While interesting, the analysis in this article is quite superficial. First of all, the USA is clearly a huge loser. Not only did the USA do nothing in 2014 when Russia twice invaded Ukraine, despite the USA having signed a legally-binding treaty in 1994 to guarantee Ukraine's territorial integrity, but the USA then did nothing when Russia invaded again in 2022. This, more than any other action the USA has undertaken in the last 20 years, signaled clearly to every dictator and despot on Earth that the possession of nuclear weapons is essential in order to be able to play one's own personal "get out of jail free" card. Had Russia not possessed a nuclear arsenal, NATO would have at the very least imposed a no-fly zone over Ukraine. As it was, NATO did nothing. The USA has now lost so much credibility - which was already highly diminished by the babbling creature Trump - that China is supremely confident it can proceed to invade Taiwan on or before 2027.

As for France, the strongest current competitor for the presidency is Marine Le Pen, whose fascist Party is bankrolled by the Kremlin. The idea that France will become Europe's leading guarantor against Russia is at best wishful thinking and at worst delusional. France will maintain its own defenses, but as the recent debacle over the Leopard II replacement program shows, France will never work easily with its European partners and this will cripple any vision of a French-led European military renaissance.

In the end, only China is the biggest winner. Russia is now little more than a self-deluding vassal state that China can exploit, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine has run down already-parlous NATO stockpiles, thereby making any putative defense of Taiwan even less likely than before.