Macron must be bluffing – or trying to start a new world war Opinion by The Telegraph

In his recent piece for the Telegraph, Hamish de Bretton-Gordon cast doubts on Macron's controversial calls, saying Ukraine needs jets, ammunition and military advisers, not sabre-rattling over NATO boots on the ground. Caliber.Az republished the opinion.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said there are “no limits” to France’s support for Ukraine, urging allies not to be “cowards” and implying that French soldiers could join the conflict directly in some circumstances. That would in effect mean the start of World War 3. 

The threat of nuclear war has hovered over the Ukrainian conflict since its outbreak. Just this weekend, we learned that the US was preparing for Russia to use tactical nuclear weapons in late 2022 as Moscow repeatedly threatened escalation. Senior Russian generals, meanwhile, are musing on the prospects of a full-scale conflict with the rest of Europe.

The question must be whether Macron’s approach will make this more or less likely. It is my view that if Putin prevails in Ukraine, war with Nato will follow rapidly. We must therefore ensure he does not. Macron’s idea of looking at Nato boots on the ground is therefore the right one. If we’re unwilling to consider this, we’re handing critical initiative to Moscow.

The issue is that the Kremlin may well not believe a word coming from the Élysée. There is all too high a chance that Macron is simply sabre-rattling for his domestic audience in a horrifically callous attempt to boost his vote share. This interpretation is lent weight by his Jeckel and Hyde performances on Russia, switching between appeasement and aggression with public opinion. It’s all but impossible to tell which mood he’ll wake up in tomorrow.  

With this in mind, the first priority must be to ensure Ukraine prevails, holds the Russians, and then sends them back from whence they came.  This is what Macron should focus on. Rather than muse on troop deployments that would be months away, he should focus on getting Kyiv ammunition – and lots of it. The Ukrainian Armed Forces could certainly do with more Storm Shadow and HIMARS long-range precision missiles; Macron should try and persuade Germany to unlock its vast and hugely significant Taurus missiles stockpile, which could put a significant dent in Putin’s war effort.

Secondly, the Ukrainians need air superiority in order to enable their armoured formations to break through the Surovkin defensive line and get behind the numerous, but static Russians.  This is how we broke through Saddam Hussein’s defence line in 1991 and routed his massive and static army in 4 days. It was enabled by overwhelming air power.  As a young tank commander back then, I did not see a single Iraqi jet in the air to constrain my movements.  The F-16s are coming and will hopefully be in the air soon, but if Ukraine’s air force is truly to change the balance it will need more.

If Macron does want to put boots on the ground, however, the most useful thing he could do is send over military advisers. There is no shortage of fighting spirit in the Ukrainian soldiers but we must enable them to fight as combined armed manoeuvre formations. This will take training and tactical nous. At present, I hear individual and isolated tank battles are being fought, with the Challenger 2 being used as long-range artillery or to attack trenches alone.  This did not work for tanks in the first engagements of WW1 and it won’t work here. But when tanks were used in a combined arms fashion, with air power, infantry and artillery, they overwhelmed the Germans at the battle of Cambrai on 20 Nov 1917 and made the greatest gains of the war. We should give Ukraine the benefit of our expertise and training to enable this sort of success. 

So, President Macron: a little less of the high-flying language, and a few more high-flying jets, if you please. Some ammunition wouldn’t go amiss either. You’re right that NATO and Europe must be prepared to fight Russia as a last resort, but first, we should exhaust the other options open to us.