Yesterday, Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi told the Huffington Post that “a strong coalition of like-minded nations should step in and seriously consider” implementing a no-fly zone (NFZ) in Ukraine. Wicker, a military hawk’s military hawk, is the first senator to go on the record in support of the proposal, although he’s not the first member of Congress to do so — Congressman Adam Kinzinger came out in support of a U.S.-backed NFZ on Friday. “Tens of thousands of women and children fleeing from Kyiv west have created a humanitarian situation that the international community needs to step in and be involved in,” Wicker said.
This is a bad idea, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Other Republicans seem to understand this. Wicker’s fellow Republican hawks in the Senate, such as Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have steered clear of the proposal. In the same Huffington Post article in which Wicker called for an NFZ, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri was quoted as saying, “They’re not a NATO country, as much as we want to help them. I don’t think we can get in a situation where we’re almost asking for engagement.” That’s putting it charitably — an NFZ, which would likely involve American forces shooting down Russian planes over Ukraine, would be asking for engagement. In fact, it would be engagement. As Senator Marco Rubio of Florida bluntly put it to the Huffington Post: “That would mean World War III.”
The free world is behind Ukraine. Allied nations have imposed increasingly tough sanctions on Russia, and isolated the Kremlin on the world stage. Allies have also sent lethal aid to Ukrainian forces. Most recently, Germany, long a lackluster NATO ally, actually stepped up to the plate: After a period of equivocation, Berlin is sending weapons to Ukraine, suspending its controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, and finally getting serious about meeting its NATO defense-spending commitment of 2 percent of its national GDP.
But direct engagement with Russia risks sparking a global war, pitting all of the West against a hostile — and aggressive — power. There is reliable intelligence suggesting that Putin is behaving in an increasingly paranoid and irrational way. That alone should counsel us against provoking him directly — particularly in light of the news that he has put his nuclear forces on high-alert status. If he were a strictly rational actor, we might be able to wave that away as saber-rattling. But we shouldn’t rule out the fact that he isn’t a rational actor. The only thing more dangerous than a cornered animal is a cornered animal with rabies.
The fog of war has a way of clouding otherwise intelligent men’s minds. But hawks like Wicker need to take a deep breath. Our political leaders should proceed with serious caution. “The largest military action undertaken on the continent of Europe since World War II is underway,” Matt Continetti wrote recently. “Anyone who pretends to know what will happen next is kidding themselves.”
A U.S.-backed NFZ over Ukraine would be tantamount to a declaration of war with Russia. As Daniel Depetris lays out in NRO today:
For the U.S. to carve out an NFZ, it would have to engage Russia militarily. Any Russian weapons system that posed a danger to the mission, whether a Russian plane hovering in Ukrainian airspace or a Russian anti-missile system located on Russia’s side of the border, would need to be destroyed. Dogfights between American and Russian combat aircraft would be highly likely, leading to the high possibility of casualties. Military assets inside Russia and Belarus, including the S-400 ground-to-air missile system, would be on the target list, further exposing U.S. aircraft to hostile fire. Since Ukrainian airspace is contested, the U.S. would have to fight its way in just to establish an NFZ, let alone maintain it over a period of time.
To put it plainly: The U.S. and Russia, which together hold 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads, would be waging war against each other. And we aren’t talking about Cold War–style proxy conflicts like Vietnam and Afghanistan, but rather a red-hot conflict where American and Russian forces would be shooting and killing each other.
Thankfully, the White House — like the vast majority of senators and congressmen — has maintained a level-headed line on this. An NFZ over Ukraine would require “implementation by the U.S. military — it would essentially mean the U.S. military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes,” Jen Psaki said on Monday.
And that, to put it lightly, would be bad. America should absolutely support Ukraine. But there’s a line that we must not cross. American foreign policy should serve the interests of the American people. An NFZ — and the ensuing war with Russia that it would likely provoke — does not fit that criteria.