France, Germany, and the UK are pushing recruitment into their military as they prepare to go to war with Russia.

Keir Starmer, the UK Prime Minister, warned his people they would face great suffering in the near future. President Emanuel Macron in France prepares to go it alone, according to Politico.

France sees Russia, which can’t even defeat Ukraine, as a growing threat to the continent. So it is preparing to defend itself against what the country’s chief of defense staff, Gen. Fabien Mandon, called a “violent test” from Russia in the next three to four years that it would need to counter without much, if any, help from Washington. To do that, France is boosting military spending, increasing weapons production, and doubling the reserve forces.

As of next year, France will also reintroduce voluntary military service for young adults, primarily 18- and 19-year-olds. The goal is to enroll 3,000 new recruits next summer, 10,000 in 2030, and 50,000 in 2035.

Russia has well over a million troops.

These defense efforts come as most of Europe’s nations are having to rethink their security posture in the most meaningful way since the Cold War ended.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and now Donald Trump have made it clear they have to concentrate on the Indo-Pacific.

That is putting the spotlight on France, the EU’s only nuclear power, and a country with independent weapons makers that has long warned the continent should become more autonomous in areas such as technology and defense.

France having nuclear weapons is concerning now that they behave irrationally in foreign affairs.

In Paris’ corridors of power, the French elite has always known this moment would come.

“We’re neither surprised, in shock, or in denial,” a high-ranking French defense official told me in an interview. “Our first short-term test is Ukraine. We Europeans must organize ourselves to face this reality and adapt without being caught off guard.”

They are more about looking for trouble than averting it.

Macron allegedly distrusts America because then-US President Dwight Eisenhower forced France and Britain to back down from a military intervention to regain control of the Suez Canal from Egypt, leaving Paris feeling betrayed and humiliated.

Allegedly, since then, France has not seen the US as a reliable ally.

Now, European capitals — who until now have been reluctant to think about the continent’s security architecture without the U.S. — are starting to increasingly realize France might have been right all along.

“There is a kind of intellectual validation of the French position, which recognizes that interests do not always converge between allies and that the U.S. involvement in European security was the result of an alignment that was not eternal,” said Élie Tenenbaum, director of the Paris-based IFRI security studies center.

Fine, go it alone.

The European Union is becoming more and more anti-democratic and authoritarian. At some point, they have to turn it around or go it alone.

While France is sending assets to other European nations, many of them are still reluctant to deploy military assets to Ukraine without American backing.

At this year’s Congress of France’s mayors — an influential gathering held annually in Paris — Mandon told the country’s local elected officials to ready their constituents for a potential war against Russia in the coming years.

Standing on a white, round platform in front of French and EU flags, he warned them that France is in danger unless it’s prepared to sacrifice. “If our country falters because it is not prepared to accept losing its children …[or] … to suffer economically because priorities will go to defense production,” he said, “If we are not prepared for that, then we are at risk. But I think we have the moral fortitude.”

The American people are not behind a war, and it’s doubtful the people in Europe want war.