Ukraine’s in a dire position. Macron’s gaffe made
things worse.
Here’s what the French president should have said to
give Kyiv a fighting chance against Putin.
To the Kremlin’s chortling delight, Macron’s comments
exposed Western splits and rifts, communicating panic over the military state
of play in Ukraine |
MARCH 1,
2024 4:00 AM CET
BY JAMIE
DETTMER
Jamie
Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraines-dire-position-emmanuel-macron-gaffe-made-things-worse/
French
President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion that NATO might have to send troops to
Ukraine was met with brickbats and catcalls this week.
German
Chancellor Olaf Scholz led the pack of infuriated hecklers taking issue with
Macron’s claim that NATO has ruled nothing out when it comes to dispatching
troops. Scholz explicitly stated Western governments had agreed “there will be
no ground troops, no soldiers on Ukrainian soil who are sent there from
European states or NATO states.” His deputy Robert Habeck, meanwhile, sniffed
that France should focus on stepping up its weapon deliveries to Ukraine
instead.
According
to French officials, Macron’s comments were meant to galvanize Western powers
and ignite debate over what’s needed to prevent a Russian victory. According to
an Elysée aide, they were also meant “to send a strong strategic message to the
Russians to say: ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’” (Apparently said without a hint
of irony.)
But if the
French leader’s remarks were meant to send a firm warning to the Kremlin, they
failed spectacularly — in fact, they achieved the complete opposite. To the
Kremlin’s chortling delight, Macron’s comments exposed Western splits and
rifts, communicating panic over the military state of play in Ukraine.
And Russian
officials rushed forward to ridicule Macron. Former President and current
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev mocked him for
“verbal incontinence,” while Chairmen of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin said
the French leader’s “loud statements” had “horrified the residents of his
country and the leaders of a number of European states.” It sure did.
It also
handed Russian President Vladimir Putin a great propaganda opportunity to
reinforce the time-worn narrative for his groomed domestic audience that the
West — nowadays represented by NATO — wants to destroy Russia. Volodin couldn’t
resist comparing Macron to Napoleon Bonaparte, warning him how it ended for the
French emperor “and his soldiers, more than 600,000 of whom were left lying in
the damp earth,” he said.
Of course,
Macron has practice in offering monumental statements he subsequently reverses,
unembarrassed by any contradiction or hitch. Or, they’re simply set aside and
forgotten as he floats some other grande idée. But raising the possibility of
dispatching NATO troops stands out as a glaring misreading of not only his
counterparts, but also of a European public that’s growing increasingly uneasy
about where this war is going — and whether Ukraine can win.
Commissioned
by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a major survey of 12 EU
countries, which was published last week points to a marked change in public
sentiment. With the underwhelming counteroffensive and the prospect of former
U.S. President Donald Trump returning to the White House fueling a burgeoning
pessimism, only 10 percent of those surveyed said they believe Ukraine can
defeat Russia, while 20 percent predicted a Russian win.
Moreover,
when tallied together, just 31 percent of respondents said they favored Europe
backing Ukraine until it regained occupied territory, whereas 41 percent
favored Europe pushing Ukraine toward negotiating a peace deal with Russia.
Notably, “people’s solidarity appears to be wavering in some of the country’s
next-door neighbors,” the ECFR’s Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonard wrote.
“Our poll
shows that European citizens are not in an especially heroic mood. In the wake
of a U.S. withdrawal, only a minority of Europeans (just 20 per cent on
average, ranging from 7 per cent in Greece to 43 per cent in Sweden) would want
Europe to increase its support for Ukraine,” they added.
This all
seems to have passed Macron by. It will take the collective powers of
persuasion of all European leaders just to keep their people on side to
maintain support as it is — persuading them that NATO boots are needed on the
ground will only risk more wavering, especially with Putin threatening nuclear
escalation, as he did Thursday.
And this
all leaves Ukraine in a dire position. Short on manpower and ammunition, it
will be in no position to mount a serious counterattack this year. All it can
do is hang on, hoping to build up for a serious counteroffensive next year.
But, as a POLITICO analysis points out, “without Western air defense and
long-range missiles as well as artillery shells, Kyiv will struggle to mount a
credible, sustained defense.”
So, rather
than chaneling the interventionists of the past, Macron would be better
employed arguing for Europe to step up military supplies to ensure Putin is
deprived of a win and Ukraine is given what it needs. Besides, the West has a
lousy track record when it comes to recent boots-on-the-ground interventions.
Not that
historical interventions turned out that well either, as historian Anna Reid’s
recently published book on the chaotic and ill-defined Western intervention in
the Russian civil war reminds us.
However, in
her book “A Nasty Little War,” Reid rightly argues there’s “no simple
read-across” from that intervention. “The lazy lesson from 1918-20 — that
Western meddling in the region failed then, and will again now — is completely
mistaken.” For one, the circumstances are different — Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine isn’t a civil war, and “the staunchly democratic Ukrainians are not the
inept, revanchist Whites.”
But
according to Reid, Putin will fail because “he underestimates the desire for
freedom” and “because for his own people, he has no program beyond the empty
assertion of Russia’s greatness and right to rule.”
Let’s hope
that proves true. However, while Ukraine’s “resolve seems set to stay strong,”
it won’t be enough if the country doesn’t receive the weapons it needs. And
that’s what Macron should be focused on — not dividing Kyiv’s allies,
advertising splits and giving the Kremlin a propaganda gift.
Give
Ukraine the tools, so it can have a fighting chance to finish the job.
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