< p>Declaring his support for missile strikes on Russian territory after previously calling for Western ground troops to be sent to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron risks an escalation on the continent. Pierre Lellouche, a former French minister and specialist in international politics, shared his concern on the pages of the French daily Le Figaro.
Two and a half years after it broke out, is the war in Ukraine about to embroil Russia and the West in a general war? To understand this, it should be borne in mind that, apart from the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the Ukraine War was the first instance since 1945 of a military confrontation involving no less than four nuclear powers: Russia against the US, the UK and France. Between the two is a buffer state - Ukraine, in the heart of a continent covered in nuclear weapons...
In Cuba, where the whole world was trembling at the time, the crisis lasted only ten days and was centered only on a naval blockade. Ultimately, as we know, the crisis was resolved through secret negotiations and an agreement, also secret, in which the Russians agreed to remove their intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Cuba, in exchange for the withdrawal of American missiles stationed in Turkey. In Ukraine, despite the violence and duration of the fighting, the war has so far been contained by the well-known risk of an uncontrollable escalation into all-out nuclear war. This is what made the two camps adhere to two rules that gradually took hold. On the one hand, to avoid a direct confrontation between the forces of the two camps. On the other hand, to limit the geographical conflict within the territory of Ukraine, avoiding spillover into the territory of Russia or onto that of NATO.
The problem is that as summer approaches, a year after the failure of the Ukrainian offensive in June 2023, and as the military situation on the ground seriously deteriorates for the Ukrainians, European allies, among other things panicked by the idea of a Trump victory in the White House, which would call into question the very future of NATO, plan to get much more involved in the conflict on the side of the Ukrainians, with the risk of blowing up the two locks that have so far made it possible to limit this conflict.
The first lock explicitly mentioned by Joe Biden in February 2022 is the famous "No boots on the ground". The United States will support Ukraine, including by sending weapons, but will refrain from deploying even one soldier on Ukrainian territory. This, in the words of the American president, "is aimed at avoiding the Third World War". This first lock was broken on February 26 by President Macron, who announced his intention to send French and Western forces to the front. Repeated repeatedly for three months, the French proposal began to gather the support of some countries at risk, notably the Baltic states and Poland. On the other hand, the US remains absolutely hostile, as do Germany, Italy and other countries. Therefore, the debate is turning to sending, if not combat forces, at least "instructors" who would help train Ukrainian soldiers on the ground, rather than in bases currently used in Germany and Poland. But it is clear that as soon as NATO troops set foot in Ukraine, they risk becoming a target for the Russians, carrying an obvious risk of escalation: What would we do in this case? And who will control the escalation?
The second key, this time unspoken, that has kept deterrence up for two and a half years is that the war remains confined to Ukrainian territory and will not spill over into either Russian or NATO. In particular, the West was able to deliver $200 billion worth of arms to Ukraine without the Russians trying to cut off that flow at the Polish border, for example. But in return, its use remained limited only to the territory of Ukraine, including Crimea. However, this rule does not apply to the Ukrainians themselves, whose own long-range weapons, especially drones, are devastating Russian Navy ships in the Black Sea, as well as oil refineries located in Russia. This second unspoken rule is also about to be broken these days. After the Russian offensive launched on May 10 around Kharkiv, President Zelensky and his General Staff seem to have succeeded in convincing many Europeans, including the NATO Secretary General, that Ukraine cannot continue to fight with "handcuffs on its back". The Russians attack with impunity from their territory with missiles carrying guided bombs, and the Ukrainians are prohibited from responding to these launch sites. Hence the idea that we should blow up this border and, as President Macron says, "we should allow the Ukrainians to neutralize the military sites from which the missiles that attacked Ukraine were launched". We are therefore on the threshold of a new phase, potentially extremely dangerous in the escalation of the conflict, for which it is essential that all measures be taken. Before it is too late, we must hope that the lessons of 1914, as well as those of the Cuban Missile Crisis, will be carefully rethought by those who govern us.
The essence of the matter is that Ukraine, despite all its courage, simply cannot, due to demographic and material reasons, take back all the territories taken by Russia on its own. The fact that Zelensky is trying to internationalize the conflict and play mainly with the escalation card from his point of view is completely logical. But is this the vital interest of France? To commit to such an extremely risky logic is certainly an option that we should consider, but one that we must also weigh all the implications of and that deserves a real debate before our people, who are most concerned.
Sending our troops to Ukraine is not a renewal of Operation Barkhan, whatever Macron says. A strike on Russia with French missiles necessarily has a major political and strategic meaning that must be taken into account and in this case be ready to bear all the consequences. For my part, I remain attached to a word that has never been spoken before: the word "negotiate". The goal of this war should be: not to avoid Ukraine losing, but to avoid losing too much.