Posted on 02/23/2022 10:25:47 AM PST by Red Badger
This is not a drill. It's the closest we've been to World War 3 since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 🧵
First, it's important to understand the history of "no-fly zones" as a concept.
They are a purely modern phenomenon – one that was *never* employed by the U.S. during the Cold War – because enforcing an NFZ against the USSR would have risked nuclear war. Image The first NFZ was established over Iraq after the Gulf War, in order to prevent Saddam from further gassing the Kurds from the air.
It was a half-measure between war and peace.
America and its partners would not invade, but it would deny Iraq the use of its own airspace. Image What made the creation of the first NFZ viable?
The fact that coalition forces enjoyed complete air superiority over the Iraqi military.
There was no realistic prospect that Saddam could mount an air war against America and its allies.
The risk of escalation was zero.
No-fly zones were subsequently used by the West in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Libya.
In every case, the target of the NFZ was a non-peer military.
This made NFZs a politically palatable option: they allowed kinetic force to be used without risking major U.S. casualties. Image But somewhere along the way, Western policymakers forgot the limited conditions where NFZs work.
They started thinking of them like a "magic bullet" that can be used to coerce any rival of the United States.
They forgot that, against a peer competitor, an NFZ means total war. I sounded the alarm about this problem in 2016, with an article in @ForeignPolicy.
At the time, Hillary Clinton was advocating a no-fly zone over Syria.
I warned this was a "polite euphemism" for starting a shooting war with Russia, since Putin would not ground his planes. Image It's possible that we are all alive today because Obama did not listen to Clinton then.
If the U.S. starts shooting down Russian planes, Russia will retaliate.
Nobody can predict how far up the chain of escalation we would advance. Unroll available on Thread Reader https://twitter.com/ClintEhrlich/status/1484445827728695299?s=20&t=fZfrLE6jRaYuqCLafUEnNQ Today, Biden is being pressured to take similar actions against Russia.
The point person for this lobby is Obama's Assistant Secretary of Defense, Evelyn Farkas.
She wants the U.S. to declare a no-fly zone over the portions of Ukraine that are not yet occupied by Russia. Image Her tweet yesterday wasn't something she posted randomly with no thought.
She's also advocated for a Ukraine no-fly zone in @politico.
Keep in mind, this isn't an obscure person.
Farkas was the Obama administration's most senior Pentagon official for Russia and Ukraine.
And her proposal hasn't been met with contempt and derision. Other prominent Russia hawks are lining up behind it.
Today, Biden said, "We have no intention of fighting Russia."
But NFZ proponents will insist that it *isn't* fighting Russia.
That is always what has made NFZs so seductive – they are a form of coercion short of outright war. Image Russia's current force posture and diplomatic position provide a particularly tempting target for an NFZ.
It has deployed forces into the separatist-held territory of the Donbas – but not into the portions of Lugansk and Donetsk held by the Ukrainian military. Image It is now deliberating whether to recognize the entirety of the Donbas as the sovereign territory of the breakaway republics
– or whether to restrict that claim to the land they militarily control.
U.S. policymakers may believe an NFZ could sway Russia to choose the latter. Unfortunately, that thesis is inconsistent with the security goals that President Putin laid out in his address to the Russian nation yesterday.
His avowed national-security objectives can only be met by direct intervention in Ukraine. https://twitter.com/ClintEhrlich/status/1496263613279002628?s=20&t=fZfrLE6jRaYuqCLafUEnNQ Indeed, if the U.S. chooses to establish a no-fly zone, it will only aggravate the security concerns that Putin articulated.
It would be an extreme provocation that could induce him to take even more aggressive actions than he was otherwise planning. Image We should only establish an NFZ in Ukraine if we are willing to enforce it.
And in this case, enforcing it would mean shooting down Russian planes and bombing Russia's ground-based air-defense systems.
The people advocating the NFZ want that to happen. Do you? • • •
“Neither side will go there.”
BULLSHIT!
They believe that THEY will be SAFE and the rest of us will just have to die like sheep....................
We can just call them "volunteers" and show Putin we can play the BS game as well as he does.
The gang in charge here now is desperate to maintain control. A war would do it.
—
A full scale nuclear war would be even better for them to maintain control while achieving a second and primary goal, the total destruction of the USA.
Safely sheltered in their deep bunkers they ride it out while the rest of us die.
Elections have consequences.
The following needs to be on an endless loop of calls and emails to the White House:
“No vital national interest”
“No vital national interest”
“No vital national interest”...
But it’s in Hunter’s Vital Interest.
Oh, I don't know.
I think if our CIA could participate in the overthrow of a democratically-elected president of Ukraine, Russia could certainly make a case that they should be able to fly over the country.
Anyone who thinks we should enforce it should head over their and get themselves a manpad.
Or sent up in a blimp as a lookout…
“Soviet pilots flew against US planes in both Korea and Vietnam.”
Never under the USSR flag. And that matters greatly.
I suggest you take your chickenhawk ass over to Eastern Europe and shoot some Ruskies, see how it works out for you.
And see my previous post on US/SOVIET war games. Everyone who knows anything about it knows we go nuke.
And quickly.
It’s only the foaming at the mouth neocons who think it’s OK.
You ought to realize that the foreign enemy of your domestic opponents is not necessarily a friend.
What you and many others in the Putin fan club that's infesting FR don't seem to realize is that you're acting no differently than Hanoi Jane, seeking domestic advantage by making common cause with America's foreign enemies.
The real danger here is that the narcissistic imbeciles running US policy actually think all this bluster will stop Putin, when all it's doing is showing weakness and leaving him no choice but to attack lest he himself seem weak by not doing so. Yes, that's really how stupid US leadership is.
“the overthrow of a democratically-elected president of Ukraine”
The CIA had nothing to do with the overthrow of Yulia Tymoshenko. That was your buddy Putin.
“Anyone who thinks we should enforce it should head over their and get themselves a manpad.”
Naw. I prefer rifles.
Then I’m guessing all you need then is a ride over there.
I think you mean the “doomsday” clock.
The atomic clock sets time in the country.
“Then I’m guessing all you need then is a ride over there.”
If I could get a ride I’d go. I might be old as dirt and my knees are going bad but I’m sure I could still send some of those Red Army pukes off to Hell.
Oops my bad
Ok, that’s reasonable
Im still wholly opposed to us getting involved but if you are actually willing we can disagree
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