Why is France’s military intervention not a good idea?
Why is France's military intervention in Ukraine a bad idea? The starting hypothesis is to be able to reconstruct the so-called " strategic uncertainty " to stop Moscow, that is, to ensure that Western intervention is one of the various possibilities that must be taken into consideration. The problem is precisely that this uncertainty is not created!
Let's see why this uncertainty is not created in reality, but France risks a colossal strategic boomercang.
A question of means
French Army Chief of Staff General Pierre Schill said the army is ready to mobilize 20,000 soldiers in 30 days in the event of a coalition operation against Russia.
However, this mobilization would represent the maximum possible effort for the French army in its current state , indeed it would probably already exceed availability. The French army is equipping itself with the means to command a coalition army corps, i.e. up to 60,000 men, combining a French division and national capabilities with one or more allied divisions, but these allies, for now, are not there .
Resources that would be mobilized include the parachute brigade, infantry, artillery and engineers.
The French army has a total strength of 77,000 men, so mobilizing 20,000 soldiers would represent a significant commitment. Virtually a quarter of the forces would be engaged abroad on a combat mission. This would already squeeze the French forces to the maximum.
A force to be compared with its Russian counterpart.
Russia has around 1.3 million soldiers, but of these only about a third are engaged on the Ukrainian front, so we are talking about 462 thousand soldiers. A part is certainly engaged in the rear, but 20 thousand French soldiers, compared to this war machine, are a rather ridiculous number. Not only that: it is estimated that the Russians still have, despite the losses, around 1,300 tanks . France has 222 Leclerc tanks . The project to employ 37 in Romania is already no small commitment, and would be nothing compared to the Russian commitment.
The situation is more balanced from the point of view of the air forces, where Paris could actually counter Moscow, but, coincidentally, for now there is no talk of planes.
The threat does not exist
In conclusion: Macron's threat is not a good idea, because Paris' commitment to NATO allies in the air, such as Romania, already puts the French armed forces to the limit. When you play poker and want to bluff, this only works if the other players don't have great cards. In this case Russia will not have fours, but its full house is enough to ask the French to call.
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The article Why is France's military intervention not a good idea? comes from Economic Scenarios .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/perche-lintervento-militare-della-francia-non-e-una-buona-idea/ on Fri, 29 Mar 2024 16:49:15 +0000.