How military forecasting projects can promote exceptionalist militarism: The French Red Team project and the securitization of the future

Abstract This article examines the puzzle of the French Red Team: how to make sense of the mediatization of a military threat forecasting project that is officially aimed at promoting internal innovation? Building a conceptual bridge between the civil–military relations scholarship and securitization theory, the article argues that the project should be understood as a securitizing movement with the aim of securitizing future threats to the integrity of the nation-state and thus justifying exceptionalist militarism in the present. A discourse analysis reveals how the project incorporates sedimentary discourses in contemporary French civil–military relations, constructing a future narrative in which the armed forces are the ultimate protector of the integrity of the nation-state, as civilian authorities are unable to fulfil this role. The performativity of this securitizing move can be illustrated with regard to its reception by mainstream French media, which portray the project scenarios as credible narratives of future threats due to the perceived independent nature of the mobilized artistic and scientific knowledge. The article thus contributes to an emerging research agenda that takes military institutions more seriously as securitizing actors, including via apparently apolitical, technocratic forecasting projects.