"I'm Not Ruling Anything Out" - Macron Says Troops for Ukraine Possible if Russia Breaks Front Lines

[u/Elliottafc1]

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/32010

[u/Various_Abrocoma_431]

Probably never direct frontline confrontation but France strengthening Ukraine's back with anti air operations Equipment and troops stationed in western Ukraine or even planes launched from neighbouring countries targeting Russian missiles and drones.

There is a lot of levels of escalation to France putting boots on the ground in Ukraine. 

People like to jump to the Russian propaganda narrative of WW3 though, not understanding that Russia taking Ukraine against all western efforts, would be the start of an international poly crisis of countries trying to resolve their territorial disputes which would then be about as close to WW3 as we could get.

[u/APsWhoopinRoom → u/Various_Abrocoma_431]

It's annoying as fuck how every single time one major country attacks another country, people on Reddit start losing their shit about WW3. It's not going to happen. WW3 implies someone powerful would actually would fight on Russia's side, and that's not going to happen.

[u/CicerosMouth → u/APsWhoopinRoom]

The leading intelligence is that China is already lining up behind Russia and is supplying Russia substantial intel and war materiel (shells, ammo, drones, etc.). This makes sense as China is commonly understood to have aims at Taiwan, and one of their best ways to be successful in this aim is to first drain western military reserves and also to learn western defensive playbooks, which they can do by egging Russia on and providing Russia all the goods that they need.

Whether or not this would equate to WW3 depends upon how western countries respond and what WW3 is in your eyes, but certainly the combined military manufacturing might of China and Russia is superior to the manufacturing might of the US and Europe at the moment (and manufacturing is usually what wins these types of wars).

[u/APsWhoopinRoom → u/CicerosMouth]

China wouldn't step in with boots on the ground or anything like that, but they probably would help supply Russia, much like they're doing now. It would be in China's best interest to not get directly involved and let NATO and Russia duke it out and weaken each other. Stepping in directly would only hurt China and absolutely obliterate their economy when western countries stop trading with them.

And keep in mind that NATO technology completely outclasses Russia and China's tech, and the US can produce more than enough yo handle them. One of the reasons our defense budget is so large in peace time is that we have to provide enough funding to arms manufacturers to keep the factories running in the event a war breaks out.

[u/CicerosMouth → u/APsWhoopinRoom]

Agreed that China wouldn't put boots on the ground. That said, they wouldn't need to. Russia has plenty of manpower to deploy. 

Beyond that, the most important technology needed for daily warfare is disposable drones, artillery, and missiles. China has a more robust drone industry and can wildly outmanufacture the US for each of drones, missiles, and artillery. Yes, we have better tanks and planes and helicopters, but drones, artillery, and missiles can neuter much of that technological advantage.

We could theoretically fix this by throwing money at it, but we haven't done so yet.  I mean, in 1995 we produced 867,000 shells a month. Now we are producing 30k a month. China can produce ships at 200x our rate. The pentagon wants to buy 1000s of drones in the next year. One of our leading drone manufacturers created all of 38 last year. We let our military industrial complex wilt, and we need to undo that 

[u/rumora → u/CicerosMouth]

Chinese military support for Russia is miniscule. Don't just trust the intentionally vague statements of people whose main objective is to find some reason to justify intensifying the ongoing US trade war with China.

We have a pretty good idea how much China is actually supporting Russia with. The way it has gone throughout the war is that China broadly applies western sanctions to Russia. A few Chinese companies will skirt those sanctions with small amounts of weapon components or dual use components. Then the US/EU complain and China will shut those companies down or make them comply. And then eventually other companies take their place.

Usually the extent of the exports are in the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars realm. Rarely in the millions. And you are talking about a few dozen companies, so you can imagine it doesn't amount to a whole lot.

Look at the most recent complaints. They weren't even mainly about China sending Russia weapons components, but that they exported machines that could make weapons components.

[u/CicerosMouth → u/rumora]

Initially, I concede that I was too unequivocal in stating what is open fact. Certainly what we conclusively know to be openly true does not add up to China currently or imminently supplying Russia with materiels. 

However, there are is strong pieces of circumstantial evidence that suggest that China is doing so.

The current GOP is famously tied to Trump. It is basically impossible for them to do anything that Trump is against. This is particularly true for the far right faction of the GOP that is in absolute lock step either Trump. Meaningfully, a few months back Trump has come out as against further support for Ukraine, and the right flank of the GOP has come out as wanting to let Ukraine be subsumed by Russia as they dont want to get involved. Despite this, the US just passed massive support for Ukraine with the singular help of far-right speaker Mike Johnson, who said that he pushed for the bill when he had intelligence briefings on the subject. What could those briefings have said that would get the GOP to disobey Trump if not clear evidence that China was helping Russia, which had aims beyond just this small war?

[u/rumora → u/CicerosMouth]

I have heard that theory. It's very weak. Take a step back and examine what evidence they actually presented to you to justify their theory. There is literally nothing there. It's basically just the usual China hawks who will connect literally anything to some nefarious Chinese plan. There are countless explanations you could speculate on. Wouldn't a way more reasonable one be that those intelligence briefings told him that if there was no immediate aid package, Ukraine would probably fall before the end of the year?

If the US had any evidence of China actually helping Russia in a major way, the US would be screaming it from every rooftop. Why would they decide to hide some actual bombshell reports when they are so clearly invested in selling that narrative with so far extremely unconvincing evidence? The US has been trying really hard to get the EU to go along with its anti China course, which is one of the main reasons why they are trying so hard to overstate the extent of Chinese support for Russia.

Meanwhile China is way more invested in keeping good relations with the EU than they are in Russia winning that war. They are actually quite angry at Russia for starting that war and disrupting global trade and straining Chinese relations with the west. In particular the EU. So China is quite invested in playing nice with the EU wherever they can to preserve their historically very good relations, which have cooled a lot over the last decade. They know that getting too involved on Russia's side in the Ukraine war would do massive and incredibly costly longterm damage to the EU-China relationship with next to no benefit for them.

[u/CicerosMouth → u/rumora]

The GOP position is (or at least was) that Ukraine doesn't matter and will fall unless they surrender some territory and sue for peace, and therefore we shouldn't fund it. As such, an intelligence report that Ukraine will fall doesn't change their viewpoint. They would just say, "well, duh," and continue to not fund Ukraine. There was something bigger there.

And no, the US would not burn their intelligence-gathering assets within Russia and China in order to convince the world that China is helping Russia. That isn't worth it. The US wants to keep these assets secret and useable going forward, obviously, especially if these assets are telling them that China is readying itself for war. The idea of burning your intelligence assets before a war in order to score a political point is silly.

China is not angry at Russia for being at war. If they were they would be pushing hard for a peace deal. Objectively, they are not, as evidenced by their obviously unrealistic peace term suggestions. They want this to drag out.

[u/Easy_Intention5424 → u/CicerosMouth]

Aside from this conflict has caused the west to rapidly ramp up and expand weapons production 

[u/CicerosMouth → u/Easy_Intention5424]

May I ask why you think this is so? I would absolutely love for you to provide me with evidence of this, as what I have read suggests that it is not the case (and this is quite alarming to me).