In the science fiction novel “The Aftermath of the Machine” by FG Rayer, the hero, Mantley Rawson, started an atomic war by making the decision to shoot while he was on the operating table for a surgery. When he wakes up in a heavily destroyed world, he notices how everyone he meets greets each other by saying “curse the name of Mantley Rawson”. This is what Joe Biden in turn deserves after his criminal decision. Before leaving the presidency of the USA, he will have surrendered the fate of the world to the escalation towards nuclear war. It grants Zelensky the right to fire deep into Russian territory. He will. Everything pushes him there. Because the arrival of Trump makes it clear that the new American president will intervene to end the war in Europe. And this will necessarily be done starting with a ceasefire on the positions acquired. And as the Russian invasion continues unfavorably for the Ukrainians these days, Zelensky must regain his footing by inflicting the harshest blows on the Russians. As for the Russians, they know that Trump will stop the war by controlling Ukraine's arms. Putin therefore feels confident in taking the biggest advantage before the ceasefire. He is doubling down on Ukraine. The two protagonists are therefore in a way “forced” to escalate in the logic of the new situation. This type of sequence is exactly the mechanism that leads to general catastrophes. This is the lesson of history.
Macron's inept policies eliminated France of the game being played. However, it is a moment which first and foremost involves the lives of four hundred and fifty million people in the European Union. The Germans are negotiating directly with Putin as if they were Europe alone! Since when is what is good for the Germans mechanically good for France? Some thinkers think that Putin's lowering of the level of nuclear intervention is a bluff. I think they don't understand the moment.
The immediate risk for the French is to see how they assume their nuclear deterrence strategy, which is the heart of our defense system, put to the test. We are supposed to strike if our “vital interests” are at stake. The “vital interest” of the country is left to the discretion of the head of state and it is a much less obvious notion than it seems. . Deterrence is “all or nothing”. By lowering the threshold for resorting to nuclear power, Putin is already testing the credibility of the French system. We might think that he is already on alert and that his tools are pre-positioned. In any case, the Germans' choice to welcome American nuclear missiles on its territory places the threat at our doors by installing the enemy's targets there. But anti-missile missile capabilities in Europe do not only involve target safeguarding capabilities. Because the interception of a shot will not do any good for the country under which this meeting will take place…
Believing that the only hypothesis is that nothing is happening is just a stupid and extraordinarily dangerous attitude. The protagonists' reasons for acting are determined by the messages they receive to predict the possible behavior of their adversaries. Besides the American authorizations for long-range firing, what other messages weigh in the context? Those of the European Union. It's a disaster. President Von der Leyen has increased her bellicose speeches. The European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of long-range firing on Russia. For a Russian, all the lights are red. For a Ukrainian too.
Let this situation be an object lesson. In this context, how can we imagine that after Macron's madness, our country would then be abandoned to the childish leadership of Jordan Bardella? Or to some variety of the center left, Atlanticist to the core denouncing France's traditional non-aligned policy? How can we forget François Hollande accepting the presence of American anti-missile missile stations installed in Poland and therefore accepting the territory of the European Union as a possible theater of war. How can we forget his proposal, at the Brest congress of the PS in 1997, to make the French nuclear deterrent available to the European Union? How can we forget the favorable vote of all the “social democratic parties” and Greens in the European Parliament alongside the right and the center in favor of the new position of European Commissioner for Defense when it is not a European competence and when the French Parliament did not vote for it! In short, the season is not for amateurs or Atlanticist autoresponders. More than ever: if we want peace, we must prepare for peace.
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