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[”How does any rational or caring human being watch us lose a 20-year war against cave-dwelling barbarians, and not just lose that war, but lose it in the most humiliating fashion imaginable, and less than a year later already have a war-boner for Ukraine?” — John Nolte, 3/5/2022]

I appreciate your and John Nolte’s views on most things, but this is not one of them. We lost in Afghanistan because, as Trump noted, we were unable as a matter of law and custom, to exterminate the Taliban and its civilian supporters. Conversely, the Taliban won because it is better organized and more competent than the government we backed *and* it can exterminate its civilian opponents.

A no-fly zone in Ukraine is pure force-on-force. People flying Russian military helicopters and airplanes cannot reasonably be called civilians. In force-on-force encounters, we can clean Russian clocks. Heck, by simply surviving despite a ramshackle inventory and nugatory budgets, the Ukrainian Air Force has shown the essential unreadiness of the Russian Air Force, which has 10x the aircraft.

Heck, by simply surviving despite a ramshackle inventory and nugatory budgets, the Ukrainian Air Force has shown the essential unreadiness of the Russian Air Force, which has 10x the aircraft.

Then why the need for a no-fly zone at all?

A no-fly zone in Ukraine is pure force-on-force. People flying Russian military helicopters and airplanes cannot reasonably be called civilians. In force-on-force encounters, we can clean Russian clocks.

But it’s rarely ever that “neat”, so to speak. Mistakes develop, intentions are misinterpreted, blue-on-blue fires occur.

The law of unintended consequences comes into play.