Schill said France could engage a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days to operate as part of an allied coalition. Paris, he added, would be able to command a force of around 60,000 soldiers made up of French and other allied troops. The French army comprises some 121,000 soldiers, with 24,000 reservists.
This coming from the same France that was too chickenshit to intervene to reverse the Niger coup that evicted the French from one of their most important neo-colonies. Excuse me if i don’t take their threats too seriously… I’ll believe it when i see it.
Bit of a different situation, methinks. AFAIK to get ot Niger, they’d have to fly across Algerian airspace - which Algeria has closed for military aircraft. To get to Ukraine, they’d have to move across Germany and Poland - both of which are in NATO and will likely be of assistance.
Moving a military through all of Europe towards Russia… where have we seen that before?
They may as well call it doing a Hobbit, because every time they tried that they went There And Back Again. After Napoleon tried it Russian troops ended up in Paris, after Hitler tried it Soviet troops ended up in Berlin. Do they somehow hope third time’s the charm? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is usually not a sign of sanity.
If they wanted to they could have bullied Algeria into letting them through.
It’s a good opportunity for a stakeholder analysis.
When you tabulate who stands to benefit and who stands to lose from French troops being deployed to Niger compared to being deployed to Ukraine, it’s very obvious that the French government serves the interests of groups other than the French people, or even itself.
For real, western nations really need to get a grip and realize that no one is scared of them anymore. Russia has shown the world that you can fight back against NATO and win. Yet countries like France still seem to think that they can terrorize modern independent nations like they terrorized african tribal communities.
The European elites are all just yapping dogs who feel safe to be as provocative and belligerent as they want because they think daddy USA will come to protect them if they ever get themselves into trouble by their own actions. This is a dangerous delusion, the US does not and has never had any loyalty toward its so-called “allies”, and when shit hits the fan they leave you holding the bag and fuck off. Europe may very well have to learn this the hard way. NATO is a massive bluff that the Russians just haven’t called yet, but nothing guarantees that this will stay that way forever, especially if they ever get really fed up with the Euros’ insolent bullshit. For my own sake as someone who has to keep living in this deindustrializing shit hole, i can only hope that the Russians continue to have the patience of a saint. I wouldn’t be half as patient as they are if i had to deal with these absolute children in charge in the EU right now.
How would changing the flag on the uniforms help? They have already been using western equipment and failing.
They can’t actually fight under the French flag because feigning surrender is a war crime
It matters in terms of international law and such, I think. IIRC mercenaries aren’t protected by law and don’t require certain treatments
Yeah yeah when a government wants to do something they just do it, they don’t announce it a million times beforehand.
Unless you’re Ukraine announcing months in advance exactly where you’re going to launch your big “counter-offensive” giving Russia all the time in the world to prepare defensive lines.
And here I thought Ukraine was just a money laundering scheme, either Macron isn’t on the email list for the real story or maintaining control of that country is worth WW3
They’ll need 300k to change the tide of the war…
60k is a blood sacrifice.
The biggest issue is that the French army, much like any other western army, has no experience in fighting peers. The only two countries in the world which have that are Russia and Ukraine. French officers themselves admitted that the russian army is not the main (arguably only) reference when it comes to peer-to-peer combat operations.
French troops would not fare any better than the élite, nato-equipped ukrainian brigades that smashed their heads against the Surovikin line.
I will say this tho - i never thought i would live to see german tanks burn on russian soil again, and i am sort of excited to see the french being beaten out of russia again
300k is probably between 3/4 and all of actual combat personnel in entire EU.
They “COULD” do a lot of things. Lol.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
French troops are ready for “the toughest engagements,” the commander of the country’s ground forces has said, as President Emmanuel Macron mulls an official military deployment to Ukraine despite repeated Russian threats of retaliation.
Macron is at the forefront of a nascent proposal by a handful of NATO nations to discuss sending allied forces into Ukraine in training and advisory roles, though not as combat troops.
“The sources of crisis are multiplying and carry with them risks of spiraling or extending,” the commander added, though he did not specifically refer to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz appeared to reveal in February, however, that small numbers of French and British personnel are assisting Ukrainian troops in the targeting of Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles provided by the two NATO nations.
President Joe Biden has “made it clear that we will not put U.S. boots on the ground,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said last week.
One European diplomatic official—who spoke with Newsweek earlier this month on the condition of anonymity—said: “I doubt you can change Russia’s calculus just by sending trainers to Ukraine.”
The original article contains 604 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
