(Original title: Chief of the General Staff of the French Armed Forces: Facing China-US-Russia, Europe is to be the "food on the table")

The Network of Observers.

With only a few days left to leave office, Thierry Burkhard, chief of staff of the French army, sounded a wake-up bell to Europe.

According to a report by the US political news network "Politico" on the 28th, Burkhard warned in an interview that "after two centuries of Western dominance, Europe's declining power may become a'table food ' (a hunted animal) in the future." He believes that European countries must unite more closely and form a strategic joint force to counter the "sphere of influence" that China, the United States and Russia are building.

Buckhard stressed that the crisis facing Europe can never be solved by strengthening the army alone, but the more central reality is that today's world has entered the pattern of "hard power-dominated". he summarized the current global political pattern into four major challenges: force as a means of conflict resolution; China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and other countries challenge Western dominance; the influence of information warfare; and the impact of climate change.

Chief of Staff of the French Army, Buckhard

In an interview at the office of the Hexagon Building in Barral, south of Paris, the French military officer said that the biggest threat to Europe is not Russian tanks, but the establishment of an alternative order of "de-Westernization". If a country could dismantle Europe without launching an armed attack, it would certainly choose this path.

In Buckhard¡¯s view, this anxiety lies behind the wrong position of European power and strategic orientation. He believes that the combined power of European nations ¡°has never been so strong,¡± but in the face of the degree of violence in the world today, there is a denial of government and people, and Europe is always difficult to speak with ¡°one voice¡±.

The most typical example is the divergence in defense policies: Estonia and other Central and Eastern European countries regard Russia as a direct threat and advocate increasing NATO defense spending, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez publicly stated that Russia does not pose a direct threat to Spain and that the country has the right not to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Bukhard bluntly said,"The difficulty in European defense lies in how to integrate the strategic interests of all European countries. There is no doubt that the strategic horizons of Estonia and Portugal are very different. We have to find a middle balance."

He believes that in the future, the strategic unity thatins European countries must become extremely solid, "No country in Europe can become a major global player on its own." he further said that what Europe needs is not "against the system of the United States or Russia", but a sufficient "critical quality", only so that Europe can have influence and avoid falling into the passive situation of being "divided and ruled" by other countries.

Mr. Burkhard's warning is not isolated alarmism amid growing concerns about Europe's weakness.

Mario Draghi, former president of the European Central Bank and former Italian Prime Minister, said bluntly last week that the EU can no longer fool itself into believing that it can exert global influence solely through economic power and consumer markets. He said that what U.S. President Trump did sounded "a very heavy wake-up call" for the EU and made it realize that it must think about security and defense spending issues from a more strategic perspective.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni criticized Europe on the global stage as gradually falling into a position of "relevantness", saying the EU must "do less, but do better" if it wants to remain competitive.

Meloni also called on the EU to take greater responsibility for its own defense, warning that Europe can no longer rely on the United States. "After decades of outsourcing European security to the United States-at the expense of inevitable political dependence-we must be willing to pay the price for freedom and independence. Only those who can defend themselves can truly make choices freely."

Data map of Italian Prime Minister Meloni

In addition to Europe's own strategic dilemma, Burkhard also expressed Europe's entanglement and passivity on the Ukrainian issue in the interview. Maintaining Ukraine's independence is regarded as "part of Europe's strategic interests". However, since Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15th, although the discussion on Ukraine's security guarantee has "significantly heated up" in Europe, it has always fallen into the dilemma of "what came first". The chicken or the egg.

Buckhard said the Trump administration¡¯s strong willingness to reach a peace agreement has injected new momentum into Ukraine¡¯s security issues, noting that for most European countries, U.S. military support is a prerequisite for their participation in ¡°monitoring a potential peace agreement in Ukraine.¡±

The central American point, however, is that Europeans must show commitment. "It's like a chicken-and-egg dilemma, where some countries are willing to commit only if they have American guarantees. But this is not essentially a military argument, it's a political game," Mr. Bookhard said.

While Buchhard argues that the "optimal security guarantee" is based on a "commitment by the United States to intervene," the latent risk is equally significant: the Kremlin has repeatedly expressed its opposition to the entry of European troops into Ukraine, and the "rules of engagement" for the troops in Ukraine remain unresolved.

"To maintain the peace agreement, the core of the rules of engagement is self-defense." Buckhard stressed that providing security must mean "taking risks", which requires European countries to show strategic determination.

In the interview, Burkhard also made a judgment: the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is prompting Western troops to shift from "actively chosen wars" to "forced wars", and this transformation will profoundly affect Western military operations. model.

In the ¡°war of proactive choice¡± he defined, political and military leaders could control issues such as ammunition use, military deployment, while ¡°war of forced involvement¡± belonged to ¡°conflict of survival¡±, there was no ¡°space of choice¡± and ¡°for Ukrainians, the country would be destroyed if they failed to fight Russia.¡±

Bukhard believes that in order to cope with this new reality, Western militaries must diversify their arsenals. He said that in the past, the West focused too much on "high-tech weapons that are highly lethal but costly," but in "wars that are forced into","low-cost expendable weapons" are equally critical. "The core question is 'what kind of weapon can destroy the target and what is the cost'. High-tech weapons alone cannot win."

Map of NATO Flag

In response to doubts that "France has too low reserves, and if French troops are involved in high-intensity conflicts, they can only last for a few days," Bukhard responded that France will not fight Russia alone, but will act together with NATO allies.

He acknowledged that France's stockpile of ammunition was indeed not as high as it should be, but added that this did not mean that the French army could not go into action, "if necessary, the French can do it tonight".

Burkhard, 61, has rarely spoken out publicly in the media since he became the supreme commander of the French army in July 2021. Now, with only a few days left before leaving office on September 1st, the French Chief of General Staff, who is about to hand over the baton to Air Force General Fabien Mandon, has focused on European defense issues many times on the eve of leaving office.

Earlier this month, Buckhard called on the European army to rethink its strategies of combat, which is based on the ¡°unprecedented transparency¡± presented on the Ukrainian battlefield.The most notable feature of the Ukrainian battlefield, according to Buckhard, is that the two sides are almost ¡°aware each other¡¯s actions.¡±

First, high-tech weapons are important, but winning the consumption war also requires basic supplies such as cheap ammunition, he said: ¡°We sometimes need a Ferrari, but we can¡¯t win the war with a Ferrari¡±; Second, technology and tactics and organizational skills are equally important.