Macron’s Nuclear Delusions: An Egotistical Boy King Playing with Fire

"There are still people who want to go back to the times of Napoleon, forgetting how it ended." - V Putin

We have often wondered in this blog what is served to European leaders for a drink that made them so delusional, so detached from reality. The more we look at them, the more perplexed we are about which parallel universe they exist in.

Take the recent gathering of European leaders in London, who pledged continual support to Ukrainian President Zelensky.

Ha!

By all economic indices, Europe is not doing well. That’s even putting it mildly. Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, is de-industrializing at a dizzying pace. France's economic outlook bodes ills.

However, the poor economic outlook does not daunt Europeans' enthusiasm for pledging support, which they cannot meet.

And what are we to make of the dwarf - mental and physical, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, the Napoleon wannabe, who pledged to cover Europe with his nation’s puny nuclear arsenal?

Given to making flamboyant but ill-thought-out proclamations, Emmanuel Macron, the self-styled Jupiterian leader of France, made a grand proclamation a few days ago worthy of a Napoleonic figure—except he is not Napoleon.

The French President, in a fit of hubris, has offered his nation’s modest nuclear arsenal as a “protective umbrella” for Europe against the phantom menace of Russian aggression.

We must wonder whether Macron believes his rhetoric or if his latest declaration is another instance of European politicians engaging in empty bravado to impress their American overlords or their increasingly disillusioned citizens or at they subjects?

More importantly, does the egotistical Lilliputian have even the faintest grasp of military strategy, history, or geopolitics? If he did, he would know that pitting France’s limited nuclear capabilities against Russia, an actual nuclear superpower with battle-tested troops and with vast strategic depth and centuries of warfighting experience - borders on suicidal insanity.

Let us examine the man, his qualifications (or lack thereof), the strength of the forces he proposes to pit against Russia, and the sheer foolishness of continuing the centuries-old European obsession with demonizing Moscow.

For all his loud and lofty pronouncements on military affairs, Emmanuel Macron is no warrior.

Unlike Charles de Gaulle, who fought in a war, or even Napoleon Bonaparte, who was a military genius, Macron’s experience with combat is limited to surviving a few tough press conferences, in most of which he emerged as the loser.

The man had neither the military nor political education or experience to run a modern state.

Born in 1977 in Amiens, Macron did not follow the traditional route of many French politicians through the elite military academies. Instead, he studied philosophy and public administration—sufficient disciplines for writing pompous speeches but hardly enough for leading a nuclear power in an era of great power confrontation.

Macron’s real career began in the world of banking., He made millions brokering financial deals at Rothschild & Co. His most famous transaction? Facilitating Nestlé’s purchase of a division of Pfizer.

Yes, the man now posturing as the defender of European civilization was, just a decade ago, arranging the sale of baby food companies.

His political rise was even more unorthodox. Rather than climbing through the ranks of an established party, Macron rode into the presidency on the back of a hastily assembled movement, En Marche! a party that was less an ideological force and more a personal vehicle for his ambitions.

With no real legislative or executive experience, he found himself, at just 39, the leader of France. Talk about one promoted far above his station.

Since then, his reign has been characterized by performative grandstanding, failed economic policies, political instability that has resulted in revolving-door governments, and a deepening divide between the French elite and the struggling working class. Under his rule, France has turned into a fractious social backwater.

The Yellow Vest protests—a grassroots uprising against his neoliberal austerity policies—exposed the reality behind his carefully curated image. Macron talks a big game, but he is utterly detached from the suffering of ordinary French people.

With an exaggerated sense of self-importance, Macron fancies himself a leader of historic proportions, but the gulf between his pretensions and actual capabilities is laughably vast. And they are pronounced. His lack of gravitas or aura does not stop him from believing himself irresistible.

For all his faults, Napoleon was a military mastermind who reshaped Europe through sheer brilliance and battlefield prowess. De Gaulle, on the other hand, was a war hero who resisted Nazi Germany when France had all but collapsed. Macron, by contrast, is a former investment banker who struggles to keep his country from erupting in riots every few months.

Napoleon commanded the Grand Armée, one of the most formidable fighting forces of its time. After leading the Free French during World War II, De Gaulle rebuilt France’s military stature in the Cold War and made France fiercely independent. Macron? He leads a military that can barely sustain overseas colonial operations in Africa, let alone stand against a great power.

And yet, with unbelievable self-conceit, Macron now speaks of shielding Europe with France’s nuclear arsenal - as if the mere presence of a few French warheads could somehow deter a nation like Russia, which has spent the past two decades methodically modernizing its armed forces. At the same time, France struggles to maintain its aircraft carriers.

Macron’s fantasy of providing Europe with a nuclear deterrence crumbles under even the slightest scrutiny. Anyone who thinks France’s puny nuclear stockpile is dissuasive requires psychiatric treatment. France is a nuclear power, but its capabilities pale compared to Russia's.

Consider the numbers:

• France’s nuclear arsenal: Approximately 290 warheads.

• Russia’s nuclear arsenal: Over 6,000 warheads (the world’s largest), including 1,600+ strategic warheadsready for deployment.

Not only does Russia vastly outmatch France in sheer numbers, but its nuclear forces are strategically designed for survival and second-strike capability, a feat matched by only the USA. Besides that, Russia has an extensive system of hardened silos, mobile launchers, and a fleet of nuclear submarines that guarantee retaliation even in the event of an attack.

Now let’s look at conventional forces:

• France’s military: About 200,000 active personnel, with outdated equipment and a reliance on American logistical support.

• Russia’s military: 1.3 million active personnel, battle-hardened in conflicts from Chechnya to Syria to Ukraine.

France struggles to maintain a single aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle, frequently out of commission for repairs. Russia, on the other hand, has entire fleets of hypersonic missiles, advanced electronic warfare systems, and a military-industrial base that is churning out ammunition at rates unseen in the West.

Russia demonstrated its non-nuclear deterrence capabilities with its launch of the Oreshnik missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on November 21, 2024. Russian officials claimed that it was based on new principles of physics; it left the world in shock as it made nuclear weapons obsolete.

The idea that Macron’s France could “protect” Europe from Russia is not just absurd - it is dangerous. If his reckless rhetoric were ever put to the test, France would be annihilated in hours, if not in minutes.

For centuries, European leaders have peddled the myth of the Russian bogeyman to whip citizens into rhythm with the desire of the Military-Industrial Complex President Eisenhower warned the eat against in 1945. Napoleon marched into Russia in 1812, only to be frozen and starved into retreat. The Germans tried in 1941, only to meet their doom at Stalingrad. And yet, despite these historic lessons, European politicians - Macron chief among them - continue to insist that Russia is the ultimate threat to the continent. The tiny Baltic statelets with no military capacity whatever are the loudest poof-poof Chihuahuas.

Europe’s paranoia about Russia is not just irrational - it is self-destructive. The actual cause of European decline is not Russian aggression but the misguided policies of European leaders themselves, especially the unelected, uneducated, uncultured, and incompetent EUcrats in Brussels.

Instead of investing in their economies, they pour billions into military buildups against a country that has no reason to invade them. Which sane adventure ists would want Europe with excessive negative garbage?

Instead of fixing the crumbling infrastructure and stagnant wages at home, they dutifully obey Washington’s call for endless confrontations with Mosco, even when the new POTUS is falling for a pause.

Today, we see a classic example of the Thucydides Trap, a concept from ancient Greek history in which an established power (in this case, the Western-dominated world order) provokes conflict with a rising power (Russia and China) out of fear of losing dominance.

Caught in its outdated mindset, Europe refuses to adapt to the new multipolar reality and instead clings to Cold War fantasies, even when it lacks the resources to carry on.

Europeans should ask themselves: what have all these wars and warmongering brought them?

The U.S.-led sanctions against Russia have backfired spectacularly, plunging European economies into recession while Russia thrives.

Energy prices have soared, industries are shutting down, and workers are struggling to make ends meet. Meanwhile, America sits back and profits, selling overpriced LNG to its desperate European allies. The new POTUS has clarified that he is a transactional man and has threatened to impose economic sanctions on Europe. Howls of betrayal fill the corridors of power across Europe.

Europe should invest in its people rather than wasting resources preparing for an imaginary Russian invasion. France, in particular, is in no position to play global policeman when its citizens are barely scraping by. Macron’s fixation on geopolitical posturing distracts from his domestic failures—failures that will ultimately define his legacy far more than his empty nuclear saber-rattling against Russia.

Emmanuel Macron may dream of being the new de Gaulle, but history will remember him as a pretentious banker-turned-politician who overestimated his and his country’s strength. His talk of a French nuclear shield is not just unrealistic -it is reckless and dangerously so.

France cannot protect Europe from Russia. In reality, Europe does not need protection from Russia. The real threats to European stability are homegrown: economic mismanagement, political incompetence, and a stubborn refusal to adapt to the emerging global multipolar order.

Macron’s nuclear delusions are nothing more than the last desperate bluster of a declining power, led by a man who fancies himself a titan but is, in reality, a lightweight punching far above his weight class.

©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀‌làfẹ̀

(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, and Social Commentator.)

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