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Le Monde is reporting that at least two NATO countries are considering going insane. 

Well, that is not EXACTLY how they report the news that the UK and France are seriously considering entering the war in Ukraine, directly fighting Russian troops with NATO-aligned troops, but they should have. 

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Ukraine has been, so far, a proxy war on NATO’s side. Western countries have poured weapons and money into the country and backed Zelenskyy with just enough weapons to produce a stalemate that is bleeding both countries dry. Initially, I was very supportive of providing weapons to stop the Russian takeover of Ukraine, and I still think stopping Russia in the first months of the war was the right move. 

But I also believe that any thought of pushing Russia completely out of the country is a fantasy. Ukraine simply doesn’t have the manpower, and without troops to man the lines and push back Russians and now North Koreans out of the territory they have taken is impossible. In fact, at the moment, Russia is taking territory from Ukraine at a slow but steady rate. 

Ukrainian troops being sent to the line are now almost all over 40 and many over 50. At this rate, the country will run out of men well before they run out of weapons.

Hence, the talk of British and French troops going to Ukraine. A hot war involving NATO troops with a nuclear power. What could go wrong?

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https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/11/25/discussions-over-sending-french-and-british-troops-to-ukraine-reignited_6734041_4.html

The debate about sending troops to Ukraine, which French President Emmanuel Macron initiated at a meeting between Kyiv’s allies in Paris in February, was strongly opposed by some European countries, led by Germany. However, it was relaunched in recent weeks thanks to the visit to France of the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, for the November 11th commemorations. “Discussions are underway between the UK and France on defense cooperation, particularly with a view to creating a hard core of allies in Europe, focused on Ukraine and wider European security,” confided a British military source to Le Monde.

          

‘Not ruling out any option’

          

These are comments in line with those made by the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, on a visit to London on November 22. In an interview with the BBC on November 23, he called on Western allies to “not set and express red lines” in their support for Ukraine. When asked about the possibility of sending French troops into the field, he declared: “We do not discard any option.”

          

The French Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Elysée Palace have not as yet given the green light to the deployment of conventional troops – or private contractors. But for several months now, such proposals have clearly been on the table. One of these concerns Défense Conseil International (DCI), the Ministry of the Armed Forces’ main operator for monitoring French arms export contracts and transferring related military know-how. DCI is 55% owned by the French state.

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This development is on top of the recently reported news that Biden is considering sending nuclear weapons to Ukraine in preparation for whatever cease-fire or peace deal Trump negotiates. 

speeding up U.S. weaponry in the waning months of the Biden administration could help Ukraine enforce a cease-fire or armistice line if there were to be a settlement, officials said.

The one gold-standard security guarantee that Ukraine wants is an invitation to join NATO. But it could not get that under Mr. Biden, and an invitation is unlikely during Mr. Trump’s presidency.

So U.S. and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire.

Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister, said in an interview that for a successful cease-fire, Ukraine and its allies must reverse the momentum on the front line to set conditions for talks.

Ukraine must also have sufficient firepower in reserve to deter any cease-fire violations, he said, for example with an arsenal of longer-range weaponry to inflict immediate damage if Russia resumes hostilities.

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NATO troops. Nuclear weapons in Ukraine. 

This is insanity. 

Diplomacy and war are all about the art of the possible, and any claim that Russia is too rational to use nuclear weapons if it feels sufficiently threatened is contradicted by history. World War I was basically an accidental war that killed a generation of Europeans and led to the destruction of empires. 

World War II went on for years after it was clear that Germany and Japan had lost the war. You cannot count on abstract notions of rationality to interrupt the logic of war. 

If Putin felt threatened by talks of Ukraine becoming part of NATO, what would his reaction be to NATO troops fighting against Russians and striking deeper into Russian territory? 

The original Biden strategy was to drag out the war–supply enough weapons and intelligence to Ukraine to bleed the Russian army and economy dry. It was a cruel strategy but arguably rational by the US and NATO. Nobody actually believed that Ukraine could do anything, like push Russia completely out of Ukraine, even if they said otherwise. Zelenskyy wants to take back Crimea, and that ain’t gonna happen. 

This escalation of the war, should it happen, would be insanity. Even a small risk of a nuclear confrontation with Russia is far too high a price to pay for the Donbas. 

If Britain and France do this, NATO is dead. It would be the last gasp of a declining Europe. 

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And they just might do it, repeating the mistakes we saw in 1914.