisante de l'atome"''
interview for ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

'' French generals 1918 births 2013 deaths French military writers French military personnel of World War II French male non-fiction writers Nuclear history of France {{france-mil-bio-stub