Gérard Chaliand

He worked autonomously throughout his career, unconstrained by the perspectives of national governments and policy institutes. He is also a published poet.

Gérard Chaliand studied at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, Paris Descartes University and Lycée Henri-IV. The recorded working language is French and English. The field of work recorded is geostrategy, geopolitics and international relations. Employment is recorded with École nationale d'administration, École supérieure de guerre and Long Cours. Distinctions recorded are prix du meilleur livre géopolitique, Castex Prize, Prix du Maréchal-Foch and Vauban Prize.

• Born — 15 February 1934 • Birthplace — Etterbeek, Belgium • Died — 20 August 2025 • Place of death — Paris, France • Education — Sorbonne University

Chaliand was born Gérard Tchalian in Etterbeek, Brussels region, Belgium, on 15 February 1934, to Armenian parents and raised in Paris. He attended the Lycée Henri IV in the Latin Quarter and spent nearly a year in London and the United Kingdom. He travelled North Africa before entering the School of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (INALCO) in Paris, where his studies focused on the history and culture of non-western societies. During his youth he hitchhiked across North Africa, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India. He published his first book of poetry (La Marche Têtue, Gallimard) in 1959. In 1960 he joined the clandestine struggle for Algerian Independence. After the Algerian independence, he worked during 1963–64 as an editor at the Revolution Africaine, a weekly in Algiers where he met many of the leaders of the national liberation movements of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. He received his PhD from Sorbonne University in Paris in 1975. His dissertation Mythes révolutionnaires du tiers monde, was published in 1976 and quickly translated into English: Revolution in the Third World, Myths and Prospects, Viking Press, Penguin Books, New York, 1977. Chaliand was a participant-observer in various guerrilla conflicts: • Guinea Bissau, 1966 • North Vietnam, 1967 • Colombia, 1968/91 • Palestine/Israel, 1969/70/75/ 98/99 • Eritrea, 1977/91 • Afghanistan, 1980/82/2006-2012 • Iranian Kurdistan, 1980 • Salvador, 1982 • Angola, 1985 • Peru, 1985 • Philippines, 1987 • Nagorno-Karabakh, 1993 • Georgia (Ossetia), 1994/2006/08 • Burma, 1990/95 • Kashmir, 1999 • Sri Lanka, 1987/99/2007 • Iraqi Kurdistan, 1999-2008/2012-2015 • Iraq, 2003–2008 • Syria, 2014 He conducted field studies for over four decades in: • Asia/Pacific • Caucasus and Central Asia • Central and South America • Middle East • Northern Africa • Russia • South and South East Asia • West, East and Southern Africa

Chaliand was Director of the European Centre for the Studies of Conflicts (Foundation for Strategic Research), Paris from 1997 to 2000. He was an independent adviser to the Centre for Analysis and Planning of the French Foreign Ministry from 1983 to 1994. Chaliand founded and was the Director of Minority Rights Group (France), from 1978 to 1987. He was the initiator of the session of the Permanent People's Tribunal dedicated to the genocide of the Armenian people whose jury comprised three Nobel Prize winners, including Sean Mc Bride, Founder of Amnesty International, and which took place at the Sorbonne and saw the sentence towards the Turkish state delivered to the National Assembly. In addition, Chaliand undertook several maritime expeditions aboard La Boudeuse (goélette), a 1913-built three mast ship.

Chaliand died in Paris on 20 August 2025, at the age of 91.

• L'Algérie est-elle socialiste?, Maspéro, 1964 • Où va l’Afrique du Sud?, Calmann-Lévy, 1986 • Etat de crise, vers les nouveaux équilibres mondiaux (avec J. Minces), Seuil, 1993 • Voyage dans le demi-siècle (avec Jean Lacouture), Complexe, 2001 • America is back, les nouveaux Césars du Pentagone, (avec Arnaud Blin), Bayard, 2003 • L'Amérique en guerre, Irak-Afghanistan, Editions du Rocher, 2007 • L'Impasse afghane, Éditions de l’Aube, 2011 • Vers un nouvel ordre du monde (avec Michel Jan), Le Seuil, 2013 • De l’Esprit d’aventure (avec P. Franceschi et J.C. Guilbert), J’ai lu, Arthaud, J’ai lu, 2011 • Le Regard du singe (avec Patrice Franceschi) Seuil 2014

• Atlas du nucléaire civil et militaire (avec Michel Jan), Payot, 1993 • Dictionnaire de stratégie militaire (avec Arnaud Blin), Perrin, 1998 • Les Guerres irrégulières, Folio Gallimard, 2008 • Le Nouvel Art de la guerre, l'Archipel, 2007, Pocket 2009

• Atlas de la découverte du monde (avec J-P. Rageau), Fayard, 1984 • Atlas politique du XXème siècle (avec J-P. Rageau), Seuil, 1987 • Atlas des Européens (avec J-P. Rageau), Fayard, 1989 • Atlas des empires. De Baylone à la Russie Soviétique (avec JP Rageau), Payot, 1993 • Atlas historique des migrations (avec M. Jan et J-P. Rageau), Seuil, 1994 • Atlas historique du monde méditerranéen (avec J-P. Rageau) Payot, 1995 • Atlas de l’Asie orientale (avec M. Jan et J-P. Rageau), Seuil, 1997 • Atlas du millénaire, la mort des empires, 1900-2015 (avec J-P. Rageau), Hachette, 1998 • Atlas du nouvel ordre mondial, Laffont, 2003 • Géopolitique des empires, des pharaons à l'Imperium américain, (avec J-P. Rageau) Arthaud, 2010, Flammarion 2014

• Les Bâtisseurs d'histoire, Arléa, 1995, Edition augmentée, Agora 2005, Magellan, 2012 • 2000 ans de chrétientés, (avec S. Mousset), Odile Jacob, 2000, 2003 • L'Héritage occidental, (avec S. Mousset), Odile Jacob, 2002, 2015

• Mémoire de ma mémoire, Julliard, 2003 • Guérillas, du Vietnam à l’Irak, Hachette Pluriel, 2008 • La Pointe du couteau. Mémoires, Robert Laffont, 2011

• Los Angeles, Naissance d’un Mythe, Stock, 1991. • Aux confins de l’Eldorado, Le Seuil, 2006 • Voyages dans 40 ans de guérillas, Lignes de repères, 2006. • Le Guide du voyageur autour du monde (avec S. Mousset) Odile Jacob, 2007 Chaliand also published three plays, four books for children and translations of Kautiliya's Arthashastra (book seven), Guevara's La guerra de guerrillas, and a book of popular Turkish poetry (bilingual).