President Emmanuel Macron of France sparked the ire of his NATO allies and Russian jokes about Napoleon on Monday. He did so via his pledge that, “We will do everything so that Russia cannot win this war [in Ukraine]. We should not exclude that there might be a need for security that then justifies some elements of [troop] deployment.”
Considering that a deployment of Western forces into active combat operations in Ukraine would likely precipitate World War III, Macron’s comments have generated understandable attention. That said, I suspect Macron is really thinking only about extreme contingencies here.
The prospective contingencies that might lead to a Western military action against Russia would include a Russian nuclear attack on Ukraine, use of chemical or biological weapons against Ukrainian civilians or major settlements, or some systematic effort to eradicate parts of the Ukrainian population. Suggesting that a Western military response would follow one or more of these hypothetical events isn’t unprecedented. I understand, for example, that CIA Director Bill Burns acted under instructions from President Joe Biden to tell his SVR intelligence service counterpart that any Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine would result in devastating U.S. military action against Russian forces in Ukraine. While Burns has publicly hinted that he delivered this message, he has never explicitly admitted doing so. But if Burns did so, only the overt nature of Macron’s comments is what makes them different.
There’s another point to note here.
Namely, that it’s a bold notion to accept that Western troops are not already involved in Ukraine. As the Washington Examiner first reported in August 2022, British special forces have been operating in Ukraine since the February 2022 start of the war. In some cases they have operated very, very close to the front lines. While their mission is to advise Ukrainian forces and support their targeting activities, the aggressive nature of units such as the British Army’s 22 SAS regiment means they have traditionally adopted flexible understandings of their rules of engagement.
Again, this is hardly unprecedented for units of this kind. U.S. Special Forces in Colombia did much the same thing in the 1990s and early 2000s, “advising” very close to the front lines and sometimes attracting fire from the enemy so they could justifiably respond within their rules of engagement. Put simply, while the U.K. doesn’t have special forces in Ukraine to fight Russians directly, those forces aren’t there just to make tea.
It’s not just the British. The CIA also has a range of operations officers on the ground in Ukraine. These include paramilitary forces from the agency’s Special Activities Center-Special Operations Group. In contrast to the British, however, these CIA personnel operate under far more restrictive rules as to where they can go and what they can do. That reflects the U.K.’s higher risk tolerance vis-a-vis possible escalation with Russia.
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Still, the basic points here are twofold. First, that Western forces are already in Ukraine in some fashion. Second, that Macron wasn’t talking about deploying the 12th Cuirassier Regiment to Ukraine next week. Not unless, that is, Putin issues a terrible order and the Russian general staff idiotically follow it.
And to borrow from Shakespeare, if that happens, the Russians will find their Napoleon jest will savor but of shallow wit, when thousands weep more than did laugh at it.
