The French armed forces are planning for high-intensity war
economist.com
economist.com
It's different in Europe - the UK seems to be the least conscious of the possibility of war but the farther east you go, the more it's on people's minds.
I've been to Poland a few times now, and each visit through chatting with randoms in a bar or pub (and through chatting with a number of Polish friends here in the UK) I had a similar experience: there would be a point where someone would casually remark that they're just spending time concentrating on keeping fit (aerobic and weight lifting) because "the next war is coming."
Poland of course has particularly horrible geographical luck and an extremely war-torn past to reckon with, but I was really struck with this idea that anecdotally many folks seemed to be living under the perception that the next war is coming, and we all need to be prepared. I've had similar but less extreme and consistent conversations with folks in Romania, for example.
I'm not really sure what there is to learn here, apart from the fact that the EU has been a phenomenal success in its real purpose - keeping the peace in Europe. Just look at this list of wars in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe
Is the world getting safer? I think so. Is the risk of large scale war like France is planning for decreasing? I hope so. But we are on very new footing in terms of this being the new normal, despite what it might feel like, and this perception certainly differs based on how close to perceived threats you might live.
Obviously over simplified a complex situation.
I live less than 8 miles from a major oil refinery in the US, and that fact is always in the back of my mind. I would much prefer to live at least 15 miles from anything worth nuking.
(I do not consider the end of the Cold War to have been the end of the risk of nuclear war.)
We knew we were getting a nuke if things went south.
I’d love to know what scenarios the French military think are likely that don’t involve large scale nuclear weapon deployments.
Putin seems to be testing the waters with Nato and the west, as is China. Putin got away with a lot lately. He is smart, so I just hope that doesn't overplay his hand. Because this kind of stuff can easily escalate. And today we aren't at our toes anymore the same way we were during the cold war, being aware of the risk goves pause sometimes.
Ukraine used to be divided in perception of Russia and it never had strong national identity. Eastern half of country was very pro-Russian. People spoke Russian, watched Russian tv and longed for Soviet times. Now it is very different, see [0] on how perception has changed and lot more people identify as Ukrainian. Side effect of the war in the east of Ukraine is that their defense budget more than tripled and its army is much more experienced and bigger than before.
Lost their hearts and made them much better in defending themselves in the process.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia–Ukraine_relations#In_Uk...
People in US or China dont appreciate their safety enough.And safety is a prerequisite to prosperity.
There are only a handful of nations that border hostile powers and can thrive and they all exercise" armed to the teeth" strategy.
In Europe and in the US, there was no more denying that communism was a fail. But in the US, people got the idea that they won the Cold War by showcasing a consumer lifestyle, and that therefore it's unpatriotic to sacrifice any convenience or comfort for any national purpose. Which is how we've come to be unable to mobilize against the pandemic.
Trust issues are somewhat justified in this case.
You mean, except triggering WWII in the West?
> Poland was given to Stalin to become USSR's satellite
What would you have proposed; launch WWIII?
Yeah, sure, good luck beating the RKKA in 1945. No A-bombs ready, industry centers are behind the Urals and untouchable by the allied air power; absolutely 0 support from the civilian populations in the West, whereas the Soviet civilian population would be galvanized by the backstabbing; the UK is already at the end of its manpower; the US would be fighting an ocean behind its logistic base; the RKKA is in full swing in Europe and overwhelming the WAllies in the ETO in men and material; best case is the WAllies get thrown to the Atlantic and a white peace is signed, worst case ends in a nuclear apocalypse.
Operation Unthinkable is very fun in wargaming, but it doesn't hold water in practice.
> look at all the suffering that would have been avoided (Holodrome, etc.)
The Holodomor that happened 10 years BEFORE 1945? Do you even have any idea what you're talking about?
France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg were invaded in May 1940. Only then did the allies really start to fight back. Polish allies did nothing until France was invaded.
I agree there was not really a great solution after WW2 for Poland, the Iron Curtain was basically inevitable given how shaky the alliance between the USSR and the West was.
You know what, just draw us a battle plan in which the WAllies beat Germany in 1939, that would revolutionize the academic understanding of early WWII.
What was the right move then? Please detail. Would it be an “attaque à outrance” with an unready French army and an embryonic BEF against fortified German positions, with neatly inferior air forces, not enough siege artillery to break the Siegried line, a flimsy logistic branch, and following a totally hurried plan due to an uncooperative Belgium which screwed up all pre-war planning? And all that within a nation which already suffered humongous and material human losses barely 20 years before and could not really afford the same thing again, neither from a political nor a practical perspective if it was to handle a long war.
No, I argue that even with hindsight, globally, the right call was made: there was absolutely no way to save a Poland which happily sacrificed every opportunity to get military allies less than 1,500km away during the whole interwar period; the only playable hand was to bet on a long, tracted war where the French and the British could economically strangle Germany like they did in 1918 and free Poland afterwards – implicating, on the ground, turtling behind the border defenses long enough for the blockade to do its job. Problem: (i) Belgium royally screwing up the plan, (ii) USSR joining the waltz, (iii) the incredibly lucky strike of the Germans in the Ardennes.
Sometimes, the only winning move is not to play.
Now I totally understand why they were not fond of FR/UK deliberately planning to sacrifice half their country to establish strong defensive lines on their rivers, but sometimes you can't have it all and just have to go with the less shitty plan.
I’d imagine that the literal millions of dead under Belgian soil, and the total destruction wrought by WWI made them hesitant to take any sides in potential conflict. You don’t position yourself in the middle a fight between two heavyweight boxers when you are a flyweight.
On the contrary [0] - "Germany had started low-intensity undeclared war on Czechoslovakia on 17 September 1938. In reaction, the United Kingdom and France on 20 September formally asked Czechoslovakia to cede its territory to Germany, which was followed by Polish territorial demands brought on 21 September and Hungarian on 22 September."
They started doing something substantial after France was invaded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War
the Phoney period began with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France against Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939, after which little actual warfare occurred, and ended with the German invasion of France and the Low Countries on 10 May 1940. Although there was no large-scale military action by Britain and France, they did begin some economic warfare, especially with the naval blockade, and shut down German surface raiders. They created elaborate plans for numerous large-scale operations designed to cripple the German war effort. These included opening an Anglo-French front in the Balkans, invading Norway to seize control of Germany's main source of iron ore and a strike against the Soviet Union, to cut off its supply of oil to Germany. Only the Norway plan came to fruition, and by April 1940, it was too little, too late.
I think they meant Poland was promised support in case of an attack and ended up getting screwed over by all their supposed allies, who after the war didn't even have the decency of trying to help them regain their independency.
Second is an opinion, not a fact.
Americans know war from TV, worst that happens is some of those who signed up for the work don't come home, or a remote naval base gets bombed.
The Polish known wars throughout all their history. It's only natural to think the next war is coming, because some war has always been coming.
Aside from obvious nationalism that plays a role with some folks, I'd say total defiance may be a sound strategy for dealing with sociopathic bad actors (international or otherwise): better than going down a slippery slope to complete submission everywhere. This is the kind of situation that people tend to think of when talking about "dying for the country" in Poland.
This is very much the feeling people had before World War I. The thought was that the web of alliances Bismarck had built would prevent war, similar to your comment about the EU.
It seems that this sort of interdependence acts more like a buffer to prevents small-scale conflicts, but results in large-scale conflict once it does actually come due to a cascading effect of allies being pulled over the brink.
We may not see another real major war in our life-times, if we're lucky, but there's a very real chance our children or grandchildren will see the largest war in history.
Over the last 200 years, at least, how many major conflicts have started for secular politics vs religious politics. I feel there is a heavy skew towards the former.
Also if you want to get really nit picky one could argue 9/11 was more motivated by geopolitics.
"Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
~ An American president who was shot by an American citizen on 1865-04-14
We have the largest quantity of immigrants in our country than anywhere else in the world. 50+ million immigrants that all bring their varied experiences and war is a part of many of their stories.
Leopold Khor wrote a book about this, best info link I could quickly find is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv9eJ8miMgA
Also, there is nothing stopping countries conquering or otherwise merging with each other, in which case we'd quickly be back at square one.
I guess I threw my above reply out there because I think globalism was meant to extend the power and wealth the elites already have, and that is its one benefit, not preventing wars. A lot of wars have been fought to construct and preserve this global order.
Khor makes a great case that the problems of staying small are less than the problems of bigness. There will still be wars, but small wars are better than big wars. Small countries can still gang up on large threats. He talks a lot how bigness always eventually leads to tyranny and aggression, just look at the history of every large country.
Khor speaks highly of federations, and what works and what doesn't. For example, he says it's great that the U.S. is made up of many states without being dominated by any one state. But I think he would be concerned if he saw a federal government grow so powerful that it can dominate all the states, not to mention the rest of the planet!
I share your scepticism about how to get from here to there. I think Khor does, also.
You may want to read up on the state of preparation these countries are going through to reestablish their perceived ancient kingdoms.
It is a constant debate in Military forums about the scale of ambitions these countries possess, but the indisputable fact remains that a) The administrations there have incorporated ideologies of grandeur into their legitimacy and b) Their military postures are targeted toward establishing specific, stated, highly provocative goals of expansionism / wiping out old foes.
The rest are of course expansionist.
The Bosnian war next door raged for several years and much of my early childhood was steeped in news reports from the war, the aftermath, etc. As late as 2001, the USA was bombing the hometown of folks I later became friends with.
I always joked that my focus on being in shape is because you never know when a zombie apocalypse might come ... but maybe those faint memories of war got embedded in my subconscious somehow.
Either way, rule 1 of zombieland is cardio. Zombies are scary because theyre the only threat with more stamina than humans.
It's a bit surprising that Chinese citizens would have that attitude at the same time as PRC leadership engages in brinksmanship over the status of Taiwan. Taiwan is one of the world's most significant potential "flashpoints", and it factors heavily in the military planning of the US, Japan, and South Korea.
Inland provinces might be very far removed from potential danger, but I wouldn't be so confident if I lived in Fujian or elsewhere on the coast.
I agree that China has enough force to make any invasion difficult but it’s certainly a risk of being attacked at home.
Yes, people will casually talk about it, our politicians will occasionally bring it up, and our media will sometimes cover it, but more local events take precedence.
For example, for the past week, the train crash that claimed 49 lives has been the main focus, despite the increase in fighter jets flying near our ADIZ.
If you ask people what their future plans are, the idea of a possible war doesn’t really factor into their planning.
Now there was a time it did. In 1996, before the first democratic election and again in 2000 when former President Chen was elected.
Back then there was a genuine fear and people were preparing for the worst. Maybe everyone is just used to it now.
This post from Tanner Greer is a good deep dive of the political attitude towards the issue within Taiwan: https://scholars-stage.blogspot.com/2020/09/why-i-fear-for-t....
Given how ridiculously anti-EU the current Polish government is, it makes one wonder whether they share this view.
I don't understand this mentality. Are those people young enough that they expect to get drafted, or do they think their CrossFit Bod will help them take down a professional soldier armed to the teeth.
Some countries (like Austria) draft their citizen and reserve the option to mobilize them in case of crisis. In Switzerland, every draftee remains part of the armed forces up to retirement and participates in yearly exercises.
Even if you don't get drafted, you might want to be able to protect your loved ones or simply be able to flee to safer areas. During a war, enemy soldiers are not the only threat. Societal collapse in the face of supply shortages or the frontlines closing in will make many people desperate and willing to take advantage of the situation.
Some countries let their citizens keep weapons. Sure, they won't be able to prevail in open battle against a professional army, but they might be able to wage asymmetric warfare. There is always the option of yielding to the attacker, but there are clear risks to that as well!
Australians have no clue what real war is, but they celebrate it in their most sacred parks. Americans believe they will never be defeated in war, but don't consider conditions on Skid Row to be a sign of defeat.
Its a terrible thing to understand that, in general, people do believe there will be more war and social upheaval on the horizon - but its even worse to realize there are entire continents of people who will suffer mightily, when it happens.
Australia is participating in the criminal wars of the US with degrees of impunity (i.e. accountability to the citizens of Australia) envied by most of the other participants.
> (putting aside, yes, the invasion of Aboriginal Australia)
This is all-too easily leaned on by Australians as a means of avoiding the uncomfortable truths of Australia's real history with imperial slaughter and social engineering. Current-day Australians are in serious danger of believing their righteous forces can do no wrong "except for all that genocide we've been doing as a nation since the beginning" ..
In the 80´s the threat was Russian tanks marching to Paris from East Germany. 12h away.
France is really aware of its place military speaking.
We know we can’t sustain a serious conflict with country armed like Russia for instance.
At the time the official plan was to sustain a Russian offensive for 3 days. And then either use nuke, or hope for allies /NATO force to be in a position to do something.
( those plan were for « USSR surprise attack » )
Right now, I have no idea .
But you make a good point. People in Europe still remember wars. It’s not a movie thing.
This seems to have very little to do with the EU.
European countries that have experienced peace since 1945 did so because they were militarily occupied by a nuclear-armed hegemon—either the US or Soviet Union—and hence had their borders secured via mutually assured destruction.
France is clearly positioning itself to be the new nuclear-armed hegemon of Western Europe as the US pivots towards either greater isolationism or focus on Asia and the Pacific.
I've noticed the same preparedness for war amongst Europeans and while Mainland Chinese don't think there will be a war on Mainland China, they speak very freely about scenarios where Chine regains its rightful place in the world.
For example, Taiwan, Singapore and the islands around, the Chinese friends i have in the region candidly admit that they see holding a mix of the US Dollar among other assets in their savings mix as a hedge against any conflict in the region because "If there is one, these islands are so small that they would be wiped out almost instantly"
These conversations are usually in the context of saving for their childrens future and they're typically the biggest thing most Chinese families treasure, so their actions to protect and provide for them do speak loudly.
"The groups cover everything from munition shortages to the resilience of society, including whether citizens are “ready to accept the level of casualties we have never seen since world war two”, says one participant."
…isn't at all what "NATO did" in any of its training maneuvers.
https://github.com/hover-inc/hover-paywalls-browser-extensio...
According to the repo:
> The only permissions/settings the extension utilizes are for webRequest and cookie functionality, and nothing more.
… so what's there to distrust?
Saved you the trouble ;-) The title is clickbait
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ktqdJh...
And if they're not ready then what? Oopsy can't have big war cause not enough votes? I do not like this part at all. It reads like they actually want a war assuming they train the obedient to be willing to die "en masse".
The whole point of globalization and disinterventionism was to avoid hot wars. And, given their potential foes, I’m not sure they want to get into a hot war.
More importantly none of the powers have high reproduction rates so they won’t have a large fresh pop from which to draught troops and the robots aren’t quite ready yet, so I don’t know what gives.
Neither Russia or China pose any military threath to Europe unless we send our ships right up their shores. Maybe that is what we are about to do?
Ukraine and the Baltic States are in Europe, no? The Baltic States are, for better or worse, NATO members and the alliance is bound to defend them.
NATO has the "enhanced forward presence" (tanks) in Estonia and "Baltic air policing" (fighter jets) covering all 3.
NATO in practice is an offensive alliance as much as a defensive one.
The scenario BAOR was prepared for was the Third Shock Army surging through the Fulda Gap, and likewise the Third was prepared to do that.
Now certainly that's a bit unreasonable as countries should be allowed to associate with whoever they want, but it's not exactly a live wire threatening war left and right, it's a red line they set out a very long time ago, and there's not much reason to think they're interested with much beyond that red line.
The Crimea was not historically part of Ukraine, though for political and administrative purposes it was assigned to the Ukraine soviet republic. Given its criticality Russia took it back.
Second, Russia is not just annexing Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula but also attempting to annex parts of eastern Ukraine and recently moved a bunch of troops potentially to expand their held territory beyond the peninsula and deeper into central Ukraine.
I don’t understand these arguments carrying water for Russia. Yeah, we all know Russia wants to annex parts of Ukraine for what they consider strategic reasons. But we can’t go about justifying wars for annexation in the 21st bloody century! Doesn’t matter if it’s the US, China, or Russia. Annexation is not justifiable.
It’s akin to China asserting a claim on Guam. We will not let that happen.
That's like saying Ukraine has claims in Kuban, because it was historically Ukrainian.
Where the heck do people get off on justifying imperialist annexation of smaller, weaker countries by an aggressor?
In my understanding, if Ukraine becomes a NATO country, European Russia becomes indefensible. That means, the Russian govt is ready to escalate the matter all the way to the nukes.
I don't expect a major conflict, but who knows.
It’s insane to me that in a conflict between a smaller and poorer country and a larger imperial country, people keep taking the side of the aggressor who literally invaded and is attempted to annex portions of the smaller. NATO is no justification for this!
As far as Russia, it's not a question of right or wrong. As part of the dissolution of the USSR, NATO made a tacti assurance TO Russia that they would not push until the border.
The occupation of Ukraine is a response to calls from Ukraine to align with the EU and NATO. Since neither organism allows entry if there is an active territorial dispute, so Russia created one.
From our position, it looks like Ukraine is only trying to defend from Russian imperialism, a much bigger power. From the Russian position, it looks like NATO coordinating a total encirclement of Russia and massing troops directly at its border and cutting off any hope Russia has to be able to assure its trade routes and even territorial security, against an openly interventionist empire.
Ultimately, both perspectives are true. NATO does seek to geopolitically checkmate Russia, which will make life for the average Russian citizen worse and increase the risk of a major war. At the same time Russia is indeed imposing on Ukraine.
Russia could be headed by anyone else under any even remotely functional system of government and it would go to amazing lengths to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO, no matter what. It's a simple matter that there is not really any choice available here.
Come on, there is no moral equivalence to invading and annexing a country. This is not excusable.
Morality matters very little here. Was it moral for the West to intervene after 1991 to loot the post-soviet states leading to the death of 7 million people? No. Was it done anyways? Yes. This is the context in which you operate. If you decide to operate morally when confronted with amoral actors all you will do is cause the suffering of millions of your own citizens.
This is imperialist justification of literally invading and annexing parts of another country that they consider a renegade vassal state. It’s not defensive in the least. Come on, this is super weak justification.
Russia hasn't invaded Ukraine because they consider it to be a vassal state, Russia only invaded Ukraine after the Euromaidan movement suceeded and pursued integration into the EU and NATO. What you are saying may well be the propaganda Putin and his proto-fascist cabal give, but it is not the actual reason, or they would have acted much before and wouldn't have stopped in the Donbass.
And again, who Ukraine wants to align with is Ukraine's choice. Just like the US has no business demanding Cuba cannot align with the Soviet Union or Venezuela (threatening or especially invading them in response being morally reprehensible), Ukraine must be free and sovereign and in command of its own future.
Who Ukraine wants to align with is Ukraine's choice as a matter of fact, and as a matter of fact where Russia puts its troops is also it's choice.
You can't compare Ukraine with Cuba or Venezuela. This is as if, after Mexico had joined the Soviet Union, Canada was about to do so as well. It's a core Russian national interest. No matter how Russia is structured, it simply won't ever allow NATO to share a border with it. The West invaded Russia on average every 40 years since the start of the 19th century, and just three decades ago American intervention in Russia led to the death of millions. There is no comparison, from the Russian perspective this is a matter of survival, they perceive that if NATO is able to surround Russia they will use this tactical advantage to ruin the country.
Should Ukraine in theory be able to join NATO? Morally, you may very well feel that way. But in the world of real politics, you cannot always chose the moral action unless you are a Hegemon. Otherwise, millions of people will suffer. It's just how it is. And unlike you were claiming, it has nothing to do with some ideals of national identity or manifest destiny, it's simply a cold geopolitical calculation that concludes that Ukraine in NATO is unacceptable and will probably in the long run lead to mass misery.
And compared to NATO, Russia absolutely is the underdog.
But sure, good on you for missing the point. It's very principled to just ignore reality. It's not like Russia got absolutely fucked and millions of people died when they tried to open up to Western Europe the last time. What matters really is that we can pretend that Russia is the bad guy and we aren't when they occupy a region whose majority want to secede anyways from another authoritarian oligarchy to prevent a military alliance who only ever operated offensively and was involved in the deaths of millions of people to settle on their borders, right after the puppetmasters of that region trafficked the Russian elections to extract hundreds of billions from its economy at the cost of millions of deaths.
But surely what matters here in this incredibly complicated situation is to follow the Moral (tm) course of action even if it drastically increases the risk of war and suffering.
'[C]hanging borders is not the best way to resolve problems' - Vladimir Putin on the Karelian question
Doesn't bode well :/
But I agree it seems kind of a weird thing to be worried about right now for France. Russia is probably the much bigger threat, but invasion seems pretty unlikely given the distance from Russia and the relatively low population (vs the Soviet Union).
I guess some resurgent Soviet Union (ie Eastern Europe comes under the sway of Moscow, voluntarily or otherwise) could do that, but that seems really unlikely.
I can see Turkey or Russia invading its neighbors (I mean, Russia literally is doing this right now... slowly consolidating their annexation of parts of Ukraine), but not much further. If Turkey and Russia became strong allies (as well as maybe some disgruntled former colonies), I suppose that could pose a legitimate threat.
My personal opinion is that Turkey is threatening France's interest in Northern Africa. By saying Northern Africa, I would like to point out countries with a Muslim majority society and have a grim past of French colonization. I think the tension in Northern Africa will escalate. Because I don't believe Turkey would give up its position on Libya. Having a sea border with Libya is directly related to Turkey's potential rights on gas resources in East Mediterranean.
Another thing to mention here is Turkey's defense budget on maritime industries. In Turkey's threat modeling, they expect something profound in the Mediterranean soon. We can see this by looking at how much money they invest and how they build ships—the ships equipped with sensitive long-range missiles etc.
I doubt the condition of the exercise in the North-East of France are transferable there.
(Although, don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure there are people in the French army with some ideas about how to wage war in a tropical forest.)
That being said, it's still nice to have been alive during a span of ~50 years without any actual full-on people-are-killed-in-your-neighboorhood warfare.
That the invasion of France ended the way it did was a surprise to everyone, including the Germans. Mainly you could boil it down to better command and control all the way from strategic to tactical and luck on the German side and the opposite, bad luck, bad cooperation and bad communication on the allied side.
That said any army will always be planning for high intensity war, and also for low intensity war, and also for small scale anti-insurgency ops, and also for protecting national interests abroad, etc etc etc. Preparation for that is a key element of any army.
Especially when one considers there were technically two French states during WW2.