It can be dangerous to have leaders with no experience of war – as Macron's spat with his military chief shows

As David Cameron found when he was considering intervention in Libya, those who have experienced, or at least know about war, are generally warier about the prospect than those who have not, and more conservative in their assessment of what can be achieved

Emmanuel Macron with his chief of defence staff General Pierre de Villiers at the Bastille Day parade in Paris last week. De Villiers resigned days later (EPA)

It is the first serious glitch in Emmanuel Macron’s fabled rise to the French presidency. Just days after the new President rode alongside the head of the armed forces in the Bastille Day parade, General Pierre de Villiers resigned, saying – with quite brutal directness – that the model of the armed forces, as envisaged, would not “guarantee the protection of France”. The next day, he strode out of the defence ministry to applause from a guard of honour. The sequence was shown on the chief of staff’s Twitter feed, with a one-word caption: “Merci”.

With hindsight, Macron may accept that he could have acted differently. Having taken umbrage at confidential criticisms the general had made of defence cuts, he then gave de Villiers a very public dressing down – at the top brass’s summer party, no less. This, almost as much as the unexpected reductions in spending on military procurement, seems to have convinced the five-star general his time was up.

A lot could be said about the particular place and culture of the military in France. When I worked in Paris in the late 1990s, we rented a flat from the family of a senior naval officer, and gained a glimpse of that world. Last month, I was at a conference in Lille discussing the prospects for European defence. To say that sections of the military had reservations about Macron would be kind. There was both disapproval and suspicion, stemming in part – but not only – from disparaging remarks Macron had made about the French role in Algeria, which he had condemned during the election campaign as “a crime against humanity”.

The dispute between the young President and a chief of staff old enough to be his father, however, illustrates a much broader point, and one that is not unique to France. As the generations that fought or were called up for military service pass out of public life, the understanding that was once assumed between military and civilian is also receding into history. Clashes such as that which cost De Villiers his job have been seen also in the United States and here in the UK.

In the throes of quarrel with his general, Emmanuel Macron warned in no uncertain terms: “I’m the boss.” If there is a disagreement, he told a Sunday paper, “it’s the chief of defence staff who changes his position.” Does that not sound familiar, in tone if not in precise substance? Remember David Cameron’s paraphrased remarks to military chiefs apparently unhappy with the 2011 Libya operations: “You do the fighting; I’ll do the talking.”

Surprisingly, perhaps, for someone who gave an impression of being able to rub along with most people, David Cameron seemed to have an unusually tetchy relationship with his top brass. This may have been in part because the military chiefs had expected more generosity from a Conservative prime minister, and perhaps more respect for medals and braid.

If this is so, however, it was a misjudgement. Cameron, like most of his peers, had no history of involvement with the military, no family tradition, no military service: insofar as he had served abroad, it was on short-term voluntary aid projects. He had never experienced the discipline of military service or the exigencies of war. His path and that of the military had simply not crossed; he saw the military as there to do a job.

Similar generational and cultural dissonance has been evident in the United States, with the added complicating factor of Vietnam. Both Bill Clinton and George W Bush ran into trouble, during their campaigns and their presidencies, for alleged draft-dodging. Clinton was always viewed with suspicion by the military establishment. His campaign to allow gay people to serve openly in the US armed forces hardly helped him, as it was opposed by many in the top brass. The Monica Lewinsky affair suggested a personal laxness many abhorred.

Barack Obama – too young to have been drafted for Vietnam and far too young for the Second World War – also had his problems with the military. Some argue that his main fault was timidity in his use of armed force, Syria being the prime example. I disagree. Early on, as Obama himself recognised, his problem was rather too much regard for his top brass, in the figure of General David Petraeus, who persuaded him to doubt his own judgement on how and where to deploy troops. More profoundly, though, this was a fault born largely of unfamiliarity. It was only in his second term that he brought John Kerry – who had an honourable military record – into his administration as Secretary of State.

George W Bush at least had a father who had not only been President, but served in the Second World War with distinction. That, and his quasi-aristocratic confidence, gave Bush Jr an easier entrée than Clinton or Obama with the officer class. But his lack of combat experience highlights something else that this younger generation of politicians share.

Tony Blair was the first UK prime minister too young to have fought or done national service. But he appears to have shared with George W Bush a belief that there was no point in having a world-class military if you did not use it. Significantly, perhaps, the European leader most fiercely opposed to the Iraq War was Jacques Chirac, who cited his experience as a young conscript in Algeria. The cheerleaders, Blair and Bush, also faced misgivings on the part of their respective military and diplomatic establishments, but ploughed ahead anyway.

As David Cameron found when he was considering intervention in Libya, those who have experienced, or at least know about, war are generally warier about the prospect than those who have not, and more conservative in their assessment of what can be achieved. This time, though, France proved an enthusiastic ally, led now by Nicolas Sarkozy, who was, like Blair and Cameron, a leader too young to have experienced war.

It is early days for Macron’s presidency – far too early to judge the implications for his presidency of his early spat with the top brass. What should be clear, though, is that even in the UK and France, with their proud, if different, military traditions, the military and civilian worlds have been growing apart, and fine words about restoring the military covenant will not be enough to bring them back together. Might one remedy be a compulsory new military/civilian service? Or is this widening divide merely another sign that the 20th-century order is passing, and the new century will find its own solutions?