ABSTRACT
This criterion of power had to be met by the state alone with its national resources. The ideal of strategic independence is to make the means of defence completely self-sufficient, an ideal that can be less and less easily achieved in the modern period, particularly for states whose territorial sovereignty is scattered outside the home country as a result of colonial expansion. Immediately prior to the First World War, France was in this position. It attempted to remedy this weakness by constructing a strategic system that functioned on several complementary levels, ranging from the alliance with Russia to a policy of seduction, so discreet as to be almost nonexistent in relation to Switzerland, but which with Great Britain took the form of an active entente cordiale.
