Anti and Pro, jets to Ukraine - Sending Old Fighter Jets to Ukraine Is a Terrible Idea
--- ""I missed Blinken's - Putin will lead Russia to strategic defeat in Ukraine, says Blinken [...] "Blinken also tried to explain the fiasco on Tuesday surrounding the plan to deliver Polish MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. The US had previously given a green light to Poland to supply the planes to Ukraine, saying it would replace them by providing more modern US fighter jets to the Polish air force. P - n Tuesday, Poland announced it would hand all its MiG-29s to the US at the Ramstein airbase in Germany, taking Washington by surprise. Within hours the Pentagon said the plan was not tenable .. jets-us-ukraine" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer ugc" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/poland-mig-29-jets-us-ukraine . P - “I think what we’re seeing is that Poland’s proposal shows that there are some complexities that the issue presents when it comes to providing security assistance. We have to make sure that we’re doing it in the right way,” Blinken said." ---
The urge to do something is strong, but there are more practical ways to help.
By Blake Herzinger, a civilian Indo-Pacific defense policy specialist and U.S. Navy Reserve officer.
Two French fighter jets (left) and two Polish MiG-29s fly over the air base in Malbork, Poland, on April 29, 2014. Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images
March 14, 2022, 3:19 PM
As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine continues, calls to provide crewed aircraft to Ukraine’s military dominate headlines in Washington and other NATO capitals. Russia’s attacks on civilians and unprovoked aggression have understandably prompted calls to do more—but not every idea is a good one. Despite reports from U.S. European Command that the Ukrainian Air Force’s relative effectiveness is unlikely to change with the addition of more fighter jets, demand persists. The desire to support Ukraine in its struggle against naked aggression is laudable. But security assistance is more than just gifting equipment—it is a complex question of creating or supporting capabilities and answering the right questions. When it is done wrong, it can create new problems. And in a powder keg like Ukraine, where the war could explode into a NATO-Russia conflict, it is a question of supporting capabilities without causing a direct clash between nuclear powers.
The politician’s syllogism is in full flight here: “We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this.” The something in question is the idea that NATO’s Eastern European members should donate MiG-29 Fulcrum aircraft to Ukraine, as the airframe is operated by Ukrainian forces. Recently, Poland offered .. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/08/poland-transfers-mig-fighters-to-the-us-as-ukraine-asks-for-help-00015259 .. to fly its aging MiGs to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where U.S. forces would facilitate their transfer to Ukrainian pilots, who would fly the aircraft back to Ukraine. Some have descended further down this rabbit hole by suggesting the .. https://rollcall.com/2022/03/04/give-ukraine-u-s-aircraft-democratic-lawmaker-urges/ .. United States deliver its own A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft to Ukraine—prompted in part by a long Russian jam of vehicles that has now mostly cleared.
Successful security assistance begins with an identified requirement: What is the battlefield result Ukraine needs to achieve? Are Ukrainian forces unable to intercept Russian aircraft, or are they searching for ways to increase their assaults on Russia’s creaking logistics convoys and bogged-down tanks? Would more planes make a difference in either respect? These questions are absent from public conversation, but U.S. defense officials state repeatedly that the move would be more risk than reward. Most of Ukraine’s fighter aircraft are still in the fight, with Ukraine’s Air Force flying approximately five to 10 missions per day .. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/national-security-daily/2022/03/11/the-u-s-cant-stop-poland-from-giving-ukraine-its-migs-00016664 .. using a pool of about 50 jets. By contrast, Russian aircraft are flying nearly 200 missions per day but keeping their planes primarily within Russian airspace. Both sides are likely exercising extreme caution to avoid ground-based air defense systems. Given this knowledge, a score of Soviet-era air superiority assets would not meaningfully improve Ukraine’s military situation.
Publicly available information does not seem to indicate Ukraine is short of air superiority—open source intelligence site Oryx lists confirmation .. https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/02/attack-on-europe-documenting-equipment.html .. of seven fighters destroyed since the start of the Russian invasion—or that air superiority fighters are a key element of Ukraine’s defense plan. If Ukraine lost MiGs in air-to-air fighting, then it unfortunately lost pilots as well, leaving fewer trained crew for new aircraft. If their fighters are being destroyed on the ground, why wouldn’t new aircraft be destroyed the same way before they are even used? How many Russian aircraft and ground vehicles have been eliminated by Ukrainian aircraft in comparison to other methods? Proponents of sending MiGs or A-10s have yet to answer any of these questions in a convincing manner.
And these are not plug-and-play solutions. Poland’s MiGs are decades old, and many were hand-me-downs when the Poles received them. Fighters, especially older ones, require considerable maintenance as well as an ensured pipeline of spare parts and munitions. Ukraine’s capability to sustain those extra aircraft is unclear.
The Provision of A-10s would be more difficult, bordering on fantastical. There is zero domestic capability to repair or maintain those aircraft and nobody to fly them; this is not an aircraft Ukraine has ever operated. And while the desire to see a winged gatling gun rip through columns of armor may live on in the collective imagination of U.S. aviators and congressmen and despite their love of the fabled Warthog, as the A-10 was nicknamed, the aircraft would not survive in a modern air defense environment.
Unfortunately, political rhetoric has been substituted for practicality. Turning the conversation toward requirements is met with the dubious counter that a president like Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, who is fighting for his life, would not be asking for things he does not need. (Heroic figures are not necessarily great at military logistics, as any study of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill will demonstrate—and part of Zelensky’s greatness at this moment is that he is a savvy performer who knows how to put moral pressure on the West when it comes to getting more aid.) Sending MiGs to Ukraine has even been presented as the “only morally right choice .. https://twitter.com/melindaharing/status/1501541547128590344 .” But without an operational use argument, this solution is little more than vaporware, distracting from efforts to provide useful assistance to Ukraine.
For an example of successful requirements-driven security assistance, look at the actual security aid given to Ukraine since its defeat in 2014. The Ukrainian military has been transformed from one that was drubbed by Russian-backed irregulars to one that has shocked the world with the ferocity of its resistance. Social media is filled with videos of flaming Russian armor defeated by small teams of Ukrainian soldiers trained by NATO member states and armed with effective Western anti-tank weapons while Russian generals are picked off at the front by Western-trained snipers .. https://medium.com/voices-of-the-armed-forces/op-orbital-why-are-british-soldiers-in-ukraine-ad3b10cf357f . Much of this credit naturally goes to the Ukrainian men and women fighting the battles. But they were no less brave in 2014: Receiving the right training and the right tools was a critical piece of the puzzle.
Half-baked ideas like the MiG deal are particularly dangerous in the context of Ukraine. Despite rhetorical chest-thumping, neither Russia nor NATO wants a direct military conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Some have invoked the long-running U.S. campaign that armed Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union a half century ago was evidence that the United States has plenty of latitude to act without escalating the situation. These observers ignore the fact that, despite popular knowledge of U.S. involvement, the U.S. government took great pains to avoid overtly poking the Soviets in the eye, supplying nonattributable equipment and never publicizing U.S. involvement.
We can do more to help Ukraine without provoking World War III In aiding Ukraine, why are missiles fine but fighter jets unthinkable?
Evelyn N. Farkas was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia from 2012 to 2015.
March 11, 2022 at 10:11 a.m. EST
A woman carries a white cloth on a stick on March 10 as people flee the Ukrainian cities of Irpin and Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv. (Heidi Levine for The Washington Post)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — along with practically every Ukrainian who gets the chance to address U.S. and European officials — is pleading for protection from Russian artillery, cruise missiles and bombs. After the Russians fired (indiscriminately or intentionally) on a maternity hospital in Mariupol on Wednesday, Zelensky repeated his demand that NATO impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. “How much longer will the world be an accomplice ignoring terror?” he asked on Twitter. “Close the sky right now!” But U.S. and NATO officials have firmly rejected that request, arguing there’s too great a risk it could spark war between Russia and NATO. For similar reasons, Washington quashed a Polish offer to provide Soviet-era MiG fighter jets to Ukraine via the U.S. air base in Ramstein, Germany.
The conventional wisdom is that the United States and other NATO allies can supply lethal weapons such as Javelin and Stinger missiles to incinerate tanks and planes while avoiding an escalation into direct war with Russia (whose military doctrine includes a lower threshold than NATO’s for the use of nuclear weapons). Under unofficial rules worked out during the Cold War, such proxy warfare is deemed acceptable, while any direct engagement — for instance, between a NATO fighter jet and a Russian aircraft — is out of bounds. In rejecting the Polish offer, U.S. and NATO allies also decided that providing jets to Ukraine from NATO territory would be too risky.
But the logic of that position is not clear. Russia is fully aware that lethal weapons furnished by the NATO powers are being used to kill Russian troops and destroy their equipment, quite effectively in some cases. And those weapons travel over borders from NATO countries to Ukraine, just as any new donations of aircraft would. Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t responded to those arms deliveries as if the United States were entering the war directly, even though Pentagon officials estimate conservatively that at least 3,000 .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/03/08/russian-military-deaths-ukraine/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5 .. Russian troops have died already. Moreover, Putin and his advisers have their own reasons not to engage in a war with a militarily superior NATO. That suggests there is an opportunity to do more to help Ukraine — and to more quickly end the war with a stalemate or a Russian retreat.
Since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and invaded the eastern Donbas region, the United States has provided more than $2.5 billion .. https://www.rand.org/blog/2022/01/us-military-aid-to-ukraine-a-silver-bullet.html .. in military aid to Ukraine. The original rationale for sending defensive systems (such as counter-mortar radars) and lethal weapons (Javelins and, most recently, Stingers) was that they gave Ukraine a fighting chance in the Donbas and put pressure on the Kremlin in the form of Russian casualties, but didn’t risk a wider war because they didn’t change the military balance in Ukraine’s favor. The idea was to deter Putin from attacking again. But now that he has invaded Ukraine from multiple directions, and is using the Russian military playbook from Chechnya and Syria — encircling cities and bombing them into submission — the calculus has changed. The weapons we have provided are insufficient to protect the towns and cities under daily aerial bombardment. The Ukrainians need better air defenses — either more surface-to-air equipment, like the British Starstreak missile, or more fighter jets. Delivering such weaponry wouldn’t change the overall balance of military power — and therefore shouldn’t be viewed as escalatory — but it would save lives.
We need to make our own judgments about what counts as escalation and what counts as a reasonable step to help Ukrainians, and not defer to Putin on these questions. After all, he has already asserted that economic sanctions amount to a “declaration of war” (and yet he has not responded as if he believes this). And when considering whether a NATO move would be “provocative,” it is important to remember that Putin provoked all of this — he chose to launch this unjustified war against Ukraine.
Ultimately, we must weigh the dangers of escalation against what is at stake: the real possibility — given the brutal nature of the war so far — of the slaughter of civilians that could rise to the level of genocide. And we should weigh those dangers against what the United Nations calls the “responsibility to protect .. https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml .” While there are risks in helping Ukraine survive the Russian onslaught, there are also risks in letting Putin’s expansionist aggression go unchecked. If he sees that NATO will sit back and let him take Ukraine, he is likely to turn next to other neighboring former Soviet republics that aren’t in the alliance, such as Moldova and Georgia (which he already invaded once, in 2008).
Some options are clearly still too risky. A military no-fly zone across the whole of Ukraine, or in contested regions, would indeed escalate the situation: It would require the neutralization of any potential threats on the ground — including radar installations and antiaircraft weaponry — and in the air as the zone was being established. It would therefore probably lead to conflict with Russian military units, including possibly some based in Russia or Belarus.
A more measured response, which I and 26 other foreign policy specialists recently proposed .. https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000017f-6668-ddc5-a17f-f66d48630000 .. in an open letter to the Biden administration, would involve humanitarian no-fly zones. These would build on the agreements between Ukraine and Russia to create safe corridors allowing civilians to leave the sites of battles. Russia would have to allow NATO planes to ensure that no attacks occurred in these corridors. (That no attacks will occur is something Russia has already pledged.) Given its mutual nature and limited goal, such a plan would not require the destruction of Russian radars and antiaircraft weaponry on the ground. NATO would make explicitly clear that it intends no attacks unless civilians are imperiled.
-- [INSERT: Why even a “limited” no-fly zone is a bad idea] [...] Calls for a limited no-fly zone suffer from the same basic problem as a broader campaign: You can’t implement one without greatly heightening the risk of nuclear escalation. P - “I can only see two reasons [for proposing this]: They have no idea what they’re talking about or they’re posturing,” says Robert Farley, a political scientist at the University of Kentucky who studies airpower. P - Moreover, there is no kind of no-fly zone — limited or otherwise — that would address the humanitarian crisis motivating such calls. Russia’s primary method of bombarding civilian-populated areas in this war has been artillery, not aircraft — which means that a Western intervention focused on shooting down planes would either prove ineffective or else escalate to something even more dangerous. --
Russia, unfortunately, has already violated the existing humanitarian-corridor agreements — shelling, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/05/mariupol-ukraine-russia-evacuation-invasion/?itid=lk_inline_manual_16 , an evacuation route out of Mariupol. If Russia cannot be trusted to cooperate on a humanitarian no-fly zone, or if it outright rejects the idea, then NATO could weigh whether the responsibility to protect civilians, in this narrow case, justifies imposing a limited safe zone unilaterally. That would be a much tougher call.
Besides humanitarian corridors, there are other options to weaken Russia’s air dominance. U.S. and NATO aircraft and our teams in the region can jam Russian communications. We can provide real-time intelligence, and our Special Operations forces can advise the Ukrainian military on how to best organize and execute their resistance operations. Cyber-operators can help Ukraine remotely from various nations.
No one wants to broaden the war; no one wants a nuclear-armed NATO alliance fighting a nuclear Russian Federation. But there is no automatic escalation from one Russian aircraft downed by a NATO fighter to full-blown war — let alone to the use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons. (In admittedly very different circumstances in 2015, NATO member Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/one-of-two-pilots-of-downed-russian-plane-rescued-in-a-special-operation/2015/11/25/dc11881c-92fd-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_20 .. that had stayed too long in Turkey’s airspace; the Russian plane had been flying sorties over Syria. There was no counterattack.) That calculation admittedly involves the assumption that Putin is, to some degree, a rational actor. But our faith that he won’t start World War III over Russian deaths caused by U.S.-made Stinger missiles rests on the same assumption.
By publicly dithering about providing fighter jets, and rejecting out of hand even limited humanitarian no-fly zones, we are setting unnecessary limits on ourselves and deferring to Putin — while the Russian army remorselessly kills Ukrainian civilians. We must remember that every time Putin deters us from countering him forcefully, the danger that he will continue to overreach only increases. We must be willing to accept some risk now to save human lives. We might also save ourselves from even greater risks — and sacrifices — later.
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