Yves here. The spectacle of what passes for elites in Europe losing their minds over Russia and prepositioning to make a fast tactical nuclear strike is sheer madness. But this level of self-destructive cray-cray is becoming a new normal.
By Andrew Korybko, a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity in the New Cold War. He has a PhD from MGIMO, which is under the umbrella of the Russian Foreign Ministry. Originally published at his website
France’s planned deployment of nuclear-armed Rafale jets armed in the Arctic, Central Europe, and possibly also the Balkans poses a qualitatively new strategic threat to Russia.
The announcement in late April that France and Poland will carry out regular nuclear drills, which analysts reasonably believe are aimed against Russia (specifically Kaliningrad) and Belarus, represented the first application of what French President Emmanuel Macron has termed “forward deterrence”. It followed his speech earlier in the year where he introduced this concept, essentially the expansion of France’s nuclear umbrella over Europe, that in turn came shortly after the expiry of the New START.
The Telegraph detailed what Macron had in mind in their article about “How France took the nuclear option to make Putin think twice”. Rafale jets armed with tactical nukes will deploy not only to Poland, but likely also to the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, all of which showed interest in his “forward deterrence” initiative. The day after their article was published, Norway announcedthat it’ll participate in this initiative, thus likely holding regular nuclear drills like Poland will.
The tactical aspect of the nukes that France envisages deploying with its Rafales all across Europe are significant, the Telegraph explains, because they form part of what its nuclear doctrine calls a “nuclear warning shot”. This refers to “a single, non-renewable, limited nuclear strike, which would most likely be aimed at a military target.” The purpose is to spook the target, understood to be Russia, into halting military operations and resorting to solely diplomatic means for resolving whatever the dispute may be.
Importantly, Romania earlier confirmed that France invited it to join the “forward deterrence” initiative, but its new president surprisingly declined the offer to host nuclear components despite already hosting French troops. If it reverses course, then French Rafales in Norway could threaten Russia’s Arctic bases with tactical nukes, its ones in Poland could threaten those in Kaliningrad and Belarus, while Romanian-based Rafales could threaten Crimea’s. This represents a qualitatively new strategic threat to Russia.
On the conventional front, the “cordon sanitaire” that’s being assembled in the Arctic-Baltic through UK-led efforts, Central Europe through Polish-led efforts, and its entire southern periphery through Turkish-led efforts would consolidate, with Turkish influence possibly stretching into Romania as foreseen here. All the while, Germany and Poland are competing to build European NATO’s largest army (Poland’s is presently the largest), but Germany could pose a 1941-like threat to Russia if it ultimately pulls ahead.
These trends are incredibly dangerous for Russia since they’re all unfolding right on its doorstep. Even worse, the archetypically anti-Russian Baltic States could become emboldened by these developments into either initiating a crisis with Russia or opening up a second front in support of Ukraine if the ongoing conflict resumes sometime after its inevitable conclusion, thus risking a nuclear crisis if France reaffirms its “forward deterrence” vis-à-vis Russia. Russia might then launch a first nuclear strike against NATO.
The last time that France agreed to defend a European country, it abandoned Poland to the Nazis during the “phony war”, so precedent suggests that it might repeat this in the future. Those countries along NATO’s Eastern Flank that participate in France’s “forward deterrence” initiative like Poland does, Romania might one day, and Finland could too as well as the Baltic States, should therefore remember this in case they get any ideas about provoking Russia under the cover of France’s nuclear umbrella.
Not sure if nuclear war but war is definitely on the agenda and being pushed for more aggressively each day. France just kidnapped yet another Russian tanker, the Tagor, and this kind of stuff are not isolated incidents anymore but a systematic pattern that tests the waters of the core of what would/will be an Euro-Russian all out war even if conventional: naval siege of Russia (except the Far East), preventing its exports of oil, LNG and other produce (food, fertilizers, weapons) via the Western Seas.
That would also remone a lot of oil and gas from the global markets, deepening the Hormuz-centric already ongoing global crisis. In essence only US and US-approved oil would be available in the global markets once this begins.
I don’t think it’ll reach nuclear level of war (all actors have “no first use” policy) but conventional level is already way too serious.
Sadly untrue. The USA does not have a ‘no first use’ policy. the security organs considered creating one and declined, see here: https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IN/PDF/IN10553/IN10553.11.pdf
1941 style invasion? Seriously ? The axis invaded with something like 3 million soldiers tanks galore, aircraft, yadda yadda yadda. Does anybody really believe that Brussels could scrape together an offensive force of 250k in the nearish future
The level of disconnection from reality among TPTB simply boggles the mind. Anyway, thanks for an interesting piece!
In the mid-80s NATO held exercises including killing anti-war protesters. I am confident that the Ukrainian bussification of unwilling cannon-fodder is either a NATO invention or studied and incorporated into the NATO plan. The NATO elites children must have something to do during the war.
NATO will be able to put together a large group to invade and eat lead. Not doing war, though.
What they have in mind is not an invasion of Russia Barbarossa-style, rather a “Crimea War”, intended in principle for two goals:
1. Reinforce Ukraine, preventing its collapse, and forcing thus the Russian hand into accepting a bad peace deal in which most of Ukraine remains open to NATO military presence (which can be as close as 700 km near Moscow, a few minutes of missile fly time), regardless of territorial concesions (less important and could save face of Moscow).
2. Blockade Russian oil and other exports via the seas and whatever influence in Africa or the Caribbean. This would be part of a wider plan to get the USA and vassals/allies to near-monopolize the global oil (and gas, etc.) supply, which is part IMHO of a wider strategy vs China.
‘This refers to “a single, non-renewable, limited nuclear strike, which would most likely be aimed at a military target.” The purpose is to spook the target, understood to be Russia, into halting military operations and resorting to solely diplomatic means for resolving whatever the dispute may be.’
Macron is a moron. NATO has been war-gaming out tactical situations for Europe for decades. And in the bulk majority of instances, when one side introduces the use of a tactical nuke, it nearly always escalates into a full on nuclear exchange. And here that would mean that at the very least you could kiss Paris goodbye but the Russians would be forced to use a nuke in every country that houses one of these nuclear bombs before they get a chance to be used.
Only the West has the category ‘tactical nuclear weapon’. It’s not accepted anywhere else.
Since 1977 all nuclear power have affirmed what is known in PolSci as The India Doctrine.
When Pakistan claimed it had the right to use tactical nuclear weapons as a first strike weapon India responded:
“India does not acknowledge the category of ‘tactical nuclear weapon’. All nuclear weapons are ‘strategic’ and any use of a nuclear weapon will incur a strategic response”.
This is the gold standard of the Mutually Assured Destruction Theory. There is no incrementalism and they all know it.
Not to my knowledge and certainly not at the time. You’re probably confusing different things. There’s never been a precise description of a “tactical” nuclear weapon, but in the Cold War, when NATO and the Soviet Union all had masses of the things, it was accepted to be a low-yield device that could be used on the battlefield against large targets like airbases, logistics depots or deployed military formation of perhaps Regiment or Division level. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact had elaborate doctrines for fighting this kind of war, and for example all Soviet equipment was built to be able to operate in a nuclear environment, and all, or almost all, Soviet artillery had nuclear rounds.
That’s an entirely different question from the political consequences of the use of even a low-yield weapon. There is a respectable argument that such use would change the nature of the conflict itself, so that the effect, if not the terminology, would be a strategic-level one. But that’s quite a different issue.
Can I guess the Cuban Missile Crisis, which almost started a nuclear war, is not known about in Europe?
You have to wonder if anybody remembers it here, considering our rabid defense of Ukraine.
I lived through the Cold War. This is a new level of nuts.
I’m increasingly buying into the notion that Putin’s restraint in reacting to provocations has become dangerous, and we’re approaching the foreign relations version of a Minsky Moment.
Mearsheimer for sure has a point when stressing that during the Cold War it was unthinkable that NATO countries would invade Russian territory as they now did in Kursk. Or attack its nuclear triad.
One must assume enough French military commanders internally know that any genuine attempt to go beyond warmongering and words equals suicide by France and Europe.
So this is all part of the same stageplay helping to keep up morale in EU to throw more and more money at a futile project despite dire economics. In fact keeping Project Ukraine and “strong EU” afloat doesn´t work without these bold adventure stories.
EU public only for sake of these fictions is able to carry on. Look at it as an insane form of Hollywwod.
Or German propaganda movies in WWII. Among Goebbels´s most successful areas.
Just for sake of it: The very guarded Nicolai Petro reminded of the fact that RU soldiers are still volunteers and that RU has still 2 entire armies not dispatched anywhere.
UKRAINE WAR’S FINAL PHASE: Russia Pounds Kiev as EU Pushes Toward Direct War
63 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-Xbnba6Ikw
(Not through with it yet but so far altogether recommended)
And as Martyanov pointed out those armies are obviously even better equipped.
So you don´t need to be an evil FSB agent to know enough in order to provide a sound assessment when discussing this internally in French ministries.
There some will speak out the truth in a way that it neither embarrasses the critic nor the criticized. But the message will be understood by all present in that room.
It´s not unlike the countless think tank pieces in the US when making bold and false claims about UKR and RU war capabilities and casualties:
Somewhere in the midst of those pieces or buried among the footnotes there is always the evidence that gives away reality.
That one item of course will never be acknowledged by those who spread the lies in public.
But it´s there not by coincidence.
True as ever: Doublethink & Doublespeak.
p.s. I am not well enough informed about the Rafale – but Sevim Dagdelen 2023 made it clear that German F-35 equipped with B-61 nukes (i.e. gravity bombs not missiles) are designed as suicide missions.
Furthermore – as Martyanov has often laid out – RU air-to-air and SAM outrange any NATO fighter. As far as B-61 are concerned the plane will be shot down before launching the nuke. I don´t know about Rafale.
Nap asked Macgregor whether there was any serious prospect of the return of the Wehrmacht and the latter gave a laughing “no!”
At least the Nazis had some actual war experience unlike Macron and Merz (and the current Russian military).
Frankly it´s lifting spirits to hear him give “a laughing “no!”” considering the grim or crazy sentiments around here. Either it´s all Russia is evil or Germany and the coming of the 4th Reich.
Curiously enough, Korybko quotes people explaining (more or less) what this is about, but then fails to understand the meaning of what he is quoting.
So, simply put, there is no real change here. French deterrence theory since the 1970s has been based on two elements. At sea, are the SNLEs (SLBMs) which are the strategic deterrent, the “weapons of non-use” to deter a strategic assault on France with the promise of unacceptable retaliation. That’s not what this story is about. The second element has been aircraft armed with nuclear stand-off missiles, intended to be used (as the article sort-of points out) as a “final warning,” in the event of a Soviet (now Russian) conventional attack on Western Europe. There were tedious doctrinal differences between France and NATO at the time, but the actual scenario amounted to essentially the same thing: as and when Soviet forces began to get too close to France, the French would launch a demonstrative sub-strategic nuclear attack, most probably on large concentrations of advancing Soviet troops, telling them to stop.
That’s fundamentally what this is about, with the difference that the area that could theoretically be fought over in a war with Russia is now much larger. What the French are saying is that they consider the invasion of any NATO country a direct threat to their own security, and they might (but wouldn’t necessarily) consider intervening with nuclear weapons if the situation was severe enough. There’s been so suggestion from the French side of forward-basing missiles, which would be very complex and controversial, but rather of political agreement to forward-base French aircraft in an emergency. The French have tanker aircraft for that kind of eventuality.
In effect, this is another move in the post-Ukraine security poker game, designed to give France, as the only European nation with this sub-strategic capability since the UK gave up its own, a dominant role in policy-making. The basing initiative, of course, would create a de facto European nuclear policy group, from which both the UK and the US were excluded.
The rest of the article is idle speculation. Surely, Korybko must be an expert on something?
Is Odessa part of NATO?
Not yet.
I’m thinking now and again and off and on what the scenario would look like if, say, a battalion or so of French and UK troops were sent to occupy Odessa and the Russians rolled in anyway.
What – besides “bad things” would happen between the two groups? Who would shoot first? If no one shot, would the French and British be taken into custody by civil authorities for their lack of tourist visas?
What if NATO just decided to “stay?”
Or what if the Ukraine sold Odessa and surrounds to Romania? Or to some other nation, turning it into a mini Kaliningrad?
The scenarios … they are endless.
Indeed. Budjac area, west of Odessa on the coast, used to be part of Moldova/Romania. Given to Ukraine from RSS Moldoveneasca) maybe same time as with Crimea…
But are French aware that Russian soldiers will never actually enter NATO territory as this war would be decided via missiles.
Since you mention UK gave up the deterrent (when did this change occur as you write about it in past tense) – I have tried to find out who really is in charge of UK nukes and didn´t find definite evidence.
Stevenson from the LRB in 2022 e.g. wrote that Britain had no sovereignty over their own deterrence but did not go into minutes. He in the same piece claimed that neither would France (nor Israel for that matter) ever seriously launch without consent of Washington.
“(…)British politicians like to talk of Britain’s ‘independent nuclear deterrent’ but in practice its nuclear weapons are an appurtenance to US power. There is no chance they would ever be used without approval from Washington. Nor would those of Israel or France, despite the unwillingness of their leaders to look like American lackeys.(…)”
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n04/tom-stevenson/a-tiny-sun
I did follow a footnote from one of Martyanov´s books which led to an official inquiry to the Britsh government in the late 2000s. The government response claimed that the British PM has the final authority.
Please correct me but considering contradicting info about UK deterrence in public it almost seems as if UK tries to hold up ambiguity over who really is in charge over their SLBMs if it really came down to a decision to launch.
p.s. It´s difficult to imagine RU would allow Germany have a nuclear deterrent.
p.s. re: UK nukes
Fwiw here Martyanov´s quote and footnote from his “DISINTEGRATION” (2021):
“(…)France deploys a robust naval nuclear deterrent, also known as a Strategic Oceanic Force, all of which, from strategic nuclear power submarines to sea-launched ballistic missiles, are of French origin. The British Royal Navy, while having its own naval nuclear deterrent, uses American-designed Trident SLBMs and is not allowed to modify them, despite the British prime minister having the
authority to launch.(…)” – whatever that means.
Martyanov´s FOOTNOTE:
Freedom of Information Act, ref. 21-06-2005-094719-001, Directorate of Chemical, Biological,
Radiological and Nuclear Policy – Assistant Director (Deterrence Policy), July 19, 2005,
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20121109140513/http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/E205
4A40-7833-48EF-991C-7F48E05B2C9D/0/nuclear190705.pdf.
The linked page is empty but delivers an automatic pdf download of said response by WHITEHALL:
Our Reference: 21-06-2005-094719-001
Date: 19 July 2005
YOUR FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST ABOUT THE UK NUCLEAR
DETERRENT
The way I read it: he doesn’t say the UK gave up the nuclear deterrent (they have strategic submarine based nukes for retaliation – Trident), but not the tactical kind that France deploys here (“limited” tactical strikes delivered by aircraft).
In effect, this is another move in the post-Ukraine security poker game, designed to give France, as the only European nation with this sub-strategic capability since the UK gave up its own, a dominant role in policy-making. The basing initiative, of course, would create a de facto European nuclear policy group, from which both the UK and the US were excluded.
Yes! This!!! The only perhaps minor quibble is that I don’t think that this is intended to necessarily exclude the US, but is rather intended to compensate for the US essentially leaving (or at least being deemed an increasingly unreliable partner within) NATO.
One other minor quibble: It is unquestioningly assumed that submarines are a “deterrent” because they are undetectable. I personally believe that this is a dangerously outdated view.
Thanks. I know next to nothing of French politics, but I enjoyed this from the very end of that Telegraph article,
“It is obvious that a French nuclear umbrella over Europe cannot be offered without something in return,” a senior National Rally source warned The Telegraph.
“It can’t be done without some sort of quid pro quo.”
1. It was the Nazis AND Russia who invaded Poland.
2. France and Britain declared war on the Nazis when they invaded Poland
We do know from Michael Carley´s research – for instance:
What Poland Has to Hide About the Origins of World War II
Jan. 2020
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2020/01/12/what-poland-has-to-hide-about-the-origins-of-world-war-ii/
– that Polish governing elites had mainly racist contempt for Russia/USSR and Russians. And not fear but a feeling of superiority was a leading chracteristics.
“(…)
Poles considered Russia, no matter who governed it, to be “enemy no. 1,” according to French ambassador, describing Polish opinion: “If the German remains an adversary, he is not less a European and an homme d’ordre… The Russian is a barbarian, an Asiatic, a corrupt and poisonous element, with which any contact is perilous and any compromise, lethal.” The choice between the two was easy to make. In the event of war over Czechoslovakia, the French président du Conseil, Édouard Daladier, thought the Poles might turn against France and “strike [us] in the back”. The French ambassador in Berlin told his Soviet counterpart that Poland was “clearly helping Germany.”
(…)”
Whenever USSR tried to build an alliance against Nazi Germany in Europe – aka security architecture today – Poles sabotaged the attempt.
“(…)The Polish elite never hid its preference for a rapprochement with Germany rather than for better relations with the USSR. In 1933 Polish diplomats had flirted with their Soviet counterparts as bait to attract Berlin. The Poles became spoilers of collective security sabotaging Soviet attempts to organise an anti-German entente. Soviet diplomats repeatedly warned their Polish counterparts that Poland was headed to its doom if it did not change policy. Germany would turn on them and crush them when the time was right.(…)”
Poles even weren´s shy about snatching a piece from Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement (at least in Germany today completely omitted). I am not going to claim Russians did not commit any crime against Poles but in the larger picture it´s maybe time to stop viewing Poland as the perfect victim. They were not. They were perpetrators inter pares with the means they had.
“(…)Already in the spring of 1934 Soviet diplomats noted that the Poles were trying to stir up trouble with Czechoslovakia over the question of the Těšín district where there was an important Polish population. “The Austrian question,” the German annexation of Austria, was also on Polish minds in 1934. The Polish ambassador in Moscow opined that annexation was inevitable. “Poland was not so interested in the Austrian question,” he said, “and so powerful that it could prevent Anschluss.” Nor was Poland interested in cooperating with the Soviet government to guarantee the security of the Baltic states and to keep the Germans out. As one prominent Polish conservative politician, commented in the press, “the rapprochement with the USSR has already gone too far and it should not be developed further, but rather slowed down.” That was the view at the top, the so-called “Piłsudski line”, and it was to continue after the marshal’s death in 1935 until the beginning of the war. It proved to be a formula for ruin.
(…)”
Including their disdain for their own Jewry later.
“(…)
On 20 December 2019 President Vladimir Putin intervened very publicly to correct the West’s fake history of the origins and waging of World War II. Four days later, obviously exasperated, he took aim at Poland, characterising the Polish ambassador in Berlin during the latter 1930s, Jósef Lipski, as “a bastard and anti-Semitic pig”. The Polish governing elite was notoriously anti-Semitic, and in 1938 Lipski told Adolf Hitler that the Poles would “‘erect him a beautiful monument in Warsaw’ if he carried out [a] plan to expel European Jews to Africa.” In reaction, the Polish parliament, with a bipartisan majority, has indicated its intention “to pass a law that criminalizes lies about the causes of World War II.” Putin’s language about Lipski was not very presidential, but he was clearly outraged. He had reasons to be.
(…)”
I am getting scared listening to all this talk about “limited nuclear war”. Most folks who pontificate on this have not had the family-blog kicked out of them in a good, satisfying fight. Kind of gives one a level set of reality. As far as I know Macron le Petit has not served a day in the military, has not been in combat -legal or otherwise- and there are no records of him having started any bar fights. It is rumored that he has been knocked about by his spouse, but that does not count. Still, he seems to be feeling froggy, and perhaps he will jump. Problem is, we will all suffer if/when he does. The Russians have more than enough firepower to glass over Europe and a “tactical” nuke shot will serve no purpose but enrage them. Think of Chihuahuas challenging a Great Dane. Are these folks insane?
The point is not to pick with or to win a fight against Russia–the point is to have some semi-credible deterrent against Russia in case the Americans leave, and to try to parlay that into some political standing amongst France’s European neighbors.
It may also be a half-hearted attempt to dissuade other European countries from trying to acquire nukes, but that horse has long left the barn, I think
“Macron’s strangelove moment etc”
EU is not so much interested in attacking Russia (only Poles and Latvians are that suicidal) rather using that idea to suppress political dissent at home. EU is becoming unhealthily interested in thought policing, and that eventually is a way to guarantee political sinecures for the political class which is overseeing a general decline of its people.
ie, geopolitical tropes are a censorship ploy and given the success of the covid and Ukraine tropes in shutting probing conversations eventually everything will be absorbed into geopolitical censorship.
Sorry if this looks like an effort to grab the stage, but a sad observation from a biologist, quoted by Mr. Chomsky, posits that
intelligence is a lethal mutation.
My friend Allen finds meaning in the lack of results from massive antennas seeking messages from intelligent beings across the universe.
He notes the infinitely brief period of each civilization
during which such signals might radiate. He compares the long period while evolution from sticks and rocks is dominant, with the terminal race to “smart” tools and nuclear omnicide.