French President Emmanuel Macron gave a very defiant speech to the French Armed Forces yesterday saying that “To remain free, one must be feared. To be feared, one must be powerful.” He also remarked that France is stepping up in support of Ukraine as it fills the gap left by the US in terms of arms supplies and also intelligence: France he said is now supplying with two-thirds of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence.
France, with up to 264,000 active military personnel, is Europe’s major military power: it has nuclear-capabilities, navy, air-force and armed forces that have sophisticated and technical capabilities that can dominated the Russian Army. This is all well-known by everyone including by Russia itself which is very much aware of its massive military limitations when contrasted with Europe: hence why it is persistently threatening with nuclear war.
Europe is not necessarily weak in its defence capabilities against Russia, but is rather weak in its political will to use its military and take action when necessary to deter Russian aggression. We have already seen this case when Europe’s tolerance towards Russian drone incursions. Europe is weak in the propaganda war which Russia is winning enabling it also to win in the subversive political battles it is conducting across Europe and the US.
At the same time, France still needs to materially show a strong stance with regard to Greenland by effective troop and military hardware deployments which are for now still lacking. In the public fora, the US has successfully projected power, while France is still reeling. Public perception is that the US is winning over Greenland and that Europe is unable to control the newfound belligerence of its partner. These conditions prompted the article The Emperor who lost Europe.
Then, at the turn of the new year, France and the UK finally brought Europe back tot the forefront with Ukraine in the negotiations with Russia, effectively helping Ukraine not to capitulate to all of Russia’s demands. France and Europe need to keep this momentum in ascertaining European foreign policy with regard to US efforts at reshaping the security architecture of Europe.
Europe needs to jointly face the US not just single-handedly over Greenland, but also at a political level by placing Europe as a main counter to the US efforts at political interference in Europe. This requires more strategic thinking than ramping up military production. It requires that Europe acts and speaks cohesively as a super-power with a strong political will to take action when necessary both on a military level and a political level.
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