“Plan A and Failed Regime Change Now It Is Macron and Plan B”
“Is the Ukraine War about to start a new phase?”
French President Emmanuel Macron broached the subject to European representatives in February 2024 for European NATO countries to be willing to send combat troops to Ukraine. President Macron has been passionately arguing that Russia should not be allowed to win in Ukraine because if Ukraine loses, all of Europe is at risk. A more sober assessment would say that the statement of President Macron is hyperbole but there is a kernel of truth in his words. Europe and the United States have put their international reputations on the line with promises of a Russian defeat. A loss in Ukraine would be devastating to the future of Western promises and deterrence and could lead to a wider conflict that could be viewed as a war of redemption, or a loss in Ukraine could be the end of the collective experiments of the European Union and NATO and splinter the organizations and leave Europe fragmented and vulnerable to military, economic or internal threats. Is the war in Ukraine about to enter a new phase with all these risks?
There were plenty of steps and missteps that led to the war in Ukraine (read Events Leading to the Ukraine War) that were committed by both the West, Russia and Ukraine. Once the war started, the West took the appropriate steps by flowing in supplies of crew launched anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons that was able to blunt the initial Russian onslaught. To the surprise of most observers, the infusion of Western weapons, which was much less than what was given to the Afghanistan government that collapsed as fast as the U.S. withdrew from the country, had stopped the Russians.
The enthusiasm of the Ukraine defense led to ever increasing amounts of military aid and as the more aid arrived the more the Ukrainians were able to frustrate the Russian and during the spring offensive was able to recapture large amounts of Ukrainian territory. The West was also turning the screws on Russia economically with a series of what was expected to be devastating sanctions. The West’s apparent goal was to give the Ukrainians the weapons and support they needed to stay in the war, and economic sanctions would place pressure and burdens on the Russian government and oligarchs that would force Russian President Vladimir Putin from office and lead to the end of the war. The West’s goal was regime change in Russia, and Ukraine’s goal was battlefield victory and reclaim lost territory of 2014 and 2022.
The West did not have a sufficient contingency plan if Putin stayed in power and if Ukraine was at best in a stalemated position in the war. The demographic reality of Ukraine when compared to Russia meant that an absolute military defeat of Russia was highly unlikely. Russia has a GDP that is nearly ten times the size of Ukraine’s and a population of nearly three and half times the size. The West could cover portions of the GDP gap by large amounts of economic aid, but what the West could not do is make up for the manpower discrepancy. More lethal weapons could make up part of it, but not all of it, so in the end, the West was putting too much reliance on a country that was heavily outmanned. At some point, that stark reality was going to have to be dealt with by the Western powers who had bet so much of their reputations on a Ukrainian victory.
The West cannot lose because so much of their reputation was tied into a flawed war strategy with an ally in Ukraine that was not demographically capable to win the war if regime change in Russia did not happen. The French president in February finally said the quiet part that needed to be said out loud and stated that Europe was in danger and that the NATO European countries should discuss sending their troops to Ukraine. There had been other proposals of sending NATO troops to Ukraine (See Former NATO Secretary Suggestion), and there are different ideas of what NATO troops could do in Ukraine without directly entering combat against Russia. However, President Macron’s suggestion does not seek combat with the Russians but does not seek to avoid it either.
In fact, President Macron has criticized his Western peers who publicly stated that they would not seek combat with the Russian with any aid they provided. This also extended into requirements that any Western weapon that was employed by the Ukrainians would not be used against Russian territory. Macron stated that no such restrictions should be required on either the use of weapons or more controversially the deployment of soldiers to Ukraine. As of last week, Macron had not backed down from his suggestion of sending European troops to Ukraine. It was reported by the Asia Times on Saturday May 4th, 2024 that the first 100 soldiers from the French Foreign Legion had arrived in Ukraine to support the Ukraine 54th Independent Mechanized Brigade in the Donetsk region with the initial number to be increased to 1,500. The mission of the soldiers is to support operations in the Donbas with expertise in surveillance and artillery.
As of the date of this writing (May 5, 2024) there is no more substantiation of this report, nor any denials by the French government either. It was announced in April that the French would send 1,500 soldiers to Ukraine, so the only real surprise is that the deployment finally started. This deployment also corresponds with President Macron’s announcement last week that France would send more troops to Ukraine under two conditions. One is if the Russians broke through the Ukraine lines and two if the Ukraine government formally asked for French assistance. This request from Zelensky would not be a foregone conclusion because much of his argument for more Western aid is that Ukraine was not asking for other countries to fight for them but to give them the arms. A request for foreign troops to intervene by Ukraine will not have universal support in some parts of the Western alliance.
The deployment of French troops, which is a NATO country, is outside of NATO command and rules. NATO requires unanimous consent for such a deployment to occur under NATO auspices and that did not occur. If French troops are attacked by Russians, there is no requirement for NATO to respond. If the French need assistance, there might be other NATO countries that join France and again this would not be under NATO. The question that has not been answered is if France decides to attack Russian territory from Ukraine, and the Russians respond with an attack of their own on France, would that require a NATO response? The answer seems to be “yes” though France was acting outside of NATO when it initiated events that led to an attack on its homeland. How many countries within NATO would refuse to follow the invocation of Article 5 due to what they believe is a reckless action of France to start a war that the alliance did not vote to support in the first place? This action by France, could inadvertently create an event that could crumble NATO because the core tenet of Article 5 would become inert.
President Macron has been active in providing ideas to Europe on not only sending troops to Ukraine, but also about collective defense, regulatory and trade overhauls in the EU, accepting the role of hard power as an EU tool among other things, in what is the leveraging of the EU into an organization that is a tool for Gallic interests. The idea of troops to Ukraine is the harsh Realpolitik of the demographic challenges of the West committing so much of their reputation on what they would have hoped as a triumph of Western values.
The Plan A was for the West that was led by the U.S., U.K. and Germany to have the war lead to regime change and a new era in Russia, but when that failed, the best option was to seek a peace and an offramp to end the war. Plan B is being carried by Macron that has the realistic message that if this war is to continue, it cannot continue as it did before because Ukraine does not have the manpower to attain victory. Nor does it have the time or space to reform into a well-armed and well-trained Western style military while it is under attack.
President Macron presents a unique vision for the EU under the French banner (See the The Macron Gambit) but the ongoing war in Ukraine and the failure of the original Western war aims created an opportunity for Macron to reshape Europe and the EU. However, he will have an immensely hard time to accomplish those goals unless the Ukraine war is dealt with in a successful manner that is either a military victory, peace treaty, or at least an armistice. The easy victory of regime change is gone, and now there are just hard choices with great risk. The easiest of the hard choices at this time is seek peace and preserve what all that he wants to reform in Europe which, will be in a time of peace, won’t be easy to accomplish either.
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References:
https://tass.com/politics/1769801/amp
https://en.apa.az/europe/france-sends-combat-troops-to-ukraine-battlefront-436047
https://asiatimes.com/2024/05/france-sends-combat-troops-to-ukraine-battlefront/