Facing Turkey: France's dangerous game to replace NATO
T.me/GalliaDaily & DemPartAn article by T.me/GalliaDaily.
Note : The first half of this post is a translation from an article of the French nationalist site /DemPart/ . The other half corresponds to modifications and additions made by the Gallia Daily analysis team.
Abstract / TL;DR.
This article tries to explain what France's plan is when it exacerbates the tension with Turkey : to make NATO disappear in order to create a vacuum in Europe, a vacuum that France will be able to fill by promoting a new military alliance centered on French nuclear weapons and the European Union. This article explains all the reasons behind this ambitious policy and explains why it is doomed to failure.
> INTRODUCTION: THE REASONS FOR TURKISH EXPANSIONISM
In 2020, the Coronavirus crisis has somewhat saturated people's minds, to the point of hiding and masking a reality that is nonetheless extremely burning: the situation in the Mediterranean, a new point of geopolitical tension between Europe and the East. Thus, Turkey under Erdogan's leadership is increasingly asserting its imperialist claims at the expense of Greece, Cyprus and Armenia.
Erdogan is delivering an increasingly coherent message of imperialist character. A few weeks ago, he celebrated with great pomp the Turkish victory of Manzikert against the Byzantine Empire, which opened Anatolia to the Islamo-Asiatic invaders. He explicitly places himself in the footsteps of the Ottoman sultan Alp Arslan.
If Erdogan becomes more and more aggressive, it is not only because of his Islamist and neo-Ottoman ideology. It is also because Turkey's internal situation on the economic level is becoming more and more tense, with the political contestation that it does not fail to engender.
Turkey should see its GDP shrink very sharply in 2020 because of Covid19. This trend is only getting worse. Over the last 7 years, Turkey's GDP has decreased by nearly 25%. The anti-Christian and aggressive rhetoric of the Turkish power aims first of all to divert Turkish opinion from the social and economic situation of the country.
This easily explains the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
Moreover, let us recall that the AKP, Erdogan's Islamist party, lost Istanbul last year in the elections. That is to say, the president of Turkey, a centralized, even Jacobin state, has totally lost control of his capital, the epicenter of power.
Since this electoral defeat, Erdogan has multiplied measures in order to neutralize the political majority in power in Istanbul, the cultural and economic capital of the country, which represents more than 30% of Turkey's national GDP.
In domestic politics, Erdogan is therefore threatened, very severely. His influence is waning and there is a real risk that he will lose the future elections, unless he organizes fraud on a large scale.
Projecting Turkey's internal contradictions abroad against a common enemy is the traditional means that a national bourgeoisie uses to keep control of the country and avoid a revolution. Erdogan thus chose to redraw Turkey's maritime borders by unilaterally arrogating entire portions of Greek and Cypriot territory to himself and then to continue towards Libya by supporting the local Islamist faction there. As far as Niger, as we have seen.
But by destabilizing Greece, Cyprus and Libya, Erdogan unwittingly drew Egypt into the equation. Egypt, which fears the emergence of a pro-Turkish Islamist power on its Libyan border. A pact was thus established between Greeks and Egyptians to stem the imperialist projects of Turkey.
And in its turn, France manifested itself to try to take the lead of this Greek-Egyptian coalition against Turkey.
(Tweet of Florence Parly, French Ministry of the Armies / MoD)
The pro-Macron faction in the European Parliament is particularly aggressive on the subject.
(Tweet of Nathalie Loiseau, chief of Macron's Party group in the European Parliement)
~~~
> THE AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL FROM SYRIA: TRIGGER OF THE CRISIS
This French intervention in the Mediterranean, like Turkey's imperialist offensive, was triggered by one thing and one thing only: the American withdrawal from the region, from Syria.
When Trump decided to stop supporting Kurdish troops in northern Syria without warning France, the Franco-American strategic agreement in Syria was broken. Until now, French sub-imperialism subordinate to the US was acting in exchange for various concessions. But by not even taking into account French interests in his abrupt decision, Trump demonstrated that America considered France as a negligible substitute.
The French bourgeoisie led by Macron understood on this occasion that the U.S. disengagement was strategic, essentially motivated by the swing of U.S. forces in the Pacific to try to counter rising Chinese imperialism in Asia.
~~~
> THE UNITED STATES FACING CHINA
Within 30 years, China's economy will be almost double that of the United States.
Such a difference in economic power between China and the US will translate into a difference in military and diplomatic power. The Americans, by getting bogged down in endless conflicts in the eastern deserts over the last 30 years, have fallen far behind in their strategic repositioning in the Pacific.
Similarly, since the end of the Cold War, the United States has dispersed a huge part of its resources in Europe in NATO, in order to keep Europe under control in the face of the Russian world. However, the fate of Europe today seems quite secondary compared to its great Chinese rival.
~~~
> THE RELEGATION OF EUROPE
The United States only maintained itself in Europe through NATO because it perceived Europe as a key space in the international game, a space to be secured to avoid the emergence of a Russian bloc. A space to be dominated, therefore, to guarantee American superiority.
But today, Europe and Russia, even combined, do not represent any threat economically and politically.
America therefore no longer has a vital interest in maintaining itself in order to control the European continent. That is precisely what NATO was there for: to dominate Europe.
The United States is in the midst of a strategic transformation, which has a direct effect: in order to occupy the Pacific and Asian space against China, the United States must abandon the Middle East and Europe, and thus NATO.
~~~
> FROM AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL TO COMPETITION BETWEEN REGIONAL PLAYERS
Thus, by gradually abandoning NATO and gradually losing interest in what is happening in Europe and the Mediterranean, the United States has created an immense vacuum. The withdrawal of the Empire left all the local vassals on an equal footing in a death struggle for power: when Rome collapsed, all the local kingdoms competed for as much power, territory and influence as possible.
This vacuum generated in the Mediterranean by the American withdrawal thus opens the way to virulent competition between states with regional imperialist ambitions: such as Russia, Turkey, France. For since the American protector has disappeared, a multitude of small states are looking for a protector. France, Turkey and Russia are making their money out of this withdrawal from NATO, trying to present themselves as substitutes for U.S. protection.
This case is perfectly illustrated by the Franco-Greek alliance: the American Empire withdraws from the Mediterranean, the Turkish Kingdom begins to extend its influence, the Greek Principality is the first victim and demands the intervention of another Kingdom, France, to fight the Turkish Kingdom. Etc. It is a triangular game, where the minor actors put themselves under the protection of major actors whom they consider capable of replacing the American protection.
We find the same pattern again in Eastern Europe, where sensing the end of NATO, the Baltic countries are looking for a protector, in the face of Russian influence. Here again, France is acting as guarantor, in its own name, by deploying a large contingent of MBTs on the Estonian border against the Russians.
In Estonia as in Greece, in both cases, it was a struggle between regional actors in order to seize the vacuum left by the Americans. In both cases the US is withdrawing. In one case, Russia tries to occupy this vacuum; in the other case, Turkey tries to occupy this vacuum.
But in both cases France comes to the rescue of the Estonian and Greek protectorate. This can be explained very simply, because this policy of protecting minor powers is of course a very interested policy on the part of France.
~~~
> FRANCE'S EUROPEAN AMBITION
For France, after the Afghan, Iraqi and Syrian failures and the looming debacle in Mali, the objective is to use France's competitive advantage as a military projection force to regain diplomatic credit in Europe and the East. Of course, it seeks to secure various oil and gas resources, but it also aims to use the Turkish threat to hasten the dismantling of NATO, which has in fact lost its sole guarantor, the United States.
Paris's objective is to lead the construction of a European military force as an alternative to the American army. Since NATO is doomed to collapse anyway, France is trying to set up a new military alliance, integrated into the EU, in which France would play the central role because of its status as the first European army and a nuclear-armed power.
So far, France and Germany are competing for continental control of the EU. And France is losing this competition because it is less populated and economically less productive.
By accelerating the dismantling of NATO, France hopes to compensate for this economic weakness with military influence: Germany would remain the purse of Europe, but France would become the general-in-chief of Europe. With the industrial outlets that this implies for the very powerful French military industry. This would rebalance the Franco-German couple in favor of France.
So France has every interest in accelerating the explosion of NATO, exacerbating the conflict between Europe (NATO) and Turkey, also a member of NATO. France is thus playing on two fronts at the same time: it pretends to call for peace and order in the Mediterranean, but at the same time it needs disorder. First, because in order to present itself as the peacemaker, there must be war. But then, above all, to break NATO under its contradictions.
Once NATO is destroyed, France will be able to take its place in Europe. But Germany, for its part, has absolutely no interest in seeing NATO disappear. And even less to see it replaced by its great rival, France.
~~~
> GERMANY, FIRST SUPPORTER OF NATO
In fact, Germany is NATO's first supporter and customer. For an extremely simple reason: Germany needed to have a peaceful Eastern Europe protected from Russian influence. Why?
Let's recall that Germany has a very industrial economy, based on its exports. Now, Eastern Europe has the double interest of allowing Germany to sell its exports on a large market, while bringing in Slavic and Balkans workers, who will work in German factories for mediocre wages.
Germany therefore needs Eastern Europe to be stable and directed towards the West. Not that it be destabilized and/or directed towards Russia.
But Germany could not take on the responsibility of guaranteeing the military stability of Eastern Europe. For one simple reason: the trauma of the Second World War. Any military influence of Germany on its Eastern neighbors would immediately be perceived as "neo-Hitlerism", like the return of 1939.
Whereas, by letting NATO stabilize Eastern Europe, Germany had all the benefits, without having to pay, without having to get politically wet. In its interest Germany therefore needs NATO to stay in Europe.
This is where the Franco-German couple is tearing each other apart.
~~~
> FRANCE & GERMANY : DIVERGING INTERESTS
It is in France's interest to dismantle NATO in order to replace it and to take control of the EU.
While Germany has an interest in keeping NATO, in order to spare its Eastern market, and to keep control over the EU.
By accelerating the disintegration of NATO, France is destabilizing the German bourgeoisie, for whom NATO is the only credible way to defend its economic interests in Eastern Europe without having to pay and to ensure the military protection of these states with the obvious political difficulties that such protection would entail, i.e. accusations of neo-Hitlerism.
And let's imagine that Germany is nevertheless trying to take over the protection of its eastern margin itself: this would have no chance of succeeding anyway because of the reborn Polish imperialism supported by the US, which Poland intends to play the role of protector in Eastern Europe at the expense of Germany.
The status quo is therefore the best option for Berlin. That is, the maintenance of NATO.
But the status quo is also an unrealistic option today, because of the very disinterest of the American godfather for such a status quo: Washington, while withdrawing, is in fact playing the various competitors off against each other to remain the referee in its former zone of occupation, without having to intervene directly. Thus America supports Poland and Turkey to play the role that Israel plays in the Middle East, that of a rabid dog charged with preventing any form of stabilization, in order to maintain control without having to do so. Divide and conquer.
The Germans therefore want a status quo, to maintain NATO in Europe. Also, the Germans have absolutely no interest in precipitating a break with Turkey, which would lead to the dissolution of NATO.
The German bourgeoisie has an excellent reason for this: by contenting itself with being a continental economic vassal under U.S. command since 1990, it has achieved a level of prosperity unequalled in its history. Anti-Nazism in Germany is a fundamental component of the identity of its bourgeoisie because symbolically National Socialism would mean for this bourgeoisie to reconnect with its own military imperialism, with all that this implies in terms of geopolitical responsibility, and therefore, in retrospect, economic downgrading.
Likewise, the dissolution of NATO would inevitably lead to growing American hostility against Germany, to the territorial expansionism of authoritarian Russia, which worries the German liberal bourgeoisie, and to Chinese economic predation in its precarious Central European region. Not to mention France, on Germany's western flank, which would once again become a key player on the continent... The encirclement of Germany by hostile actors would once again be topical.
On the other hand, by remaining a purely economic power, under American military protectorate via NATO, Germany would guarantee itself an economic monopoly in Europe via a cheap labor force and numerous industrial outlets. And thus the German bourgeoisie guaranteed itself a comfortable place. Which it wishes to keep.
And this is where Macron's great plan comes into play: to put Germany face to face with the wall to force it to accept French domination. How could this be done? By putting Germany face to face with the fait accompli:
"NATO is going to break up, so Germany's economic power will be threatened if nobody protects your interests... Let France become that protector ;) «
To force Germany to accept this deal, France is playing solitaire: it is accentuating the destabilization of the American-centric system to indirectly threaten Germany and force it to opt for a middle way solution. That is to say, this famous European army led by France, which would allow France to take control of Germany by swearing to protect the German economy with the French Army.
France is multiplying proposals in this direction, notably to extend its nuclear umbrella to Germany. This protection is rather interpreted as a hostage-taking by Berlin.
The French plan is a European statist plan financed by German money while the German plan is a German mercantilist plan financed by European money.
Obviously, never has a richer and more central power like Germany ever agreed to subordinate itself to a weaker and more eccentric state like France, no matter how much France has the nuclear weapon and the most powerful army in Europe. Germany intends to stick to its immobility, but this immobility is no longer tenable because everything is changing very quickly with the American withdrawal.
~~~
> THE GERMAN BOURGEOISIE FACING THE REVOLUTIONARY RISK
Germany under US occupation is by definition allergic to anything political. Its bourgeoisie, thanks to the strong social discipline that prevails among the German people, manages to extort from the middle class a very important part of its labor. The Germans are thus much less rich than the French or Italians despite the enormous surpluses generated by the German productive apparatus.
In other words, the U.S. military allows the German bourgeoisie to over-exploit German workers and, by this exploitation, to keep captive from its mercantilism the nations of the Eurozone whose respective bourgeoisies are incapable of imposing such a drastic limitation of the standard of living of their peoples for the benefit of the corporations.
If the withdrawal of NATO and the U.S. Army is violently denounced by the German media, it is absolutely not because of external threats to Germany, but because of the risk of internal social revolution that this departure would entail, since the German bourgeoisie has no hard political superstructure capable of stabilizing the system.
With the first signs of the fragmentation of the system, the AfD emerged as a national-liberal movement, which wants to break with the mercantilism of the Schröder/Merkel couple and return to a more compact imperialist regional policy around the Deutschmark. The radicality of the attacks of the bourgeois parties against the AfD betrays a panic fear of the downgrading of the Bourgeoisie, which this party is the forerunner symptom.
The origin of the campaign of political terror against German nationalists, real or supposed, should be sought no further. The status quo bourgeoisie intends to pre-emptively intimidate all those who might become agitated once the American withdrawal is consummated.
However, the German bourgeoisie does not fear the radical left, but rather national-popular sovereignty, whose culture, symbols and fundamental goals it would not control.
It is therefore in Germany's great interest to maintain the status quo and the American presence in Europe, for all these reasons, both to maintain its economic monopoly in Europe, to keep the EU without ceding this command to a militarized France, and to maintain the ascendancy over the German people in domestic politics.
And for the reasons just mentioned, France has completely opposite interests.
~~~
> THE CRUCIAL INERTIA OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
Thus, we can better understand why France supports Greece against Turkey: it is above all a pretext to blow up NATO. But it is a posture doomed to failure.
It is clear that France alone does not have the necessary means to go as far as a real military confrontation.
In fact, the entire French diplomatic strategy is based on bluffing, both towards the Germans and the Turks. Now this bluff does not escape the Turks, for one good reason alone, which those familiar with geopolitics will have identified.
Throughout its history, France, when it really wanted to wage a war of influence far from its bases, traditionally solicited Great Britain, which was also interested in maintaining the remnants of its colonial influence thanks to its war fleet.
This was the case during the Crimean War in the 19th century, it was the case during WW1 and WW2. This was the case during the Suez Crisis. It is the case in Syria. It is still the case today in the Sahel, where England supports France.
This would of course be the case today if France really wanted to go to war - even of low intensity - against Turkey. France needs England's military and moral support.
However, several things prevent any Franco-English rapprochement against Turkey.
First, Brexit... During the British negotiations for the Brexit agreement, France was particularly virulent towards the British, in order to make them pay for their desire to leave the EU. Macron, THE most pro-European leader, wanted to make Britain an example: "Look at all that will happen if you leave the Union". Thus, he blocked all British negotiations, to the point of putting the British against the wall. This finally failed miserably, but it did give rise to a new rivalry between Boris Johnson and Macron, a deep resentment that has resulted in a latent and silent war for several weeks: the United Kingdom economically destroys French ferry and fishing companies, while France voluntarily allows migrants to pass through to England. This resentment may seem childish, but it will only be extinguished when the English take their revenge, which they can do by blocking France in its ambition for a European defense.
The second key factor that prevents any Franco-English rapprochement: the balance of power. The ancestral theory of British geopolitics, which consists of ensuring that no power can achieve continental hegemony in Europe on its own, so that it does not threaten the British Isles. Throughout its history, England has therefore threatened Europeans and divided Empires, to ensure that no unified bloc appears on the continent : the Holy Roman Empire against France, Austria against Germany, France against Germany... And when that was no longer enough, the English intervened directly, as in the Hundred Years War, as in Napoleon's Empire, as in the Second World War: the English crossed the Channel and made sure that the hegemonic power lost its momentum. This is therefore the constant of English history, to avoid that a European power alone controls Europe. In other words, they have absolutely no interest in seeing France emerge as the leader of "European defense," which, as we have seen, will happen if NATO disappears. In other words, England will do everything it can to prevent NATO from disappearing and France from taking the definitive ascendancy over Germany.
So, for these two reasons, England will never let France play this dangerous little game of rubbing shoulders with Turkey in order to break up NATO. First, because the English have this resentment of Brexit which they wish to avenge. Then especially, because the English interest is certainly not to have a Europe under French domination and protection. England will therefore do everything possible to block France in its project.
But to block France, all they have to do is... do nothing. As we have explained, France cannot go to the confrontation without British support. So if the United Kingdom is content to remain passive and neutral, to support neither Turkey, nor France, nor anyone else, that will be enough to undermine the French plan. Macron's threats and his posture of firmness will remain dead letters and will appear to everyone for what they are: bluffing.
~~~
> CONCLUSION : prophecy of a French failure
This gives us a much better understanding of the French position and the dangerous game it is playing: France is only acting alongside Greece against Turkey in a purely opportunistic manner to achieve a very selfish goal.
For France, it is a question of using NATO's internal contradiction (Turkey's presence in the Alliance) to accelerate the dismantling of this organization, in order to eventually replace it with a European defense project centered on French nuclear weapons.
But as we have demonstrated, this French ambition has very little chance of succeeding. For very different reasons, most regional players are opposed to this Macron project: Germany, Great Britain, Poland and Turkey.
If American, German and British diplomats act logically, it is likely that they will either push for de-escalation. Or, more daringly, they might support Turkey and encourage it to respond to the French bluff to humiliate Macron. This could take the form of a Turkish military action to demonstrate to Europe that France has no real military or diplomatic credit: shoot down a French fighter plane, threaten French ships, commit (or have committed) an attack on French soil by terrorists... Let us recall that there are more than 500. 000 Turks in France, grouped mainly in 4 major cities; let us recall that this diaspora controls 220 mosques, important financial networks, and that they are extremely loyal and faithful to Erdogan, since they vote for him from France.
This French bluff is therefore likely to explode in his face: by wanting to force the collapse of NATO, France risks, above all, precipitating its own collapse.
By wanting to be everywhere without being decisive anywhere and by exhausting itself on the peripheries without reaching the center, France is exposing itself to a simultaneous political-military collapse at the slightest major shock.
And one must not forget the real risk of the collapse of France, from within, under the weight of its own contradictions: the Lebanonization or Balkanization of France at the end of a short but extremely brutal civil war appears to be an increasingly serious possibility...
Thus, paradoxically, France and Turkey find themselves on a point: both Macron and Erdogan need to project their power outwards in order to hold their country from the inside. But if Erdogan has the means to carry out this policy on its direct borders, Macron certainly does not have the means to provoke open conflict against a country like Turkey.
Nevertheless, something must be understood: just because the French European defense project is an irrational imbecility, does not mean that the French analysis is not the right one. De facto, yes, NATO will disappear over the next decade as the US redeploys to the Pacific. And yes, this will leave a big gap to be filled.
But what makes you think that France has the means to be at the head of a military alliance of 27 European countries? That is laughable. The most likely scenario, even if it is not certain, is rather that the United States will gradually withdraw from Europe, leaving behind regional defense zones, for example an Intermarium around Poland in the East, a Scandinavian cooperation zone around Norway in the North, etc...
In such a context, France's role will only be secondary. France seems to forget that the influence it had in history was never given to it, neither out of kindness nor by bluff. France always obtains its influence by force. Always.
And a policy of force implies two things for France :
1) an internal policy of cohesion and stability, to ensure that the country does not collapse from within.
2) allies to project that power.
Rather than seeking to reign unchallenged by waving its nuclear weapon, France should rather have the intelligence to build good relations with its allies of proximity (the United Kingdom), its allies of opportunity (Italy and the "Latin" alliance), and its historical allies (Russia).
Once these alliances are secured, France can perhaps hope to have the capacity to project its power and influence the global and European game.
But there is a good chance that, even before being capable of such a feat, France will be confronted with infinitely more serious and urgent problems: the deep and violent unrest that will shake up its territory in the years to come.