The current French doctrine envisions two overarching operational modes, the coercion mode and violence-mastering mode. The concept of violence mastering has been developed to deal with the post-Cold War environment.
This study analyzes the current state of the French Army doctrinal development of armor employment in the violence-mastering mode in the urban environment and compare it to the lessons learned from recent operations in Somalia, Chechnya, Israel and the Balkans as well as trends for future operations. It focuses more specifically on operations involving the control of violent and intrumentalized crowds.
It concludes that a successful approach of violence mastering operations will require a more dynamic, more integrated, and more diverse role for armor elements. In turn, those requirements will affect the current operational doctrine and French armor force development.
