With all the brutality, suffering and death in Putin's vicious invasion of Ukraine Clark's position has been appealing from the start. Still, though it is very difficult and even still arouses much mental conflict, i'm sticking with Biden's position on the zone.
U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles from the 336th Fighter Squadron taxi after completing a NATO Enhanced Air Policing mission out of Lask Air Base, Poland, February 28, 2022.(Technical Sergeant Jacob Albers/USAF)
The desire to assist Ukraine is understandable, but a U.S.-backed no-fly zone would be an impractical — and dangerous — escalatory move.
There are no magical solutions in foreign policy. As much as U.S. policy-makers would like to flip a switch and watch all the world’s problems disappear, that’s not how the world works. Sometimes problems fester and grow more entrenched regardless of what the United States does. On other occasions, U.S.-imposed solutions can open up a Pandora’s box and create even more problems in the future.
Russia’s ongoing military assault on Ukraine is no exception. Assuming a diplomatic miracle doesn’t occur between Kyiv and Moscow (Russian and Ukrainian delegations met for peace talks on February 28 and agreed to meet again in the next several days), the Russian offensive is likely to get bloodier and more indiscriminate as Ukrainian army forces stall what Russian president Vladimir Putin likely thought would be a quick and relatively painless victory in the first two days. The Biden administration has responded to Russia’s invasion by imposing an ever-stronger sanctions regime against the Russian financial and banking system, including blocking Moscow’s access to whatever foreign reserves it may have in U.S. jurisdiction. Others, however, want to go beyond economic measures. Retired generals George Joulwan, Wesley Clark, and Philip Breedlove, three former NATO supreme allied commanders, have recommended a no-fly zone (NFZ) in Ukraine to protect civilian populations that could otherwise find themselves targets for Russian air and ground attacks. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly requested that President Biden institute a no-fly zone to aid Kyiv’s defense against the mighty Russian military.
The White House has rejected the NFZ option as impractical and dangerous. But as the violence in Ukraine accelerates and miles-long columns of Russian armor roll toward Kyiv, the idea could gain traction. The Biden administration, however, can’t let emotionalism cloud its judgment. The last thing the U.S. needs to do is further escalate the situation — and make no mistake, an NFZ would be the definition of an escalatory move.
It’s not as if the U.S. military is unschooled or inexperienced in this kind of operation. Washington has implemented three NFZs in the recent past: Bosnia in the mid-1990s, the northern and southern sections of Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War, and Libya in 2011. The objective of each was to limit where enemy aircraft operated, protect civilian populations that would be susceptible to bombing, and engage the adversary .. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-03-01-mn-28577-story.html .. in the event the zone was breached. American and coalition pilots were able to enforce these zones with relative ease, in large part because the Serbian, Iraqi, and Libyan militaries were at best third-rate. During the Libya operation, for example, the U.S. was able to neutralize Libyan air defenses and fighter aircraft during the first week, largely via Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from naval assets in the Mediterranean.
Russia, to put it mildly, is a totally different story. We aren’t talking about a juvenile band of misfits, but one of the largest militaries on the planet, capable of projecting power across borders when its direct security interests are threatened. Saddam Hussein’s army was a kleptocratic mess with soldiers who didn’t fight, planes that were archaic, and missiles that weren’t precise. Russia, in contrast, has undergone a significant military modernization drive, with a special emphasis on improving its airborne and missile forces. Russia is facing unexpected complications in its war effort: The Russian military is running into more resistance from the Ukrainians than it expected; it’s struggling with supply-line issues; and it’s employing dubious tactics on the ground (sending light armored infantry into the cities, for example). But these don’t negate Moscow’s formidable military power. It’s a nation with substantial reserve forces; an array of ballistic, cruise, and hypersonic weapons; and an air force that has honed its skills after years of war in Syria.
Why does any of this matter? Because for the U.S. to carve out an NFZ, it would have to engage Russia militarily. Any Russian weapons system that posed a danger to the mission, whether a Russian plane hovering in Ukrainian airspace or a Russian anti-missile system located on Russia’s side of the border, would need to be destroyed. Dogfights between American and Russian combat aircraft would be highly likely, leading to the high possibility of casualties. Military assets inside Russia and Belarus, including the S-400 ground-to-air missile system, would be on the target list, further exposing U.S. aircraft to hostile fire. Since Ukrainian airspace is contested, the U.S. would have to fight its way in just to establish an NFZ, let alone maintain it over a period of time.
To put it plainly: The U.S. and Russia, which together hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, would be waging war against each other. And we aren’t talking about Cold War–style proxy conflicts like Vietnam and Afghanistan, but rather a red-hot conflict where American and Russian forces would be shooting and killing each other.
There are other questions to consider as well. Even if the U.S. did establish a NFZ (assuming World War III didn’t erupt as a consequence), how long would American aircraft be patrolling Ukraine’s skies? What exactly would be the objective? It might be a difficult query to answer, because NFZ missions tend to expand over time into more ambitious affairs. The U.S.-patrolled zones in northern and southern Iraq, imposed in 1991 and 1992 respectively, weren’t supposed to last over a decade — yet they did. The 2011 NFZ over Libya, endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, was originally tasked with protecting civilians. Yet that civilian-protection mission gave way to one of regime change very early on; driving Moammar Qaddafi from power became the top priority. While a hypothetical U.S. or NATO-enforced NFZ in Ukraine would obviously be different from the Iraq and Libya scenarios, countries that took part in it would run the risk of embarking on an operation that could last far longer than originally projected.
There are many ways the U.S. can help Ukraine. Ending the war diplomatically as soon as possible would be the ideal outcome and save many innocent lives in the process. But even flirting with a no-fly zone doesn’t help anybody. It’s a fairy-tale option in more ways than one.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
