The whole point of Russia being pissed about NATO expansion is that it violates the no-touching-rule between the WW2 Allies and Soviet Union. Germany was the buffer state alongside Poland, since both are NATO members now the firewall has shifted east to Ukraine and Belarus, taking over either of these states and admitting them to NATO is such a violation of this unspoken rule that it would produce nuclear fire in the same manner if the Soviet Union decided to run a coup on West Germany and suddenly it decided it wanted to join the Warsaw Pact, France would have a zero tolerance policy for such bullshit and as it would violate the no-touching-rule.
Here is a handy chart for you knuckle draggers who don't understand the primary mechanism for the long peace, if either side moved their alliance structures onto the No-Go zones its fucking over. France being a primary member of the Entente/Allies gives it a primacy that Germany and Poland do not get in the NATO structure, these two nations are fair game battlezone countries; since the fall of the USSR the diagram has Ukraine added in as a slot. As long as NATO does not move from its current position to the No-Go Zone you wont get nukes, this is the third rail and the US deepstate knows it, and is still fucking around regardless of the well known danger.
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I don't think people understand how important Donald Trump was in putting this conflict on ice, the war was supposed to occur in 2017 when Hillary went through her coronation, instead some orange moron snuck in who talked a big game about war, but was very dovish. ISIS had to be dealt with but Trump kept the interaction limited to special forces calling in airstrikes and artillery teams well behind the lines. Once ISIS was smacked down he immediately ordered troops removed from Syria
which was fucking ignored by the deepstate. Had Hillary gotten into office we likely would have had some sort of showdown with Russia in a direct manner since she was harping on no-fly zones in Syria which meant engaging Russian fighters, and almost certainly some sort of offensive in Ukraine at the same time. The current Ukraine War is the good outcome relative to what would have happened if Trump had lost in 2016.