The French armed forces are planning for high-intensity war
economist.com
economist.com
We are obviously seeing shifts in the global economy and power balance, with the US losing it's complete dominance, China becoming more confident and aggressive, countries like Turkey showing increasing aggression against the EU, and a more multi-polar balance in general.
I'd love to learn some more, but most of the books I find are too "pop-sci", have a strong "US good/China scary & evil" tint, or a too narrow focus.
The US is imperfect and perhaps worse than (post-colonial) Europe in many respects, but does anyone seriously think that a Chinese global hegemony would be better? I understand that this is controversial and I'm not trying to agitate, but I am curious about who holds this position and why?
Obviously false. From Tibet to the recent massive South China Sea annexation and Taiwan, all of it is hyper expansionist. It doesn't matter if they lie and claim otherwise, it's plainly a lie. They're seeking territorial expansion.
Nobody in their right mind believes the waters off the coast of south Vietnam belongs to China, except China. That's not about territorial unity, it's about hegemony in Asia and expanding their territory through military force. They're in conquering mode.
The territy they took when they conquered Tibet is twice the size of France. The South China Sea territory they're attempting to take now - which does not belong to them - is at least the size of Tibet or larger.
That's conquering on a scale not seen since immediately after WW2 with the Soviet Union's land grab in Eastern Europe.
Now, is the limitation of my perspective that they can rationalize anything with this? Or that the unanimous People's Congress can update the constitution if any other roadblock is in their way? Sure. I just don't see that predilection.
There are plenty of disputed land borders around the edges of China. But I just don't see things beyond that and the South China Sea.
I was surprised to see the treatment of their state of Inner Mongolia, and to me this is a separate form of discrimination in favor of Han Chinese (or something more nuanced). My line in the sand - for the expansionist opinion - would be taking pieces of Mongolia. Or way into states of India and bordering nations. Or way past Xinjiang.
Well, sort of. They're almost always from very wealthy families with very particular educational, social, and occupational histories, on both sides. We get to choose from within the group that makes it to through the candidate vetting processes controlled by the parties.
> China's military and social power is wielded by a very small group of elites in the CCP, which makes it hard to trust.
Again, it's pretty similar. The rich and their children have time and money to build the connections that can get them into positions of institutional power.
> The nature of US policy has been shaped over the centuries in the open, whereas China's policies and doctrines are sometimes changed overnight.
Policy changes in China get voted on too. They might seem like an orchestrated rubber stamp to us -- and they might actually be!
But similarly in the US, executive orders, agency decisions, and supreme court orders can happen swiftly and have similarly profound impacts on the people and the system. See for example Citizen's United, or the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine by the FCC. Did any normal people vote for those things? They kind of just... happened, and their impacts are huge.
I'm not trying to say I would rather live in China or under its system, rather that our perceptions of the differences between the systems are influenced heavily by our context and our naturally western-oriented media diet, and they may in reality be smaller than we feel.
To put it very cynically, our system currently works by allowing average people to feel like we have control over it, while China's doesn't use that tool so much. In truth, average people don't have any real control over either system under normal circumstances.
I don't see how... Yes, the US has a classist bias and certainly some mild corruption. That still seems a world apart from a single party system that routinely flouts its own constitution.
Also, executive orders and legislation are bound by the constitution in theory and practice. While they may result in abrupt changes from time-to-time, they are limited in scope. That seems materially different to me than a single party system that can pass, overturn, or utterly ignore whatever legislation it likes overnight.
In China it's the Politburo rather than a Supreme Court but the leader must also engage with politics and get buy-in for changes.
And at every step along that journey, it was proclaimed as the best possible way of doing things, ordained by god, etc etc. Not just politics, we actually have the ideal system here.
Yet we imprison Americans at a much higher rate than Chinese imprison their own. And that's before I even get into how we treat foreigners.
So how much are all those great rhetorical adjectives worth when the rubber hits the road?
This is easily verifiable if you talk to anyone from China. Too many kids, you get sterilized, them's the rules (unless you're rich/connected, of course). So why do our media always report cases involving minorities out of context, creating unfortunate assumptions? Who benefits from that?
You'd think the free press would surface the most accurate story, right? Just like the awesome judiciary shouldn't lead to world-leading incarceration rates. This set of gaps is what I'm talking about, not China's sins or virtues.
Citation needed.
> This is easily verifiable if you talk to anyone from China.
Is it conceivable that China is not entirely honest with its citizens about its various atrocities? If this seems far-fetched, perhaps we could examine the CCP's track record of disinformation, misinformation, and censorship campaigns against its own populace.
> Mass Birth-Prevention Strategy. China has simultaneously pursued a dual systematic strategy of forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women of childbearing age and interning Uyghur men of child-bearing years, preventing the regenerative capacity of the group and evincing an intent to biologically destroy the group as such. According to Government statistics and directives, including to “carry out family planning sterilization,” “lower fertility levels,” and ”leave no blind spots,” China is carrying out a well-documented, State-funded birth-prevention campaign targeting women of childbearing age in Uyghur-concentrated areas with mass forced sterilization, abortions, and IUD placements. China explicitly admits the purpose of these campaigns is to ensure that Uyghur women are “no longer baby-making machines.”
- https://newlinesinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Chinas-Brea...
Perhaps "the free press" who are largely citing reports by experts such as the one above, are in fact more accurate than Chinese state propaganda?
> Just like the awesome judiciary shouldn't lead to world-leading incarceration rates.
You're deflecting again.
And as for the "New Lines Institute".. whew, I sure am glad we have experts rather than security state propaganda. We are so fortunate over here.
Come now, you're being willfully obtuse. Clearly I was asking for a citation about your claim that it's not ethnically motivated beyond "ask any Chinese citizen".
> I sure am glad we have experts rather than security state propaganda.
Well, you don't trust the media, and you don't trust independent researchers, but you totally trust the Chinese government, so I don't know how we're going to make progress. Seems like we should just agree to disagree.
(More “propaganda” from my HN feed: a journalist fleeing China for covering State treatment of Uighurs: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56586655)
Here's a cite that goes into detail on the specific claims you've probably read about sterilization practices (partway through): https://thegrayzone.com/2021/02/18/us-media-reports-chinese-...
TL:DR; -- Historically, minorities were allowed to have way more kids on paper and the limits were rarely enforced in fact. Since ~2018 there's equality, via raising Han Chinese limits and applying even enforcement, so it's a change and there's some upset about it, but it's the removal of favoritism rather than the imposition of discriminatory measures. It got to even.
..
As far as who I trust. DC natsec think tanks are absolutely at the bottom of that list on ANY topic, they are guaranteed to be entangled with the military-industrial complex. I trust our actual military more than I do those think tanks. (And the one you chose turns out to be funded by... gulenists??? I did not expect that, frickin wild -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_University_of_America)
On THIS topic -- the hard evidence points towards internment and mandatory patriot camp, which are bad, but no genocide, slavery or any of those other crazy accusations thrown about. This is.. not great but also exactly what the Chinese government says they're doing. They put out press releases saying, "yeah, it's mandatory job training and harmony camp". Western media are the ones throwing unsubstantiated claims around.
..
Here's one from your BBC guy, John Sudworth: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-co...
They ACTUALLY INCLUDE a Chinese newspaper page that they're selectively and deceptively quoting from. As an image, though, so you can't copy/paste it into Google Translate. The source that THAT THEY ARE USING is a story about a state-run "gig economy for cotton picking" program where people with small farms can work on bigger farms during their downtime, one guy is super stoked that he made 5k RMB ($800) in a month (quite a lot for the third world). They pull ominous-sounding quotes about 'organization' out of this story out of context while implying forced labor, right in front of your face, just banking on you not being able to read Chinese. If you read carefully, there's never even a hard accusation, let alone any evidence. Just lots of innuendo.
So who should I trust? I don't know if or why Sudworth was run out of town, but his track record shows a lot of bias and disregard for the truth. Maybe some zealous local party members made him feel unwelcome, maybe he was pressured by higher-placed people in the party, or maybe he's just making a play for an easy headline. I don't know.
A single party system sounds very scary, because how can you vote them out? But... that's just not how China's system works. I'm not an expert on China at all, and I don't mean to claim to be. I'm just an internet dweeb, but I'd still like to try to explain what I mean:
Within a party like China's, there isn't just bland homogenous unity. There are factions, with histories and ideological alignments and family connections, aspirations, and so on. Xi Jinping's ascendance was part of a long political game that came along with specific groups, ideas, and policies to the forefront of Chinese political power for a period, and it was supported by the prevailing milieu within the party, and could not have happened without them.
Over time, that milieu changes, and so do the party's goals, priorities, and actions. That happens as the course of external events and affairs, internal politics, economics, public sentiment, fortunes, etc. all unfold to shape it. Jinping has acted to maintain his power and continue his own work and vision, which appears to still be supported by the political powers that surround him. Changing their Constitution (to allow further terms) is a legal action, and they followed a process to do so. It would have required significant political capital to see that process through. It was hardly flouted, even if we balk at the result.
Fundamentally, what is done by the Chinese government is always simply work to preserve and extend: China's sovereign power, the well-being of its people, and the wealth of its ruling class. This is basically true of all nation states.
In America, it is difficult to change the Constitution. Maybe more difficult than in China; constitutions have different levels of significance in different places. But there is similarly a process for it that has been executed many times.
If someone really needs to, they can try to accrue and expend the required political capital to get an amendment done. There's been talk that the Koch brothers and some associated folks have been working on that for years[1]. In the meantime, Presidents, at the behest of whomever they are politically beholden to, work hard to get Judges in place to interpret laws however they may need, and those interpretations vary wildly.
Meanwhile, the two parties in America change as their cultural milieu forged by similarly shifting economic, political, etc. forces unfolds. They consistently line their own and their friends' pockets, start wars, create secret courts, surveil people, and so on.
So how different is having Just Two Parties who take turns depending on a very big vote, but that think in and act in many fundamentally similar ways... from Just One Party with an ever-changing internal makeup, whose leadership takes turns depending on a smaller vote? Ultimately, the American government still and always works to extend America's sovereign power, the well-being of its people, and the wealth of its ruling class.
To repeat myself a little from another post, I'm personally much happier living in a Western-style democracy than a Chinese-style system, where we at least maintain the illusion of real popular control. But the changes we can really effect as individuals, and the power we really have, in either system, are quite limited. While different tools are employed, the aims, the justifications, and the results are broadly similar in the end.
Perhaps you think the United States differs fundamentally in that it can't or won't use violence or underhanded political tactics against its own citizens, to keep the dissidents it really fears down? Read about Sandra Bland, Fred Hampton, or Martin Luther King. There are many, many examples here -- the mask of just benevolence slips off pretty easily.
What I'm ultimately saying is that, if the United States government needed to, it could and likely would use the same tactics the Chinese government does. It already does from time to time in limited contexts.
We, the people, get to choose as long as it's between Harvard and Yale, and if we got really dangerous and started to forcefully demand, say... anything really different? The string of unfortunate coincidences would come out first, and if we somehow kept our momentum up past that, well, then the gloves would come off for a while, until we quieted down.
We feel good about our worldview precisely because we are able to imagine that those gloves cannot come off, or that they wouldn't ever unless it was really justified, and then we'd be on the right side of it, right? But in reality they don't serve 'justice'. They serve the extension of America's sovereign power, the "well-being" of its people, and the wealth of its ruling class.
All that to say, I still feel like it is pretty similar.
1 - https://www.salon.com/2018/08/10/the-biggest-threat-to-our-d... (I just gogoled 'koch constitutional amendment' here, there may be better sources)
(edit: I corrected Fred Hampton's name from my typo'd Thompson.)
I think we do. Voting for Donald Trump or Joe Biden was entirely in the average person's control, and the outcome is that Joe Biden won. Simple.
Take, for example, the President. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan - none of them came from wealthy families. If the most powerful man in the country is chosen entirely by the people, I'd say average people do have control over the system.
>The nature of US policy has been shaped over the centuries in the open, //
That really doesn't seem to be true. Do you teach in schools about all the democracies that those in power have chosen to meddle with? Is it in election manifestos? Like "if elected we will depose the democratically elected leaders of country X in order to impose a dictator who is covertly in our employ".
>China's policies and doctrines are sometimes changed overnight //
Exactly like presidential edicts? How much of the population voted to leave the Paris Agreement on climate change, for example?
I'm not saying China ain't bad, their leadership clearly aren't great either.
Lost in translation. "Single party system" is a fancy way of saying "totalitarian dictatorship." "Two party system with mild corruption" is a fancy way of saying "modern plutocracy."
I agree that modern plutocracy is better than totalitarian dictatorship. It's not great but it could be worse.
This thread is great, OP asks for less reductionist good vs evil viewpoints and gets 20 replies saying 'no its actually that'.
Are you trying to say that all 100 million of them have meaningful influence on CCP policy? Like some sort of great big Athenian democracy?
There are lots of facets and levels of politics -- being a CCP member kind of necessitates being engaged in some way, probably at the local level for the vast majority of them.
Very little, that's why we refer to the actions of the American government rather than the actions American people.
You say as if it makes China better, but I see strong parallels with Nazi Germany's Lebensraum, or Imperial Japan's "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere". Nationalist sentiments can paint a surprising amount of aggression as "defending what's naturally ours."
They are not directly militarily expansionist but are very economically influential by bankrolling the new silk road and lots of developments in Africa.
> The American perspective is that everyone is secretly trying to expand
A huge & growing society seeks resources - which requires expansion; it would be more surprising if they did not given their capabilities and size.
I don’t think the evidence supports that - they’re literally creating new islands to gain more territorial water, for instance. They contest their borders with India and Japan regularly. Their international economic and development policies serve to expand their global influence.
I welcome Chinese non judgemental policy especially internal matter.
China as a nation and as a group of people have rarely (if ever) been aggressive outside their own borders. Any time where China exerted force or pressure outside its own country is justified as being purely defensive in nature. Internally, this is seen as largely being a cultural difference between Chinese philosophy/practice and the rest of the world.
In contemporary times, this practice of non-aggression translates to China's global policy. "One belt, one road" -- one of the primary globalization initiatives of China -- is built around Chinese support of critical national and trade infrastructure of developing countries. The idea is to build up trade partners and diplomatic allies through cooperation and capital infusions. Examples include building international trade ports, providing billions in medical aid, donating technology infrastructure, building millions of km of roadways, and investing in local enterprises. Fundamentally, China is focusing on countries left by the wayside by Western regimes (Africa, parts of Southeast Asia, South America, parts of the Middle East) but China is a good partner to many European countries. This is a dramatic departure from European colonialism and American exceptionalism where military might and economic threats were the standard negotiating tactics.
This, the Chinese allege, is fundamentally why a Chinese global hegemony is better than previous historical attempts. The Chinese do not significantly interfere with other nation's business unless it is as an ally of support or unless it's a defensive reaction to outside aggression. This allows other nations and peoples of the world to live their own lives while taking advantage of the market efficiencies, technology, and capital resources that China can provide.
The idea that “we acted outside our borders in defense”, is a line as old as empire itself (and in no way unique). One need only look at the changing borders of China over time to see that their interests extend exactly as far as the geography and external kinetic force allow it to.
Another line of thinking they’ll teach you in China is that the people of Tibet were enslaved by a ruling class, and their annexation was actually a liberation for the good of the local population. Maybe they’re right, and maybe five people in Tibet agreed before they started shoving families of Han Chinese into the region en masse, but justification of expansionist policies is a different discussion than whether their policies are or are not expansionist.
As to the OP's unasked question as to if the world would prefer living under Chinese supremacy vs American supremacy I think the difference is where in the world one currently lives. Generally speaking, I assume that North Americans, Brits, and small parts of Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Philippines) likely prefer American hegemony. OTOH, pretty much everywhere else in the world likely prefers a Chinese hegemony.
You can have two or more somewhat balanced powers jockeying for supremacy by way of cold or real wars, but this seems strictly worse for nearly everyone than a single imperfect, democratic superpower. I don't think there's a world in which nations don't compete for influence, at least not in the next century.
> USA seems only to be fighting China, so it can replace/keep itself in place as bully of the World meddling and causing untold harm for very perverse ends.
I don't see how anyone can look on 20th century history and conclude that a US hegemony is as bad as it gets.
> We need actual democracy, if we can make it work, proportional representation seems a bare minimum to work towards if we want to seek greater global cooperation (which we must to combat global climate change).
I don't see a global democracy coming to fruition in the next 100 years. It's an interesting idea, however.
A USA hegemony under Sanders would be very interesting, under Trump's ilk ...
USA's power relies on threat of violence, can we really not do better than 'the best murderers win'?
I'm guessing you're from USA; when you say the best thing for everyone is a USA hegemony?
> does anyone seriously think that a Chinese global hegemony would be better
False equivalency; no one is arguing that. However, a multi-polar world is appealing. The US is certainly not always a good actor here either: the US has 50+ years of foreign interventions to point to that span the globe, particularly the middle east, latin america, and southeast asia. Less extreme: its ability to unilaterally cause pain for even allies (EU, Canada) through trade tariffs wasn't exactly welcomed.
It would be in Europe (and other regions') interest to be able to defend their own interests on equal footing with the US. Currently, they cannot do that (military and economic dependence). Having China offers leverage. I.e., the US will be incentivized to behave better if other countries can say "well if you push us too far, we'll work with China."
This is just my armchair analysis. I'm not invested enough to back this up with citations or anything so if that's what you're looking for feel free to ignore and argue with someone else who cares more.
Afaik, tripolar tends to be the most stable, with a default-neutral third party, who may choose to side with either other major.
Bipolar comes in second.
A multi-polar world is one where a bunch of nation-states have a realistic shot at becoming the new global hegemon. The likely situation is something like what occurred in the 19th and early 20th century where all of the major powers were locked into a blisteringly expensive military and arms race. And when you have a military that stands on an equal footing with others, the temptation is there to use it to advance national interests and, as the old quote goes, "of course you realize this means war!"; the list of wars that occurred in the 19th century is surprisingly long. Absolutely nothing about that scenario is appealing.
Really? Can someone clarify what my earlier quoted passage was referencing then? I wasn't trying to straw-man the OP.
> However, a multi-polar world is appealing. The US is certainly not always a good actor here either: the US has 50+ years of foreign interventions to point to that span the globe, particularly the middle east, latin america, and southeast asia.
The Cold War (and most/all of those foreign-interventions that you object to) were products of a multi-polar world. I don't know that this is a good thing. I understand and empathize with the "competition is good" impulse, but I don't think it bears out in history.
> It would be in Europe (and other regions') interest to be able to defend their own interests on equal footing with the US. Currently, they cannot do that (military and economic dependence). Having China offers leverage. I.e., the US will be incentivized to behave better if other countries can say "well if you push us too far, we'll work with China."
I understand and empathize with this as well, as noted above.
IIUC, OP's quote just means that a lot of existing books do try to make that argument, i.e., that the only outcome of the US losing its position is for China to take it, as opposed to a multi-polar world (and thus, it would be in the reader's best interest to support US hegemony).
I mean, as you point out, it's not always all that great for those within the US's pole, either. But to me, China and Russia seem to be more aggressive in asserting themselves in dominance over others.
Tell that to Latin America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...) and the Middle East.
China uses economic leverage. Russia uses subterfuge. America uses those with an extra helping of bombs.
During the cold war the US and Russia made a mess of many many countries. It doesn't seem likely to be cleaned up any time soon. That's what a multi-polar world is like.
The only reason Europe has been able to fund their various subsidies, welfare programs, and safety nets, is because they've slashed their defense budgets by joining NATO and outsourcing defense to the US.
> This is just my armchair analysis. I'm not invested enough to back this up with citations or anything so if that's what you're looking for feel free to ignore and argue with someone else who cares more.
Then why post?
... Seriously? Because it's the Internet and I have a few minutes to kill here and there.
The Kill Chain, by Christian Brose
Active Measures, by Thomas Rid
Sandworm, by Andy Greenberg
Fatal System Error, by Joseph Mann
One example of just one thing that's barely been reckoned with in mass public discourse, a tiny thing and an unfathomably huge thing, is the impact of national and corporate intelligence agencies on the world over the past 200 years, during the time when any nation could project force into pretty much any other via easy global travel.
Every major country has not just spies, but significant resources they can bring to bear in terms of psychological operations and embedded operatives across the political spectrum. Just one small example of this kind of thing is Operation Gladio[1], which had massive ramifications for the political landscape in Europe in the last 50 years, and there are countless things like this that we do and don't know anything about.
Just the USA has had a hand in so many bizarre and hugely important events, and then to think that Russia, China, Germany, Israel, France, the UK, and any number of other countries have operated in a similar fashion since WWI or earlier? Yikes!
And that doesn't even touch on the corporate side of it, with its roots going back to the gilded age or earlier, where unions and putdowns and murders and all kinds of nutty (but secret) behaviour was just... normal.
There's just so much we don't, and may never know, and even that stuff is just a tiny portion of the picture. The kind of open and secret economic games that get played, power and relationship dynamics between countries and their leaders, their wealthy families, the networks of people who meet through family and upbringing, grudges, debts, ideological choices and pragmatic ones -- it goes on and on and on. And then the technological changes!
But, I would really love to read that book if you find it.
On the academic side, I get the sense that there is so much pressure to specialize and deeply study narrow areas that a really broad work (global developments over decades) would not be well received. Within think tanks, a broad survey would likely still need to be concordant with an institutional agenda. And if really broad documents are being produced within state departments/foreign ministries or other parts of government, we would never see them?
My personal feeling, as a first-generation immigrant, is that the West has eliminated the local incentives for traits associated with personal strength. Partly by moving jobs requiring problem-solving to cheaper countries. Partly by the corporate culture trying to refocus people's passion into areas where they wouldn't accumulate economic leverage (passion about hobbies, social issues and identity is OK, passion about the product that would make you one day start your own business is a no-no).
So we have a high concentration of strong ambitious people used to solving problems in countries like China (because the entire world literally pays them to do so). And we have a lot of softer people taking too many things for granted in the West, sitting on most of the world's wealth. This is a textbook recipe for a conflict.
1) The USMC reading list. If you want an English language view of the current state of 'thought' from the leaders of any near-future conflicts, this list is it. It goes from poolee to the top brass. Maybe look for the more top level books and read from there. Though the underlying mindset is important and is from the lower rank books.
https://mca-marines.org/commandants-professional-reading-lis...
2) The wikipedia articles on the Nagorno-Karabakh war of October 2020 and their linked pages. Obviously there aren't any books out on this war yet, as it was so recent. But the underlying mechanics of the war are likely to be the ones we're seeing in the near future as both sides were somewhat evenly matched and had access to modern weaponry. "The war was marked by the deployment of drones, sensors, long-range heavy artillery[99] and missile strikes, as well as by state propaganda and the use of official social media accounts in online information warfare.[100]" I'd maybe put out a google alert for books about this conflict when they come out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict
China’s Three Warfares(non-kinetic/pre-kinetic warfare): https://cryptome.org/2014/06/prc-three-wars.pdf
Professor Anne Marie Brady: https://twitter.com/Anne_MarieBrady
It is good for global security that France has a strong military and is strengthening it. But it is only a small consideration. It is nonsense to talk about France embarking on a global "high-intensity, state-on-state conflict" and projecting land military power from Russia to Turkey, and "naval presence" in the Indo-Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic and the Persian Gulf, without noting that this would mean far more powerful militaries than France being involved and would mean nukes flying and most human life on the planet being wiped out in short order.
In 2021, saying that France is preparing for a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is as absurd as saying that the State of Texas is preparing for a high-intensity war with North Korea or Mexico.
The only scenario where France would be engaged in a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is if World War III started. I believe that it is reasonable to say that a high-intensity war between the world powers would probably result in the end of human civilization within a few hours. The fact that 10,000 French soldiers are planning to do a 4 day military training exercise in 2023 is a tiny consideration in the larger scheme of any strategic plans that NATO and the EU have for a hypothetical WWIII.
What is most suspicious is that the article tries to equate such a world-ending event with on-going and hypothetical French military adventures in Africa. French military adventurism in Africa and the Middle East is not a high-intensity, state-on-state conflict.
Who? Why?
> would mean nukes flying and most human life on the planet being wiped out in short or
We had 50 years of Cold War and MAD and plenty of large, gruesome wars and no one got nuked. France was involved with some of them, too, e.g. Vietnam.
The lesson of the Korean War is that even with nukes, intense conventional war is still possible, even likely.
> The only scenario where France would be engaged in a high-intensity war with Russia or Turkey is if World War III started
Not at all. If the French -- already reluctant members of NATO, with a history of trying to NOT be a member -- were to walk out of the alliance, why would that conflict lead to WW3? An multi-polar world with an independent Europe means that they can fight their own wars against Russia and Turkey -- they have in the past!
I don't know. There are many possibilities, known and unknown. If you're asking me to speculate, with the limited information I have, I would put my money on trying to scare some African military force that France is engaged in conflict with.
> The lesson of the Korean War is that even with nukes, intense conventional war is still possible
Korea and Vietnam were Cold War era wars between highly asymmetric opponents. They were proxy conflicts between global superpowers. The entire premise of a "Cold War" or "proxy war" is that it allows powerful opponents to avoid a high-intensity conflict where mutual destruction is assured. That is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict. Just like French involvement in the proxy wars in Africa and the Middle East is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict.
> An multi-polar world with an independent Europe means that they can fight their own wars against Russia and Turkey -- they have in the past!
Again, we are not in the past. We're not discussing war in the context of 19th century European military technology, we are discussing a future major global conflict. The last time Europe was at war with Russia and Turkey, it was exactly in the context of a world war.
A multipolar world (as opposed to a unipolar or bipolar world) is exactly the kind of situation where one would expect high-intensity, state-on-state conflict to develop into a World War. That's pretty much the store of WWI and WWII. The Cold War is the story of a bipolar world. Notice how Cold War is "cold," the opposite of "high-intensity."
Longer term, as Putin slides out of the picture with his medical issues, Russia is an interesting candidate for instability. The Chinese might try to solidify their land grab in the east, but the bigger worry is Russia breaking apart and imploding.
Europe has zero capability for warfare in the Pacific, so that is irrelevant.
What? Turkey is separated from France by half a dozen countries, all of which would severely object to Turkish forces passing through them, and other NATO states would also have severe objections to such a conflict. And no North African states have any significant amphibious capability - there is a sea between North Africa and France, you know.
Russia, ever the villain (and oft deserved) is also not dumb.
The most likely flashpoints for major conflict in my eyes are Pakistan - India, India - China, and China - Taiwan. It's a stretch to picture the French getting involved in any of those.
Major conflict in Europe just doesn't seem likely to me.
That's exactly because EU members would react that Turkey doesn't do it and preparing for this scenario is exactly how you prevent it.
> Those are not the kind of major WWII style conflicts discussed in the article.
WWII-style conflicts are an especially major type. They were so unusually major that the "world war" moniker was coined for them, because calling them a plain "war" just wouldn't do, and anything similarly unusually major would probably be cataclysmic at this point. I don't think that should be the threshold for calling something "major."
One can bike-shed endlessly about definitions, but let's keep it to the context.
Looks like nit picking over definitions to me. I don't see a connection to me not imaging a war between major powers in Europe. Can you make the connection for me?
It would depend entirely on how Europe and the US reacts of course. If Europe stand united then Russia would stay out. If the US was willing to get involved then Russia would stay out.
Possibly France and Poland could stop Russia from taking the Baltics, but I don't think so.
I would have said Turkey wouldn't do anything, but with Erodogan I don't know any longer.
As for major conflicts in Europe, I have seen, stood on and crawled in the bunkers from the Atlantic wall (not hard, they are still very much a part of the landscape here in Denmark) I have seen the beeches in Normandy that are still marked by shell holes (or possibly granade holes). It is a nice reminder that major conflicts really did happen there.
I too used to think they would not happen in Europe ever again, because we could always count on the US as the backer of the peace and then nobody else would do anything. That got a shock on 9/11, and then the deal (which to be fair was never very good for the US) got a serious wack with the Trump administration.
Without guaranteed US backing, the peace in Europe seems a lot less solid. A united Europe (especially with the ability to buy weapons from the US, which I don't think is going to be an issue) is still very strong (and Russia isn't), but Europe is not united in much. And the public certainly isn't going to be happy with large scale war. We like our public safety nets, easy lives and long summers just as much as the next person.
Anyway that is a long armchair comment about the sentiment here in Europe.
Shadow warfare, proxy warfare, territory annexation.
It would be a serious escalation in strategy and risk to invade and annex a Baltic state. It seems unlikely to me, for what it's worth.
Turkey is expanding their influence on their neighborhood, but they won't seek out conflict with the EU, that's suicide.
Turkey and Russia could be a problematic situation though. They're similarly sized economies, although Russia has a serious military advantage.
Russia's GDP is twice the size of Turkey. Russia is more similar to UK/France/Canada than Turkey.[0]
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
An interesting question, which i think you would need some legal expert on the NATO treaties to explicate. But mercifully for 50 years or so they haven't ever done such a thing, and I don't see the military forces of either country wanting to. The bonkers Turkish leadership is another matter, but the Turkish (and Greek, to be honest) military have a tendency to remove inconvenient leaders.
Basically, yes. They can and will. That's real, proven, global power projection. The number of other countries in the world capable of that can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
What, with one ageing aircraft carrier?
The way you ask that question suggests that the answer should be "no"; but it's not. The answer is "yes".
No, it isn't. Libya is just across the Med from France, not in the Pacific.
> The number of other countries in the world capable of that can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
Well, really on one finger.
They didn't walk the resupply over. They have ships, they have friendly nations, they have the financing to purchase what they need, they have a real logistics organisation capable of resupplying globally. How inconvenient for this discussion that Libya wasn't on the other side of the planet, but there it is.
Well, really on one finger.
This is incorrect. Perhaps you're thinking of the USA, which is an order of magnitude more capable than any other. They are not, however, the only nation capable of delivering sustained global power projection.
Even for Falklands conflict, they barely managed to win, and that was with assistance from their friends vis-a-vis missile codes, satellite imagery, etc.
So they end up with one, again, if they even build it. Even the UK can do better than that, though admittedly the French carriers are at least notionally more capable than the crap Gordon Brown foisted on us.
But if Turkey hypothetically starts occupying Greece islands or Russia one of the Baltics AND at the same time, the USA is unwilling or incapable of intervention, it probably would be France and the UK to fight at the front lines.
But for a Baltics invasion, it would.
They’re the Floyd[0] of global politics, laying on the couch smoking pot while reminding you to buy some cleaning products while you’re out.
France is also NATO member like Turkey. But if Turkey and Greece go into war with each other, sides are taken. Greece is EU member, Turkey is not.
NATO is a defensive pact, so I think attacking a NATO member (even if you're a NATO member) likely results in NATO action against the aggressor.
When Greece-Turkey conflicts have happened in the past, NATO members have used strong diplomatic pressure. Turkey might be booted from NATO if war escalates.
France has made its choice clear. They are protecting Greece against Turkey.
(1) France challenges Turkey’s territorial and resource claims.
(2) French have conducted a joint military exercise with Greece and Cyprus as message to Turkey.
France still has a top-10 military and maybe the most effective overseas force projection capabilities outside the US and Great Britain (maybe China, we'll see how effective their navy is, sooner or later). Not to mention a long-standing nuclear arsenal. If Europe—any of it, at least in the EU or NATO—is attacked from the East, the French will be on the front lines, and landing on beaches. Turkey, on its own or as a puppet of (probably—god, they've wanted it for like 200+ years at this point) Russia, is increasingly a realistic threat. Plus Russia itself.
Like other major European former-colonizer states, France maintains strong ties to many parts of the world and is relied on, or considers itself responsible for, security in those regions. Algeria is attacked? France will surely show up to the party. Algeria decides to take some kind of Cuba-like action against French property? France will likely be there, in a very different capacity. They have strong interest in Lebanon (threatened, potentially, by Syria and Turkey, among others) and much of West Africa, as well, where, if you follow international news, their foreign legion and special forces are often deployed and quite active.
Sidebar: They're also possibly the most experienced torturers in the West. You see them called in for it sometimes, if you read between the lines a bit. Yikes.
See also: Libya, and Italy's leadership there (for better or worse). France has similar ties to a dozen or more countries in Africa and the Levant. Warranted or not from some broader perspective, they'll tend to see intervention in conflicts there as obligatory and desirable.
They have never done so effectively in the past (Vietnam? Algeria? Suez?) and I don't see them doing it now or any time in the future.
(Russia and the Soviet Union have also performed outstandingly in war, but the French government treats its citizens much better much more consistently than Russia or the Soviet Union ever have.)
Vietnam and Algeria were asynchronous battlefields, and nobody seems to be able to win those. ( Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam)
Suez failed politically and internationally, and the French were forced to pull back because the British got forced by the US. Militarily it had a decent start before that.
And all of those were more than 60 years ago, so hardly applicable today.
Can you expand on this?
Somebody forgot to tell Ukraine about this Gallic heroism.
The above, combined with their inaction in the face of Russia annexing part of a European state means you're arguing for ambition contrary to history. You say things are different now, and maybe they are. Time will tell, I suppose.
I think it more likely that if Germany has her way and builds a EU army, France would take their lead in defending European nations. I'm really not trying to smear France here - I think they could be doing far more for global stability than they are, and would like to see it. But actions speak louder than words.
Ukraine is contributing to this attitude, I expect. Western states at least want to project the image that they would, given enough pushing from Russia and others, intervene, in order to (they hope) make them think twice about further expansion. Exercises aren't just about actual preparation, but about sending messages. The intended audience may be domestic and foreign, and in this case they seem to be pretty up-front about some of the intended recipients.
More directly, I don't think it's true that there's no possible level of aggression from certain states that wouldn't draw an actual military response from France, even well into Eastern Europe, the Near East, and North/West Africa (and, in such a case, almost certainly some of France's allies would be involved as well, outside smaller conflicts in West Africa particularly). Exercises and public statements about their purpose may be designed to make potential adversaries less certain about just how far they can go without crossing that line, while also providing actual preparation should a conflict happen. They're saying (bluffing, or not) that they're preparing for exactly the kind of greater intervention you're talking about. That's why they'd hold exercises like this and make the statements they have about them.
This and my earlier posts are an explanation for why France would, very publicly, hold exercises with the stated purpose that they did. Obviously they know Turkey and North African states aren't going to invade France herself. They're not preparing for an invasion by Tunisia. They're sending a message about the regions they will defend (claim they will defend, of course—the seriousness of this posturing is untested, but the new stance seems to promote the idea that they are now more serious), and which states they want to know they're concerned about—apparently Turkey, and with Turkey, implicitly, Russia, either defending them from Russia or defending against a Russia-aligned Turkey, which relationship is seemingly going to continue being a major component of European politics indefinitely, as it has been the last couple centuries.
No, I don't think that can be read into my comments.
> they probably do expect to take part
You stated they'd be on the front lines with some certainty, and I chortled. You asked why. I explained why.
Diving into why a country engages in posturing is beside the point.
Jacque: "Monsieur Commander, our allocation of Sauvignon Blanc 1961 for the samedi dinner has been redirected to the front!'
Claude: "Mon Dieu! Qel sorte du monde! Order the Malbec as soon as possible. Nou sommes perdues!"
"And have you made room for the bound-and-gagged ISIS prisonnières? We want to be certain they can view our leisure dining, so as to torture and tempt them to abandon their Muslim faith for a carafe of excellent vin Francais, not to mention our excellent prostitues nicoise.
Do not forget that theese is indeed high-intensity warfare and we must bring our bunker-busters to the fore in an overwhelming move to close the gap! Oh, hon, hon, hon!
Jacque: Mais Senior Commander, the 5th Brigade of the American military, the pride of Black Fighting strength, will be attending the samedi dinner,
Claude: Nous sommes perdues! Peut-etre, peut-etre...oui, I have eet! Tell the cooks to spice the Americains' meals with saltpeter! Oh, hon, hon, hon! I am not a Commander for nothing! With nightfall the French will advance with high-intensity, while ze Americains fumble with their limp pythons! Hon, hon, hon! Commander indeed!
>In his strategic vision for 2030 published last year, however, General Thierry Burkhard, the head of the French army, outlined the need to prepare for high-intensity, state-on-state conflict.
Flipside when the military gets a 46% boost in budget... that's politicians making it abundantly clear that this is more than operations. This is
Now place this in context.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa...
Anyone remember the Yellow vest protests? Ya they went away after the French government arrested them all.
>Between November 2018 and July 2019, 11,203 Yellow Vests protesters were placed in pre-charge detention.
As the link points out... France declared martial law pre-covid and has gotten significantly worse during covid.
So it makes me wonder. Is this just a continuation of martial law or escalation? Or do they expect their military will be up against other states?
I would be interested to hear more on that from General Burkhard. Because right now - and based on my very limited understanding of the topic - this feels like the kind of statement that could look rather misinformed when looked back at in the future. This actually reminds me of the French army and French generals preparing for WW2; stuck with their existing organizational structures and mental models (that led them to victory in WW1), they discounted new warfare theories/technologies and strategies (such as: combining planes and tanks, blitzkrieg) that led them to a quick and complete defeat.
At the moment three divisions could waltz into Berlin and hold the whole project ransom, unless the yanks stopped them. The yanks can stop anything, but as the last whitehouse living person showed - the yanks can be fickle.
France must orchestrate a serious military capability in Europe for the sake of global stability, and it must do it now. The Germans must pay for this. Poles, Italians and Greeks could staff it.
Isn't the US military also a huge employer?
Don't get me wrong, I'd bet the article is great, but I'm not interested in an Economist subscription right now.
Russia was a great power in great decline, but still capable of great disruption(Georgia/Ukraine).
China is a great power with great momentum.
But this is not another Cold War.
During the Cold War the world was largely bifurcated into competing networks based on ideology.
Nations switching from one network to another were rare and switching costs were high.
Now in a highly integrated global economy value proposition is what matters and switching costs for nations is much lower.
Having 1 billion daily active users in the developing world on a Superplatform(Facebook/WeChat) is worth more than the 1 trillion sunk cost invested in Supercarriers(Nimitz/Ford Class).
This is not another Cold War, it is ruthless and relentless competition between competing value propositions.