I don't know. There are many possibilities, known and unknown. If you're asking me to speculate, with the limited information I have, I would put my money on trying to scare some African military force that France is engaged in conflict with.
> The lesson of the Korean War is that even with nukes, intense conventional war is still possible
Korea and Vietnam were Cold War era wars between highly asymmetric opponents. They were proxy conflicts between global superpowers. The entire premise of a "Cold War" or "proxy war" is that it allows powerful opponents to avoid a high-intensity conflict where mutual destruction is assured. That is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict. Just like French involvement in the proxy wars in Africa and the Middle East is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict.
> An multi-polar world with an independent Europe means that they can fight their own wars against Russia and Turkey -- they have in the past!
Again, we are not in the past. We're not discussing war in the context of 19th century European military technology, we are discussing a future major global conflict. The last time Europe was at war with Russia and Turkey, it was exactly in the context of a world war.
A multipolar world (as opposed to a unipolar or bipolar world) is exactly the kind of situation where one would expect high-intensity, state-on-state conflict to develop into a World War. That's pretty much the store of WWI and WWII. The Cold War is the story of a bipolar world. Notice how Cold War is "cold," the opposite of "high-intensity."
I don't know. There are many possibilities, known and unknown. If you're asking me to speculate, with the limited information I have, I would put my money on trying to scare some African military force that France is engaged in conflict with.
> The lesson of the Korean War is that even with nukes, intense conventional war is still possible
Korea and Vietnam were Cold War era wars between highly asymmetric opponents. They were proxy conflicts between global superpowers. The entire premise of a "Cold War" or "proxy war" is that it allows powerful opponents to avoid a high-intensity conflict where mutual destruction is assured. That is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict. Just like French involvement in the proxy wars in Africa and the Middle East is not state-on-state, high-intensity conflict.
> An multi-polar world with an independent Europe means that they can fight their own wars against Russia and Turkey -- they have in the past!
Again, we are not in the past. We're not discussing war in the context of 19th century European military technology, we are discussing a future major global conflict. The last time Europe was at war with Russia and Turkey, it was exactly in the context of a world war.
A multipolar world (as opposed to a unipolar or bipolar world) is exactly the kind of situation where one would expect high-intensity, state-on-state conflict to develop into a World War. That's pretty much the store of WWI and WWII. The Cold War is the story of a bipolar world. Notice how Cold War is "cold," the opposite of "high-intensity."