In today’s video, we’re going to France
around and find out. On February 26, while discussing the War in
Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron told reporters that “There’s no consensus today to send in
an official, endorsed manner troops on the ground. But in terms of dynamics, nothing can be ruled
out.” The comments have stayed in the news cycle
because, well, that is something that the world has
been collectively trying to avoid for the last 80 years. That concern may have led to France’s
defense
minister walking back the “nothing can be ruled out” idea. Now, which of these is more accurate
is a mystery to us all. For the moment, though, let’s go with the
“nothing can be ruled out” version. And with that, in the shadow of a showdown
for the ages between France and Russia, today we are going to discuss
France’s underlying security concerns that are always operating in the background, the complex story arc that France has undergone
from the beginning of the 2014 conflict in Ukraine
all the way through to the present, the plausibility of a French intervention
in Ukraine, what France’s strategy in Ukraine might
look like, focusing specifically on a tripwire force
and a more direct intervention, and then we will conclude with everyone’s
favorite game show: Does It Trigger NATO’s Article 5 provision? But we begin with France’s broader strategic
positioning. To get in the right mindset, we have to go
all the way back to World War II. Quick timeline: On September 1, 1939, Germa
ny invaded Poland. For the next eight months,
the parties sat around and did nothing beyond the French invasion of the Saarland. Hence the name “Phoney War” for the period. On May 10, 1940, Germany began its Western
push, with the intention to capture France. On May 26, the evacuation from Dunkirk began. On June 17, French General Charles De Gaulle
fled to London. And on June 24 France officially surrendered. What happened next would reverberate through
French politics, even still today. De Gaul
le then spent the next four years trying
to build and maintain a coherent Free France, both as a military and as a political entity, with plenty of prodding to the allies to expel
Germany from Western Europe. In the meantime, those still living in France
were not exactly having a pleasant experience, and outsiders were wandering around taking
photos like this one. Back to the timeline,
it was not until June 6, 1944 before the allies made real progress there
with the D-Day landings in Normandy, a
place we will hear about again later. Regardless, the liberation of Paris had to
further wait until August 25. As De Gaulle transitioned from general to
statesman, it was that four-year gap that colored much
of French political-military thinking afterward. The main Western powers will assist France
in times of emergency, but do not expect a rush to protect continental Europe. As politics shifted from
World War to Cold War France’s concerns altered Western dynamics
in two ways. First, in 1960, F
rance became the fourth member
of the nuclear club. Yes, the United States and United Kingdom
already had the bomb, and as a part of the broader
NATO alliance were obligated to defend France from the nuclear-powered
Soviet Union. However, the concern in Paris was that the
Soviet army would storm right through Central Europe and occupy France in the blink of an
eye. And, yeah, maybe NATO would invoke Article
5’s collective defense provision and eventually mount a response—keyword eventually. But
that would mean little to the millions
of French citizens that perished in the meantime. A nuclear France, on the other hand, would
deny the Kremlin that opportunity and put Paris’s safety in the bag…uette. The second, and less explosive consequence
was France withdrawing from NATO’s unified command in 1966. Notably, France remained a part of NATO the
entire time. It was just that French units operated independently
and were no longer under the command of NATO’s integrated structure. Although Fr
ance did reenter the fold in 2009,
slow response times linger on the French strategist’s mind even today. With that, we can now jump to what France’s
strategy has looked like thus far in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In fact, France has taken a more active role
than it might appear to someone joining the story in 2022. Flashback to 2014. The Maidan had finished. Russia had annexed Crimea. And some little green men had entered the
Donbas. No, you silly AI, not those these little green
men—
these little green men
the unflagged Russian soldiers that volunteered their services to nascent separatist movements
in Ukraine’s east. In the shadow of all that, leaders from
Germany, Ukraine,
and Russia met in Normandy to commemorate the seventieth
anniversary of the D-Day landings— with the allegiances having evolved just a
little bit from before. The War in Donbas came up during the ceremonies,
and thus began the Normandy Format,
which was a recurring mediation process that involved those f
our countries. If you watch this channel enough, you have
seen plenty of photos and videos from the Normandy Format—it turns out that the number
of times Zelensky and Putin have been in the same room together is quite few. And it is doubtful we will ever see anything
like this again. Heading into 2022, we now know in retrospect
that the Normandy Format did not create a durable solution. As Russian troops amassed along the border
with Ukraine, Macron was flying to Moscow in search of a
diplomatic
solution, and giving us this classic image of just how
far apart the two sides were, literally and metaphorically. On February 20, the two presidents talked
again, this time via phone. By the end of it, France’s leader was convinced
that the Kremlin still sought a peaceful solution. In reality, Putin ended the call early so
he get out to the hockey rink. Four days later, Russian troops were on their
way to Kyiv. In an era when European states were under
increased scrutiny regarding their milita
ry expenditures, France was more or less pulling its weight,
burning 1.94% of its GDP on arms and such. It was not quite the 2% that NATO had issued
as a guideline and that Trump had harped on in the preceding years, but it was more than most in NATO were doing
at the time. French assistance to Ukraine went further,
though. Paris’ combined allocations through the
first two years of war, both bilateral
and through the European Union, totaled $19.32 billion. To put that in context, France ranks th
ird
below the United States’ $75.40 billion
and Germany’s $44.98 billion but above the United Kingdom’s $17.18 billion. Nevertheless, February’s comments represented
a major jump in rhetoric— even if what exactly Macron was intending
to do with the remarks is not obvious. Someone from my side of the tracks feels obligated
to point out that, in love and war, talk is cheap. If the Kremlin just accepted French intervention
threats as fact, then Russian troops would take a more cautious approach, an
d in turn Western officials from all over
would have incentive to make those kinds of threats regardless of their sincerity. So the comments may be good at making headlines,
but perhaps not much else. I am not even convinced that the message was
aimed at Russia— rather, maybe it was a call to action for
allies. “We are crazy and we might just do this,
so increase aid now before we have to go through with it.” Okay, let’s put all of this together and
talk about what a plausible intervention might
look like. The way I am going to treat this is to Rip
Van Winkle it—pretend I fall asleep, wake up, and discover that the year is 2025. You tell me that France has militarily intervened
in Ukraine, and it is up to me to guess how it happened. The reason for this is because it goes against
first principles of how to handle such a situation and sounds a lot more like a major gamble. Let’s think about a controlled environment
for a moment. Well, let’s think of as controlled of an
environment as a
war can be— where Russia is not just sprinting across
the Ukrainian landscape. Under such conditions, it would make more
sense for France to exponentially increase aid to Ukraine instead. As such, another way to think of the question
is what can a direct intervention do that aid cannot. As hinted at a second ago, the first step
here would likely be some type of breakthrough of Ukrainian lines if there is going to be
a major intervention— essentially opening up a scenario where Russia
can blitz t
hrough central and western Ukraine. This itself would seem to imply that the consensus
on Russian casualties in places like Avdiivka are way overshooting,
otherwise Russia would appear to not have the manpower to execute such an operation. At that point, we would start triggering French
concerns about some sort of wider breakthrough on the European continent that recalls those
World War II fears. So, like I was saying, not something that
I would bet on— though, to be fair, it may be less about a
ctually
expecting Russia to continue, and more about the types of policy concessions
and long-term military investments that France might have to learn to live with while being
coerced by that nightmare scenario. So if that is happening, I can see two solutions
to the problem. The first is to deploy a tripwire force. This is the strategy made famous in Berlin
during the Cold War. Basically, the United States plopped a bunch
of troops into the Western half of the city. By design, they were not st
rong enough to
adequately defend it— city was literally surrounded by red—but
rather there were just enough of them that there would be an ugly number of American
casualties in the event that the Soviet tanks invaded. The purpose of this was to cause enough anger
at home that there would be no doubt that the United States would mount a large retaliation. Anticipating that retaliation,
the Soviet Union would not try invading West Berlin. Hence the small contingent of soldiers is
called a “tripwir
e” because they set off a greater calamity. Tripwires have already been a part of the
war between Russia and Ukraine. Immediately following Russia’s initial actions
in 2014, the United States initiated Operation Atlantic
Resolve, which rotated a small contingent of troops
into Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, and Poland. NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence program
institutionalized this strategy, and expanded its presence to Slovakia,
Hungary, Romania,
and Bulgaria. Finally, when Russia launched its ful
l-scale
invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United States deployed 3000 additional troops, split between Poland
and Romania. In none of these cases were the troops sufficient
to make a material difference in defeating a Russian invasion force. Rather, the intent was to give the Kremlin
second thoughts about trying. One strategy France could pursue is the next
step in tripwire deployments by moving troops into Ukraine itself. Basically, Paris would have to choose a specific
red line. Kyiv would be a
n obvious choice, but there
is a ton of space between it and the current front lines. Beyond that,
Odesa would be a more ambitious location, closer to where the frontlines currently are. The city itself is the third largest in Ukraine,
making it a valuable location to protect. It also is the best place to defend against
Russia linking up with Transnistria and causing spillover problems in Moldova. In any case, the specific location would have
to be context dependent and factor in how much risk F
rance wants to assume by putting
soldiers progressively closer to the front. It would also depend on how many troops France
wants to deploy. A tripwire line that hugs, say, where Russian
law has declared part of the Federation, would require tens of thousands of troops. In contrast, the NATO Enhanced Forward Presence
deployments ranged between 1000
and 11000 troops. Regardless, the idea would not be to undertake
active combat operations like Ukrainians do. Instead, they would be used in support
roles,
like digging trenches, that could then free up more Ukrainian soldiers for actual frontline
work. But for the most part, France would just pick
a spot and wait. Your move, Russia. Because foreign tripwires can do something
that mere arms donations cannot do—that is, create credibility—it is plausible that
France could adopt such a strategy even in the absence of a Russian breakthrough— especially if France is deploying somewhere
conservative, like Kyiv. For its part, this seems to be the
pathway
that Russia thinks that France is pursuing. After all, two thousand soldiers cannot do
much beyond serving as a tripwire. Russia’s immediate reaction was to threaten
to use force against them, but this plays right into the perverse logic of a tripwire. Russia wants to have free rein in Ukraine. A French tripwire would stop that. Once established, Russia would not want to
go past the limit. However, France also views active combat between
the two as a very bad outcome. As such, if France
believed that Russia would
follow through on the threat, then negotiating some sort of conciliatory alternative sounds
like a better approach. But the trick here is that Russia has no incentive
to follow through when push comes to shove. Again, talk is cheap. Thus, France would be better off ignoring
the threat and deploying anyway. The stronger play for France would be a more
active intervention. Rather than sitting around and waiting, French
troops would coordinate with Ukrainian command to ei
ther assist in defending against Russian
attacks or, more boldly, engage in active offensive
movements to push back the frontline. This comes with two distinct drawbacks as
compared to the tripwire option. First, it guarantees French casualties,
which French soldiers might not be too excited about. Second, it guarantees Russian casualties at
the hands of French soldiers, and with that all sorts of additional escalation concerns
that we will get to in a second. For those reasons, we would only ex
pect to
see such an intervention in case of a major disaster for Ukraine— something like massive daily Russian advances and a delayed response from France that makes
the otherwise more desirable tripwire option infeasible, combined with intelligence that Russia is
planning to steamroll right through Ukraine’s borders
and deeper into Europe. At that point, France might not be alone in
its intervention. And that takes us to our favorite game show:
Does that Trigger Article 5? aka Who Doesn’t Want
to Be a Negative Trillionaire. The main point here is that soldiers from
a NATO country are going to be shot at, which raises the question of whether these
actions there could trigger NATO’s collective defense provision,
which would in turn spiral things into a broader war between NATO and Russia,
and that puts the entire world in Jeopardy. Uh oh, did I say the word? If we start with the simple case where Russia just straight up attacks Paris
tomorrow, we pretty much know what will happen in bro
ad strokes. Deterring that kind of behavior is the whole
reason that NATO was created. The extent of the response might be a matter
of further debate, but something would happen. Okay, that is one extreme possibility. On the opposite extreme,
we have France straight up attacking Moscow or even Russian troops deployed in Ukraine,
which results in French casualties. This is a clear non-invocation of mutual defense
because France is on the offense … even if the intent of the offense is defense of
U
kraine. How’s that for a logic pretzel. Hope you are still with me. Anyway, Ukraine is not in NATO, and injecting
France into the mix is one too many steps removed. In between those two extremes, though,
is where we start getting shades of gray. Let’s go back to the tripwire case, where
French troops are minding their own business, and suddenly a Russian assault leaves a few
hundred of them dead. Now what? Technically, this would not be an attack on
a NATO country, but rather an attack on a NATO
member’s
troops stationed in a non-member country. That distinction matters if we go into the
text of the North Atlantic Treaty. Article 5 says that
“an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe …
shall be considered an attack against them all,” and then Article 6 helpfully clarifies that
we are talking about “on the territory of any of the Parties
in Europe.” Ukraine is not a party, and so the article
does not apply. However, it is worth noting that when Greece’s
Prime Minister found
himself less than a kilometer away from an exploding
Russian bomb while touring Ukraine with Zelensky, there was still plenty of discussion about
whether his death would have triggered Article 5. And, as a friendly reminder, this is international
relations, where countries can do whatever they want, subject to armed consequences. There is nothing that stops them from interpreting
the full text of Article 6 as missing other contingencies and intervening
anyway. Okay, that is one end of the gray a
rea. On the opposite end of the gray area, suppose that France was gearing up toward
a deployment, when Russia preemptively attacked French assets in France. Purely going off of the words in Article 5,
this would trigger the mutual defense clause. However, let’s take a closer look at the
text. The “you do what you think is necessary”
and “let’s meet and decide how to proceed” provisions in it
were a conscious choice by the original signatories of NATO all those years ago. If NATO members recogni
ze the chain of events
that led to the Russian attack and are not enthusiastic about it, and further do not
want to incentivize emboldenment elsewhere, they can opt to provide some material assistance
and leave it at that. (Or if you Hungary you just do nothing.) Hence we could expect some level of NATO aid
here, but whether it would be treated like a generic Russian attack is unclear. It depends on how the individuals within NATO
feel about the situation overall, though this is still something
that Russia
probably does not want to roll the dice on, particularly in a world where the West is
already annoyed with Russia about the invasion of Ukraine. Now for the most nebulous case. Suppose that France is in the middle of an
intervention in Ukraine, and Russia bombs French soil,
perhaps targeting a training facility or something else directly related to the operation. That definitely clears Article 6’s provision
regarding an attack on a NATO member’s soil. But is a response collective sel
f-defense? In this hypothetical, France was fighting
Russian troops in Ukraine and was not bringing the fight into Russia,
whereas Russia brought the fight to French soil. Now, if you ask AI,
this issue is black and white. But large language models are only good at
parroting text and do not really think about the question
that is being asked. Despite pleas to the contrary, I am not an
AI and am here to tell you that I don’t know. Indeed, the truth is that no one knows the
answer to this question
, and that is partially by design. All alliances struggle with the emboldenment
problem, and one solution is to intentionally not define exactly what triggers a given agreement’s
provisions. Certainly no one in 1949 was thinking about
a NATO country helping Ukrainians
fight Russians. To try to map out all of the alliance’s
possible contingencies ahead of time would just be impossible. So the founding document just gives the broad
strokes and lets everyone figure out the details as they go. This
also comes with a nice bonus. It allows for the partners to gracefully bow
out of assisting for these types of contingencies without raising questions about the main point
of the treaty: that if Russia just straight up attacks, then
other NATO members will provide aid. This is the type of thing that France would
discuss with its partners before actually entering into Ukraine, and you can see the broad reactions already
playing out in the media: Germany wants to pour cold water on the idea,
while
Poland is expressing warmer thoughts. Though it would be nice to know everything
will play out in advance, that is just how the world of shifting lines
works. And as a final thought here, it is worth noting
that Article 4 has a separate provision that calls for consultation whenever a member feels
threatened, and certainly Russian retaliation in France
would qualify as such. Again, with the current Western antipathy
toward Russia high right now, NATO would likely do something in response. Just
don’t expect things to immediately
jump to nukes. You know, we talked a ton about articles today. So if you are still listening to me, then
you must really like articles. Of course, books are really just articles
that are combined together. Fun fact: I have a couple of those about the
war. Check the video description for more information
about them. And if you enjoyed this video, please like,
share, and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Take care.
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