worldnews

4869 readers

1 users here now

Rules:

Be civil. Disagreements happen, that does not give you the right to personally insult each other.
No racism or bigotry.
Posts from sources that aren't known to be incredibly biased for either side of the spectrum are preferred. If this is not an option, you may post from whatever source you have as long as it is relevant to this community.
Post titles should be the same as the article title.
No spam, self-promotion, or trolling.

Instance-wide rules always apply.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Rooki

FlyingSquid

jordanlund

Macron has fired his bazooka again – and Russia isn’t the only target (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave to c/worldnews

2 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Emmanuel Macron sure knows how to make a headline.

But did the French president, who once called Nato brain dead, really mean it when he said this week that Europe shouldn’t rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine to prevent Russia winning the war? Was it a trial balloon, an off-the-cuff soundbite uncoordinated with allies, or the start of a real strategic debate?

As ever, Macron’s bazooka had several targets: forcing European partners to consider how far they are prepared to go to avert a Russian victory; pressuring the US to go on arming Ukraine; keeping the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, off balance; hitting back at German criticism of France’s modest spending on assistance to Kyiv; and trying to wrongfoot domestic opponents in the forthcoming European parliament election campaign.

Above all, the French leader was grasping for the mantle of leadership of European and western support for Ukraine, just as US assistance is stymied by a Republican blockade in Congress at the behest of Donald Trump before the presidential election campaign.

top 2 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well, I guess it’s more entertaining than “slammed” or “blasted”. I’ll keep it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I also would have accepted “Macron gives Russia a Cleveland Steamer”