Send F-16s to Ukraine

Close the sky and win the war.

O ver the past two weeks, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has unleashed bombing of civil infrastructure all over Ukraine. This has brought Western leaders to the realization that if we are to save the country that is now holding the line for the West against Russian aggression, we need to provide it with effective defense against aerial attack. Accordingly, a number of air-defense systems, including two American National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, are being rushed to Ukraine.

This is a good first step. Many more and better air-defense systems, such as Patriot antimissile batteries, should be sent as well.

But the best way to close the sky is to rule the sky. What Ukraine really needs more than anything else is fighter aircraft.

Fighter aircraft are the queen of battle. Not only can they take out enemy bombers and cruise missiles, they can also strike any targets on land or sea, including the massed artillery that are the core of Russian military strength. The U.S. itself would not consider engaging in any conflict without them. We should therefore not deny them to Ukraine on the disingenuous argument that Ukraine doesn’t really need them.

Fighters should be sent without further delay, starting with the MiGs that Poland offered to send Ukraine in March. That proposal was blocked by the Biden administration on the mistaken belief that Putin would be restrained by NATO restraint. If the MiGs had been sent, thousands of lives lost since that time could have been saved.

But there is no reason to limit the aircraft we send Ukraine to Soviet-era MiGs. America and its allies have more than 4,000 F-16s. While these are no longer the best fighters we have, they are pretty good, certainly much better than the legacy Soviet MiGs. They are also relatively easy to maintain. The United States has delivered F-16s to 25 countries around the world — NATO members and non-NATO countries — even including such questionable nations as Pakistan and Venezuela. We have so many of them that the U.S. Air Force uses them for target practice.

I know a number of fighter pilots, and they tell me that the F-16 is a very easy plane to learn to fly. Ukrainian fighter pilots could be rapidly trained to fly them. The top-scoring squadron on either side during the Battle of Britain was Squadron 303, consisting of exiled Polish pilots flying Hurricanes. While Hurricanes were inferior to Britain’s famed Spitfires, the Poles flew them to greater effect, not only because they were used to flying worse junk back home, but because more than anyone else, they understood the existential nature of the evil they were fighting. The same is likely to prove true of Ukrainians flying F-16s; they are already showing themselves as brilliantly proficient fighting with the limited aircraft they have. A gift of a hundred F-16s would almost certainly decide the war.

There are those who say that it takes many months to train a fighter pilot to be top-drawer on a new plane. This is true. Providing such extended training would certainly be ideal, but the situation requires moving faster. Not all fighter roles need to be undertaken from the start. For example, one easy mission for rookie fighter pilots is to use their planes to shoot down enemy cruise missiles over friendly territory. F-16s can do Mach-2 and are armed. Cruise missiles are subsonic and can’t shoot back. New pilots could gain F-16 experience hunting them down, while providing widespread protection against cruise-missile attacks. When they are ready, they could take on tougher missions.

In any case, if there really is any question about the need for F-16-trained pilots and mechanics, that deficiency could be readily remedied by an international squadron manned by volunteers from the many thousands of F-16-trained personnel drawn from the two dozen nations around the world that use F-16s. In the tradition of the Lafayette Escadrille manned by Americans who helped France in its hour of need in World War I, I propose it be named the Kosciuszko Escadrille.

Tadeusz Kosciuszko was a Polish revolutionary with Ukrainian and Belorussian roots who, like Lafayette, came to America during the American Revolution to aid our fight for liberty. In Kosciuszko’s case, the critical aid he supplied was his expertise in military engineering, which won the decisive Battle of Saratoga for America.  Kosciuszko was also responsible for developing the American fortifications at West Point, the key defensive position created to stop the British from sailing up the Hudson. Kosciuszko’s fort later housed the U.S. Miliary Academy. His statue still stands there today.

Poland currently flies F-16s. Poles, above nearly all others, fully understand the threat posed by Russian aggression — which would be greatly magnified if the defeat of Ukraine were to bring Russian forces to Poland’s borders. Furthermore, Poles are notoriously brave. Consequently, Polish F-16 pilots and mechanics would almost certainly be well represented among the volunteers of the Kosciuszko squadron, making its name all the more fitting.

When the Americans arrived in France in World War I, their commander proclaimed, “Lafayette, we are here!” We owe a similar debt for our independence to freedom fighters of Eastern Europe who came to our aid in our hour of need. There is no better way to acknowledge it than to create and equip a volunteer fighter-pilot squadron named after the first among them.

The combination of a hundred F-16s, Patriot batteries, and other anti-missile systems would allow Ukraine to win the war. The Ukrainians have been doing remarkably well in ground combat despite Russian air superiority. With the aid of F-16s, Ukraine could clear the sky of Russian aircraft and enjoy that advantage of raining down bombs on Russian ground forces wherever they might be found. All Russian supply lines within Ukraine could be interdicted. Ukraine could also drive away the Russian Black Sea fleet, finish off the Kerch Strait Bridge, and sink the ferries that the Russians are using as a fallback option to supply their forces in Crimea. Russia would have no choice but to pull its invasion forces out.

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When the Biden administration refused to deter Putin by sending the Ukrainians arms in advance, it effectively invited the Russian invasion. Some have not learned the lesson that appeasement does not work; they will no doubt argue that Putin would see the F-16s as escalating Western involvement and, as result, would himself further escalate the war. These arguments are unconvincing. Putin invaded because Western appeasers convinced him he would win. He will withdraw when he knows he can’t.

Kremlin mouthpieces are currently circulating another argument — that Ukraine cannot be allowed to win because Putin will go to nuclear war rather than give up on his attempt to add Crimea to his empire. That’s also nonsense. Putin is one of the richest men in the world. He lived for 62 years without ruling Crimea, and he can do so again. He will not use nuclear weapons for the same reason that no Kremlin leader has used them since Stalin gained nuclear capability in 1949: He would be obliterated if he did. Billionaires do not commit suicide when side ventures don’t work out. No tyrant in history ever killed himself because he failed to take over an additional province amounting to less than 1 percent of the land he already possessed. The thief currently infesting the Kremlin has no interest in being the first.

This war has gone on too long. It has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, turned more than 10 million people into refugees, and wreaked trillions of dollars of damage on the world economy. We need to end the war as soon as possible, and the only satisfactory way to do that is to win it.

We need to win, because Ukrainian defeat would mean another Russian-imposed genocide on Ukraine. A defeat would erase Ukraine’s forces from the West’s order of battle, empower and embolden Putin, eliminate a Russian strategic weakness that prevents it from attacking the Baltic states, and bring Russian forces to the border of Poland. In such circumstances, we would need to once again send hundreds of thousands of American troops to Europe, costing us endless treasure and perhaps someday plenty of blood as well. Furthermore, Western defeat in Europe would tell China that aggression pays, with results that we can ill afford. Only by winning in Ukraine can we deter war in Asia.

We need to win. So let’s win. Send F-16s to Ukraine now.