Tag Archives: Warfare

Why We’re Not Doing a No-Fly Zone

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No-fly zones aren’t as easy as they sound. Chris Chivvis, a former US intelligence official who works for the Carnegie Endowment, explains:

I share the frustration over Putin’s murderous war. Pressure is growing for a no-fly zone (NFZ) over Ukraine. But I fear we have grown accustomed to fighting enemies who had no way to out-escalate us.

[We can learn about] our options and the risks of escalation [from the history of no-fly zones]:

Eleven years ago, the U.S. was on the cusp of imposing its no-fly zone over Libya to stop Qaddafi’s attacks on civilians. NATO expected a quick no-fly zone operation in Libya. Conditions were favorable because most of Qaddafi’s air force had defected.

But the Libyan dictator still had old Soviet long-range surface to air systems — SA-2 Guideline, SA-3 Goa, and SA-5 Gammons. NATO had to destroy these threats for its planes to fly safely.

And so, the US and UK fired 130 Tomahawk cruise missiles, US B-2 Stealth Bombers dropped 45 precision-guided bombs on Libya, and other NATO aircraft attacked across the country.

What would this look like in Ukraine eleven years later? Russia isn’t Libya, so naturally, the military requirements would be much more stressing. And escalatory.

Consider the reports that Russia has deployed several air defense systems to the theater, including S-400s, their most advanced. These would have to be eliminated for NATO pilots to fly safely over key parts of Ukraine, including potentially Kiev. This means NATO — and almost certainly US pilots — would have to bomb Russian units outside of Ukraine (e.g. S-400s in Belarus). They would also have to engage Russian planes flying over Ukraine. Russia could attack them from within Russian and Belarussian airspace. Would our pilots be allowed to return fire? If so, NATO would then be attacking Russians inside Russia. If not, some US pilots would probably be shot down.

The pressure to broaden the war would then become insurmountable. Unfortunately, there’s an even easier way a #NFZ would escalate. . . 

NATO would struggle to fly passively over Ukraine’s cities while Russia showered them with cluster munitions. We would probably end up attacking Russian forces on the ground [in Ukraine]. That’s not a risk I’m ready for. 

Meanwhile, the historical precedents of NATO NFZs would almost certainly encourage Putin to escalate. Libya is one precedent Russians often complain about, but the 1999 Kosovo air campaign is no less important for several reasons.

In 1999, the United States began an air campaign against Serb forces who were killing Kosovars. Many experts at the time expected the nationalist Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic would capitulate after only a few days. Did he? No. Everyone was surprised when the operation dragged on for months – just like in Libya. Eventually NATO widened its strikes to include civilian infrastructure in Serbia itself. Milosevic capitulated and within a few years was overthrown – just like Qaddafi.

Putin almost certainly has both Qaddafi and Milosevic – and obviously Saddam Hussein – in mind when he looks at Ukraine today. But unlike these despots, the one in the Kremlin has many options for escalation. Anyone who thinks he won’t use them isn’t watching the news.

Putin May Have Bitten Off Too Much in Ukraine

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According to The Washington Post, Max Boot is a historian and foreign-policy analyst who the International Institute for Strategic Studies has called one of the “world’s leading authorities on armed conflict”. His response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (population 43 million) makes sense to me. He begins by quoting Churchill:

“There are no certainties in war.” – Winston Churchill

I am impatient with both those who insist that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a stroke of “genius” and those who insist it is a historic blunder. The truth is we don’t know which it will be. That will depend on what the people of Ukraine — and the nations of the West — do to resist this war of aggression.

Putin does not shy away from the use of military force, and his experience of war over the past two decades undoubtedly makes him confident, even cocky, as Russian forces attack Ukraine.

Putin’s regime began with a successful attack on Chechnya [pop. 1.4 million] in 1999. Russian forces besieged the capital, Grozny, killing thousands, and soon took control of the entire breakaway republic. While a guerrilla war smoldered for years, Putin was finally able to establish control by installing a mini-dictator, first Akhmad Kadyrov, then his son . . .

Putin invaded a sovereign country, Georgia [pop. 4 million], in 2008. In just five days, the Russians drove to the outskirts of Tbilisi but did not take the capital. Instead, the invaders secured the Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which remain under Kremlin control. Georgia’s ambitions to join NATO lay shattered.

In 2014, after the overthrow of a pro-Russian ruler in Kyiv, Putin launched his first invasion of Ukraine. “Little green men” — i.e., Russian troops in uniforms without insignia — took control of Crimea [pop. 2.4 million]. Meanwhile, Russian-backed separatists launched a war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that has continued to the present day . . . 

Then came the 2015 Russian intervention in Syria. With Russia’s ally Bashar al-Assad on the verge of being toppled, Putin sent in the Russian air force and a small number of Russian mercenaries and special forces to rescue him. With indiscriminate bombing of urban areas and even hospitals, the Russians killed thousands of civilians . . . . Putin defied predictions from then-President Barack Obama that Syria would turn out to be a Vietnam-style “quagmire” for Russia. Instead, it turned into a training ground for the kind of high-tech war that Putin is now unleashing on Ukraine.

It is easy to see how this long record of military success can lead Putin, who has ruled unchallenged for more than two decades, to imagine that he can now turn Ukraine into a satrapy. But the war he just unleashed on Ukraine is considerably more challenging than the ones he has previously waged.

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Ukraine’s military, while inferior to Russia’s, is superior to those of all the other foes Russia has fought over the past two decades. Ukrainians have more modern weapons than they did in 2014, and they have years of combat experience fighting Russian separatists. Russia’s continuing aggression has also made Ukrainians more nationalistic and pro-Western. One poll shows that support in Ukraine for joining NATO has risen from 34 percent in 2013 to 62 percent today. Ukrainians have been signaling they will resist, with even great-grandmothers training for guerrilla warfare [and, according to one report, thousands of automatic weapons distributed to the public].

. . . The revamped Russian military can certainly defeat the Ukrainian armed forces and take Kyiv. But then what? As Gen. David H. Petraeus said during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003: “Tell me how this ends.”

The 190,000 troops that Putin has assembled to invade Ukraine are sufficient to effect regime change — but, as Petraeus recently noted, they are completely insufficient to control a country of more than 43 million people. That would likely require hundreds of thousands more Russian troops and could expose them to a costly, drawn-out guerrilla war that could sap Putin’s popularity.

Putin’s best bet would be to install a puppet regime in Kyiv — but how to keep it in power? The Ukrainian people have already used “people power” to topple two previous pro-Russian leaders, in 2005 and 2014. What is to stop them from doing it a third time? Putin would need to create a pro-Russian security force in Ukraine but, given the growing nationalism of the populace, that will be hard to do.

None of this is to suggest that his offensive is doomed to fail. It would be foolhardy to bet against a tyrant with Putin’s track record. But there is nothing foreordained about Russian success — and much that the West can do to stymie his aggression. It is imperative for the West to keep arming and supporting the Ukrainians . . .  and to keep piling up draconian sanctions on the Russian regime.

Napoleon marched into Spain in 1808 confident of success, only to bog down in a long and costly guerrilla war aided and abetted by his English enemies. Before long, he would complain that he was being bled dry by the “Spanish ulcer.” The West now has an opportunity to create a “Ukrainian ulcer” for Putin. We must ensure that the Russian dictator’s cruel and reckless gambit does not pay off.