Conflits, géopolitique · Conflits revue de géopolitique

Roger Trinquier : le penseur de la guerre révolutionnaire - Daniel Dory

·27 min·2 clips

Daniel Dory discusses his book on Colonel Roger Trinquier's unpublished text about modern war and counter-insurgency theory.

1. Conflits, a French geopolitics magazine, interviews terrorism researcher Daniel Dory about his book co-authored with historian Marie-Danielle de Melas: 'Terrorism and Counter-insurrection,' featuring an unpublished original text by Roger Trinquier. 2. Daniel Dory is a terrorism and security researcher who has taught at La Rochelle University, and contributes bibliographic reviews to the journal Global Security; his co-author Marie-Danielle de Melas is a military historian who located the original unpublished version of Trinquier's manuscript. 3. The episode's framing argument is that Trinquier is one of the great original theorists of counter-insurgency — alongside Galula and Lacheroy — and that his thought remains applicable to contemporary security challenges including suburban riots and modern terrorism. 4. Roger Trinquier is described as a literary-minded parachutist officer whose wife was a medical professional; he spent World War II in China rather than the French Resistance, giving him an unusual Asia-Pacific perspective among officers of his generation. 5. In Indochina, Trinquier participated in the GCMA (Groupement de Commandos Mixtes Aéroportés), an early special forces unit that recruited local partisan fighters from ethnic minority tribes to operate behind Viet Minh lines — a 'well-made chess game' that eventually failed as General Giap's forces, supported by Chinese military aid, absorbed the local guerrilla networks. 6. During the Battle of Algiers, Trinquier commanded parachutist detachments; Dory clarifies he was not involved in interrogation units, distinguishing him from officers associated with the use of torture. 7. The unpublished original version of Trinquier's 'Modern War' was found by de Melas in the French army archives, most likely at Vincennes, and differs from the published version, providing new insight into how the doctrine was developed. 8. Trinquier's four counter-insurgency principles, as enumerated by Dory: know the terrain and language (or find someone who does); census the population immediately on arrival ('encircle the village, know who lives where'); control movement flows through checkpoints; and win the population through services, not just repression. 9. The quadrillage technique — systematic grid mapping of urban neighborhoods for population control — is attributed to Trinquier's influence in the Casbah of Algiers, initially applied by geography students before military units took over. 10. The US doctrine of civil-military services was, per Dory, a later formalization of Trinquier's principle of winning the population through service provision rather than pure military force. 11. There were two channels through which French counter-insurgency thought entered US military doctrine: the Galula channel (RAND Corporation publication in the 1970s leading to a US Army manual at the School of the Americas), and a separate Argentine channel involving OAS veterans who emigrated to South America in the early 1960s. 12. Galula is described as less interesting than Trinquier but more accessible because he published in English; very few American officers read French, limiting Trinquier's direct influence. 13. General Petraeus rediscovered both Trinquier and Galula in Iraq in 2008, assigned their translated works to West Point cadets, and briefly revived counter-insurgency doctrine — which was then abandoned when the US withdrew from Iraq in 2011 and progressively reduced in Afghanistan until the 2021 withdrawal. 14. Dory characterizes counter-insurgency doctrine as a 'sea serpent' that resurfaces only when military necessity makes it unavoidable, and is then submerged again when the crisis passes. 15. Dory argues Trinquier's principles apply directly to analyzing the 2023 French suburban riots following the killing of Naël — a 2.5-week episode of controlled violence that ended abruptly when 'the big brothers who had the Kalashnikovs decided that it was ruining business,' demonstrating that the violence had a strategic logic and was subject to command and control. 16. Trinquier's limitation, per Dory, is that his doctrine is purely technical-security focused and does not account for the long-term political consequences of repressive tactics — a gap the second Intifada forced the field to recognize, when children who threw stones in the first Intifada became suicide bombers in the second. 17. The episode briefly covers the academic field of terrorism studies: three major English-language journals (Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Perspectives on Terrorism) and France's Global Security journal. 18. Dory describes France's terrorism research community as lacking critical mass — too few specialists to sustain a dedicated journal — and criticizes the predominance of 'polemic stratum' commentary (explaining terrorism is bad) over 'scientific stratum' analysis (studying violent communication as a technique). 19. Specialists in military history, counter-insurgency theory, French colonial warfare, or contemporary European security challenges will find the Trinquier framework and Dory's application of it to modern French urban unrest directly useful. 20. Listeners expecting policy recommendations or current operational details will find the episode primarily historical and theoretical in orientation.

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