France’s Air and Space Force has deliberately raised the realism and intensity of its combat training with the execution of Exercise Topaze, a large-scale operational drill centred on Rafale multirole fighters armed with SCALP cruise missiles. Conducted on January 27, 2026, the exercise reflects Paris’s assessment that future European conflicts will likely involve peer-level adversaries equipped with advanced long-range strike systems, drone swarms, and sophisticated capabilities to disrupt and disable airbases—conditions increasingly associated with Russia’s way of war.
Topaze unfolded against the backdrop of the continuing war in Ukraine, a conflict that has profoundly reshaped NATO thinking about airpower survivability. Sustained Russian missile, drone, and aerospace strikes against Ukrainian air infrastructure have demonstrated that even well-prepared forces face extreme vulnerability if they cannot disperse rapidly, regenerate combat power, and retaliate under pressure. French defence planners framed Topaze as a direct response to what senior commanders describe as the return of “high-intensity warfare” as the dominant paradigm of state-on-state conflict in Europe.
General Pierre Gaudillière, Commander of the Fighter Aviation Air Brigade, was explicit about the exercise’s purpose. “We never train for nothing and since high-intensity warfare is raging on all fronts…it is in response to this kind of operational requirement that we are doing this exercise,” he said. The statement underlined that Topaze was not conceived as a routine training cycle, but as a stress test designed to confront aircrews and support personnel with the tempo, uncertainty, and psychological strain expected in a modern peer conflict.
At the core of the exercise was the integration of SCALP cruise missile strike simulations into a compressed dispersal-and-counterattack timeline. By doing so, France signalled that it views long-range precision strike not merely as a strategic option reserved for exceptional circumstances, but as an essential operational tool for rapidly degrading an adversary’s command structure, airpower, and logistics after an attempted first strike. This emphasis aligns closely with lessons emerging from Ukraine, where the ability to strike deep while denying the enemy effective retaliation has proven decisive.
The French Air and Space Force summarised Topaze’s operational philosophy in stark terms: “Collective strength, squadron spirit, to act quickly, everywhere. With agility, efficiency, and resilience.” The formulation closely mirrors NATO’s evolving focus on distributed air operations and agile combat employment, concepts intended to ensure that airpower remains viable even when traditional basing and command arrangements are under sustained attack.
For those involved, the exercise imposed significant human and organisational strain. Captain Armand, a Rafale pilot who took part in Topaze, described the scenario as deliberately punishing. “The goal is to be taken by surprise. The deployment at very short notice, followed by a huge team effort to configure the aircraft as quickly as possible and prepare ourselves as best we could for this mission under severe time constraints, was the hardest part,” he said. His comments highlighted that modern air warfare is as much a test of endurance, coordination, and decision-making as it is of technology.
Strategically, Topaze represents a calculated demonstration that France intends to retain credible autonomous strike options within NATO. By rehearsing complex long-range strike operations under degraded conditions, Paris reinforced deterrence messaging toward Moscow while simultaneously reassuring European allies that France can sustain combat operations even if fixed bases are targeted and persistent enemy pressure degrades normal operating conditions.
The deliberate framing of the simulated adversary as “Russia-like,” rather than an abstract or fictional threat, was particularly telling. It reflects France’s recognition that the operational lessons emerging from Ukraine are not hypothetical but directly applicable to Western air forces. Chief among these lessons is the vulnerability of fixed installations and the necessity of rapid, flexible, and lethal response capabilities if airpower is to survive the opening phases of a high-intensity conflict.
By placing these messages at the heart of Topaze, France positioned the exercise as both a military rehearsal and a strategic communication event. It was aimed not only at improving operational readiness, but also at shaping adversary perceptions, strengthening alliance confidence, and preparing domestic audiences for the realities of contemporary air warfare.
France’s decision to conduct Exercise Topaze must also be understood within the broader transformation of Europe’s security architecture since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That war has demonstrated that long-range strike, airbase suppression, and drone saturation are no longer exceptional tactics, but central features of modern state-on-state conflict. As a result, European air forces are being forced to reassess assumptions that once prioritised expeditionary operations against lightly defended opponents.
The French Air and Space Force explicitly structured Topaze around a surprise-attack scenario, reflecting the operational reality observed in Ukraine. Russian forces repeatedly sought to paralyse Ukrainian aviation by targeting runways, fuel depots, command centres, and hardened aircraft shelters with a mix of missiles and unmanned systems. In response, Ukrainian survivability depended heavily on dispersal, mobility, and rapid regeneration—principles France sought to test and internalise through Topaze.
Rafale squadrons were given just seven hours’ notice to evacuate and redeploy, a constraint designed to test not only tactical responsiveness but also command-and-control resilience, logistics under stress, and the ability of aircrews and technicians to sustain combat readiness in austere and improvised environments. This approach directly addressed a vulnerability exposed by the Ukraine conflict: air forces that cannot disperse quickly risk losing combat power before they can meaningfully influence the fight, regardless of how advanced their aircraft may be.
France’s emphasis on decentralised operations reflects a doctrinal shift toward agile combat employment, in which survivability is achieved through mobility and unpredictability rather than reliance on hardened infrastructure alone. The inclusion of SCALP strike profiles within this compressed timeline further underscored France’s belief that deterrence credibility depends on demonstrating the ability to retaliate decisively even after absorbing an initial blow—a concept central to both conventional and nuclear deterrence theory.
This logic echoes earlier French signalling exercises, including long-range Rafale missions involving the ASMP-A nuclear missile, reinforcing continuity in Paris’s strategic messaging. France has long argued that Europe cannot outsource its security assumptions, and Topaze served as a practical demonstration of that belief.
The geopolitical context of the exercise also aligns with France’s broader push for European strategic autonomy. Paris has increasingly argued that Europe must possess independent strike, intelligence, and command capabilities capable of operating even if U.S. forces are heavily committed elsewhere. In this sense, Topaze functioned as a declaration that France intends to remain a first-tier airpower capable of shaping outcomes in a deteriorating security environment.
Operationally, Topaze began with a simulated enemy attack warning at Mont-de-Marsan airbase, forcing the rapid evacuation of aircraft, personnel, and critical equipment. Approximately 20 Rafale fighters from the 30th Fighter Wing, supported by between 140 and 145 personnel, were dispersed across four military installations—Cognac, Cazaux, Bordeaux—and the civilian airport at Clermont-Ferrand. The inclusion of a civilian facility deliberately tested France’s ability to integrate non-military infrastructure into wartime air operations.
This dispersal phase closely mirrored practices observed in Ukraine, where both Russian and Ukrainian forces have relied on redundancy and civilian facilities to mitigate the vulnerability of fixed bases. Once redeployed, French technical teams worked through the night to inspect, service, and reconfigure aircraft. Simulated combat damage, system failures, and logistics disruptions were introduced to test maintenance resilience under sustained operational stress.
Rafales were configured with SCALP cruise missiles, external fuel tanks, MICA infrared-guided air-to-air missiles, and Meteor beyond-visual-range missiles. The loadout reflected a realistic balance between deep-strike capability and self-protection against enemy interceptors. The use of three external fuel tanks alongside two SCALP missiles extended the simulated combat radius to roughly 1,500 kilometres, theoretically enabling strikes against targets as distant as Belarus from central France. This range highlighted the strategic reach of France’s conventional strike assets.
The culminating phase of Topaze involved electronically simulated SCALP launches against enemy aircraft and infrastructure. Mission planning, targeting, programming, and release procedures were fully rehearsed without expending live munitions. Given that each SCALP missile costs approximately €850,000, simulation provided a cost-effective way to train at scale while preserving wartime stockpiles.
Through this sequence, Topaze validated France’s ability to transition rapidly from defensive dispersal to offensive retaliation—an ability increasingly recognised as decisive in high-intensity warfare.
The Dassault Rafale remains the backbone of France’s tactical airpower. Its combination of multirole flexibility, advanced sensor fusion, and robust electronic warfare capabilities makes it particularly suited to contested environments. Powered by twin Snecma M88-2 engines, the Rafale can reach speeds of Mach 1.8 and has a combat radius exceeding 1,000 kilometres, extended further with external fuel tanks.
The aircraft’s RBE2 AESA radar provides long-range detection and tracking beyond 200 kilometres, while the SPECTRA electronic warfare suite offers radar warning, jamming, decoying, and threat geolocation. Together, these systems significantly enhance survivability against modern integrated air defence networks.
The SCALP-EG cruise missile—known internationally as Storm Shadow—is among Europe’s most sophisticated conventional standoff weapons. Weighing about 1,300 kilograms and carrying a 450-kilogram BROACH bunker-busting warhead, it combines GPS and inertial navigation with infrared terminal guidance to achieve metre-level accuracy. With a range of up to 300 kilometres and low-altitude terrain-following flight profiles, SCALP allows Rafales to strike heavily defended targets without entering lethal engagement zones.
Exercise Topaze sends a clear strategic signal to Russia that France possesses both the technical means and operational doctrine to survive an initial attack and respond with precision strikes against critical infrastructure. By rehearsing dispersed basing and long-range retaliation, France directly counters Russian reliance on systems such as Iskander ballistic missiles and Kinzhal hypersonic weapons intended to cripple airpower early in a conflict.
For NATO, the exercise strengthens collective deterrence by demonstrating that European air forces can deliver meaningful strike effects even under degraded conditions, reducing dependence on U.S. assets in the opening stages of a war. It also reinforces France’s role as a key security provider, particularly on NATO’s eastern flank, where French Rafales have participated in air-policing and reassurance missions.
Beyond Europe, Topaze has wider implications. France’s strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific and Rafale exports to countries such as India, Indonesia, and Qatar mean that lessons from the exercise resonate globally. The demonstrated relevance of SCALP-type standoff weapons also underscores their importance in countering anti-access strategies in regions like the South China Sea.
While Moscow routinely criticises NATO exercises as provocative, France argues that credible deterrence reduces the risk of miscalculation. In that sense, Topaze stands as both a military rehearsal and a strategic statement of intent.
The exercise also revealed challenges. Operating from dispersed and civilian locations under severe time pressure exposed logistical and organisational friction points that French planners will need to address. Future iterations are expected to add complexity, including cyber and space disruptions, joint NATO participation, and potentially live-fire elements.
Nevertheless, Topaze demonstrates France’s determination to absorb the harsh lessons of Ukraine and translate them into actionable capability. It confirms that Rafale and SCALP will remain central to France’s deterrence posture well into the future, ensuring that French airpower remains relevant in an era defined by speed, precision, and resilience.
