The Blob Wants a War
How expertise debases itself
Well, there it is. Over at Politico we have an open letter calling for a limited no-fly zone.
This letter is signed by people who should know better. I would put the substance somewhere in the wtf grid bounded by "irresponsible" & "insulting."
Too many people have misremembered both recent and longer-term history. We are talking about Russia here. Not Serbia. Not Libya. Not Iraq.
Let us be clear on this point; a No Fly Zone (NFZ) requires you shoot down aircraft over a specified area. Over Ukraine, what this letter calls for is for us to shoot down Russian aircraft. It says “NATO” but as anyone who served in Afghanistan knows, this will mean the USA, and possibly the United Kingdom with an assist from Denmark and Poland, maybe.
That is asking for war. You don’t want a wider European war. No sane person does.
These people do, but they are not being honest about it.
If you want a war, ask for it. Assuming that everyone will either be silent or stupid, instead the authors decided to be too clever by half to the rubes while winking at their peers who know exactly what they are doing. Not unlike the build up to the Iraq invasion of 2003, I’m not sure that they believe their own distortions, or simply that they are not as good as they tell everyone they are. I’m beginning to think both.
Someone in this group must know where a NFZ would lead. Once everything blows up – which it may NFZ or not – a note from this crowd of, "Oh, no, we never expected this escalation..." won't wash at the moment & damn sure won't wash on the 1st through last draft of history.
I’m sorry, I don’t trust them. After you read the letter, if you still do, I can’t help you.
This is such a grabasstic horror show, we’re going to fisk it.
Let’s go:
Where exactly do they think any missiles enforcing a NFZ will go, to intercept the Tanzanian Air Force? The Russians are not fools, but this paragraph is written for fools. Ukraine is only slightly smaller than Texas. Jet fighters and their missiles move faster than the speed of sound. There is no way to limit a FLZ to “corridors.” This effectively will cover the entire landmass.
Yes, that is what happens in wars of aggression. If NATO implements the NFZ all the decision makers need to accept that all the horrors in that last sentence will expand exponentially. Be clear about that. None of the people who signed this letter will have to put their lives on the line for it … but a lot of other will.
This is simply untrue. We are, by assisting UKR, prolonging the fight (which I support, Slava Ukraini, etc) and thus more casualties and bloodbaths will result … as it the nature of war … as is the constant in the human condition.
A NFZ implemented by a 3rd party after hostilities have already begun between Ukraine and Russia is an intentional act to join in a war with Russia. There is no other way this can be understood. It is plain on its face.
Additionally, this is the first time I have heard of the A-10 option mentioned by “serious” people. Being that UKR has no one qualified to fly A-10, much less maintain squadrons of them, this is one of two things; either an invitation for an American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Ukraine Air Force, or simply people not knowing their business. There are retired USAF General Officers on this list. They know this.
Yes, this is the war you and your institutes and think tanks failed to prevent, prepare for, or predict. Why should we think you have a solution now? Seriously, what is your track record?
That will operationalize in to the USA and NATO becoming active participants in their war. As we would were the tables turned, that would invite – really almost require – Russia to expand this in to a pan-European war. No, scratch that, as that would bring in the North American two-ocean nations of Canada and the United States … a world war.
No. Non-concur.
I don’t know what the signatories think they are doing, but I know what they are doing.
We see you. We know what you are doing.
Final note – irrespective of the substance - what the hell is wrong with all these open letters by these Very Important Experts™ that we keep seeing what are all jacked up WRT formatting?
You would think with all these duty drivers and good parking spaces, one of them would be on good terms with a former Flag Secretary – or one of their kids or grandkids.
Please Buddha, save us from our elites.
So a whole passel of academic-thinktank/ex-State/ex-Pentagon types managed to find a grand total of TWO retired flag ranks to sign on so they would continue to get invited to the good parties in DC.
I am non-impressed.
A contested no-fly zone is also known by the three letter term "War", and any idiot who thinks the only thing Vlad the Invader would do is send his VKS pilots in two at a time to get shot down, and not launch some of those cruise missiles or even manned strikes at the air bases which the no-fly-CAP is staging from in Poland and Romania and Germany, is delusional.
And the guy who gets to write the ROE rule covering "If you get painted/locked on/launched at by an S-400/S-500 located on the other side of the border in Russia" will need a pay raise.
Thank you for this. I note your reference to the AVG— the American Volunteer Group— better known and remembered as the legendary Flying Tigers of World War II. What would you think of an AVG updated for 2022? As I'm sure you know, Americans set up an export company back in 1941 to handle the sale of U.S.-built fighter aircraft to Nationalist China at the same time a bunch of hotshot American pilots suddenly resigned their commissions to become "instructors" employed in China by the export company. I believe they did eventually train a handful of Chinese pilots, but their main job was flying against and wreaking havoc on Japan's air forces. Would that scheme be feasible (or advisable) today? The Russians would, of course, easily see through the export company subterfuge— as, I'm sure, Imperial Japan did— but what could/would they do about it? (One big difference, of course: Japan did not have nukes.) Separate question: what do you think of the apparent plan by the U.S. to have Poland (and other former Eastern Bloc countries?) supply MiGs to Ukraine?