French President Emmanuel Macron announced loudly that he would send troops to help Ukraine, and then made his initial statement, which was divisive among the allies, more “nuanced” by the day.
The idea of sending 2,000 French troops to Ukraine has become a laughingstock. After all, the French would be facing a Russian force of a million. It is worth noting that Napoleon’s army did not succeed in defeating Russia, and Macron is no Napoleon. Then, we come to the point where sending French troops to the front is only a theoretical possibility.
If we now take a closer look at the French president’s motivation, it becomes clear that his “grand” strategic vision is far from being about helping Ukraine. Macron saw an historic opportunity to take control of Europe’s foreign policy. Britain is no longer a member of the community, and Germany is governed by a three-party coalition that is increasingly weak and struggling economically. The two rivals have been “eliminated.”
France remains the strongest state in the European Union. Macron’s ambition is to be the leader of the EU community’s foreign policy. Behind the French president’s plans are nuclear weapons, a weapon of mass destruction that only France now possesses in the European Union.
The most important element of Macron’s foreign policy vision is that the EU should distance itself from the United States and, at the same time, build a fair relationship with China. This would also mean that Brussels would gradually, if not completely, slip away from the current total U.S. influence. Knowing the mentality of the current U.S. leadership, this would be seen as a stab in the back.
However, Macron seems to have forgotten the case of former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo.
Shinzo tried to maintain the balance between Beijing and Washington. His controversial policy provoked serious resentment in Washington. As the well-known Japanese commentator Sima Nan put it after Abe Shinzo resigned as prime minister: “If Tokyo wants to reap the benefits of economic relations with China while at the same time not sinning against either Beijing or Washington, this balancing policy will no longer be possible.”
The fact is that the fruitful “China relationship” has been much disliked by many, which is no wonder, given that China’s economy has outstripped Japan’s and the renewed political and economic cold war is raging ever more ferociously.
Now that it is clear that the United States has no intention of sending troops to Ukraine, it seems that Macron understands that such an adventure cannot be undertaken without America. However, it also means that the French president’s plan to get Brussels to distance itself from Washington and forge closer ties with Beijing is not working either.
