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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   896 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 14, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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What game is Macron playing? He's previously suggested France might send French troops into Ukraine if Odessa or Kiev looked like they might fall and has been doubling down on this weird kind of non-committal brinksmanship. https://www.politico.eu/article/im-right-about-not-being-specific-macron-says-doubling-down-on-strategic-ambiguity/

“If Russia were to win, the lives of French people would change," Macron said. "We would no longer have security in Europe."

The French president spent much of the interview arguing in favor of remaining ambiguous, saying only that France would not “lead the offensive or take initiative."

In an Odoxa poll, 68 percent of French respondents said Macron's comments on Western troops in Ukraine were "wrong."

Some in the Z-sphere have been suggesting that the plan is to send French troops to rear areas in Ukraine where they're mostly out of danger and can free up Ukrainian troops for the front. Somebody has to watch Transnistria after all. Eventually, the Russians will break through and NATO forces will advance to block Russia from annexing the whole country, rather like how the Russians had blocking forces in Yugoslavia back in the day. The Z people, like Putin, run on realpolitik and have long been expecting a partition of some kind - Lviv returning to Poland. Western leaders run on a fundamentally different geopolitical model, which is one of the key causes of the conflict.

Is Macron just trying to look tough? Is he angry about the French special forces getting killed in a missile strike, if that even happened? Is he playing a mixed strategy to induce doubt in the Kremlin?

Another perspective: Macron is trying to position himself as leader of Europe https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1768408586055569452

One theory I've heard floated is that there are a significant number of dead French special forces in Ukraine. Putting troops into the country and staging a bus explosion or something gives Macron cover to bring them back with full military honors.

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