I find it beyond shocking that there are calls on Twitter and even in the halls of Congress to introduce American fighter jets into Ukraine to establish a no-fly zone (NFZ).
I'm stunned by this because surely they understand what they're calling for. A no-fly zone is not like some invisible force field over the country, it's an edict that requires enforcement.
If a NFZ were declared NATO aircraft would have to patrol the skies over Ukraine and shoot down any Russian aircraft that entered that airspace. They would also have to take out any ground-based radar and anti-aircraft missiles systems manned by Russian troops.
This would entail the loss of a lot of Russian lives at the hands of NATO, which would certainly elicit a Russian declaration of war against Europe and the U.S. That war might start out with conventional weapons, but it wouldn't stay that way. It would quickly escalate to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, intermediate range nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles.
It would be mutually assured destruction. Our cities would be blasted into smoldering, radioactive piles of rubble. It astonishes me that anyone could seriously want this.
The Biden administration has a lot to be held accountable for in this current war. They waited too long to try to arm the Ukrainians, they passed on an opportunity months ago to build up the Ukrainian air force, and they waited too long to impose sanctions.
When the sanctions did come, they were too mild and the administration inexplicably delayed in targeting the right people and institutions and still haven't targeted Russia's petroleum and gas industry.
Nevertheless, they've done the right thing in refusing to heed the calls for a no-fly zone. Ukraine is not Iraq in the 1990s, the Russians aren't the Iraqis and Putin is not Saddam Hussein. Hussein could do nothing about our no-fly zone over the Kurdish areas he wanted to obliterate. Hussein didn't have nuclear weapons. Putin does. A couple thousand of them.
Arm the Ukrainians, demoralize the Russian army, but don't introduce American or NATO forces into this war unless Putin attacks a NATO country. To do so would be to invite a nuclear exchange nobody would win and everyone would lose.