I honestly don't have a hard and fast position on this. We're facing a Sophie's-choice scenario that leaves me with a grinding in my gut that will not go away.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his plea for NATO to establish a no-fly zone over Ukraine, stressing on Thursday that this would be the “most important step” as Ukraine faces “incessant bombing” by Russia.
“We want a no-fly zone because our people are being killed. From Belarus, from Russia — these missiles, these Iskander missiles and bomber planes, are coming,” Zelensky said.
“I asked President Biden, and Scholz and Macron…and I said, if you can’t provide a no-fly zone right now, then tell us when?”
Speaking during a televised news conference in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president went on to ask how many more people in Ukraine must be killed before NATO agrees to enact a no-fly zone.
“If you can’t give Ukrainians a date, how long do you need? How many people should be blown up? How many arms and legs and heads should be severed, so that you understand? I will go and count them, and we will wait until we have a sufficient number,” Zelensky said in an impassioned plea.“If you don’t have the strength to provide a no-fly zone, then give me planes. Would that not be fair?” he continued.
On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that using US troops to create a no-fly zone in Ukraine is “not a good idea.” Speaking during an interview with MSNBC, Psaki said the implementation of a no-fly zone by the US military “would essentially mean the US military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said Wednesday that NATO allies “do not seek conflict with Russia,” stressing that NATO is a “defensive alliance.”
In a Twitter thread, Garry Kasparov likewise frames the situation with maximum grimness:
We are witnessing, literally watching live, Putin commit genocide on an industrial scale in Ukraine while the most powerful military alliance in history stands aside. It's impossible not to be emotional, but let us also be rational and focus our rage on the facts. 1/13
Putin once again told Macron to go to hell, no surprise. NATO/EU has already told Putin they won't touch his forces, so why should he listen? Russia is lifting target limitations and the death toll is rising every hour and lack of water & electricity is critical. 2/13
No treaty forbids NATO nations from fighting to defend in Ukraine. It's a choice based on the risk of Putin going nuclear, many say. That arming Ukrainians is an acceptable risk of WWIII & the citizenship of the pilot or soldier changes Putin's nuclear calculus, or NATO's. 3/13
If they care so much about the fine print and think Putin does too, ask Zelensky to issue Ukrainian passports to any volunteer to fly in combat. Sell jets to Ukraine for €1 each and paint UKR flags on them. Do you think Putin will care? Is it worth the lives lost? 4/13
This is already World War III. Putin started it long ago & Ukraine is only the current front. He will escalate anyway, and it's even more likely if he succeeds in destroying Ukraine because you have again convinced him you won't stop him even though you could. 5/13
Biden & others insist NATO would retaliate should Putin attack Baltic members. Watching Ukraine, I am not sure of that at all, and Putin won't be either. If the calculation is about nuclear risk, it's no different over Estonia than Ukraine. Don't say "Putin would never". 6/13
If this sounds familiar, it's the same argument from 2014, when Putin invaded E Ukraine and annexed Crimea. It was too risky to stop him, I was told, as I pleaded for intervention and warned he would never stop there. Here we are, with bombs raining down. 7/13
Risk and costs are higher now because the "reasonable" people in the West always choose lower risk today to guarantee higher risk tomorrow. Clearing the UKR skies after a warning period is risky. Letting Putin destroy Ukraine is riskier, & a human and moral disaster. 8/13
There is no waiting this out. This isn't chess; there's no draw, no stalemate. Either Putin destroys Ukraine and eventually hits NATO with an even greater catastrophe, or Putin falls in Russia. He cannot be stopped with weakness. 9/13
The corridors to get weapons, food, and medicine in and refugees out are narrowing and can be closed. Putin can bomb the trains, close the borders with NATO nations. The odds of Russian forces hitting a NATO asset are increasing, and then what? Still watching? 10/13
If your answer is no, that if a wing of a RU jet crosses Polish airspace, of course NATO will engage immediately, ask why thousands of Ukrainians civilians dying first matters less than a treaty, and what that says to Putin. That you're honorable, or a fool? We know. 11/13
As I said in 2014 and a fateful week ago, the price of stopping a dictator always goes up. What would have been enough to stop Putin 8 years or 6 months or 2 weeks ago is not enough today, and the price will rise again tomorrow. Fight. Find a way. 12/13
Putin vows to exterminate Ukrainians while we watch. Ukraine did nothing wrong but try to join the democratic world that is now witnessing crimes against humanity in real time. Not unable. Unwilling. #CloseTheSky 13/13
Still, in his latest Atlantic piece, Tom Nichols makes a compelling case, not icily, but rather fraught with humanity and the deepest compassion for Ukraine's plight, for not heading these pleas:
In my rage, I want someone somewhere to do something. I have taught military and national-security affairs for more than a quarter century, and I know what will happen when a 40-mile column of men and weapons encircles a city of outgunned defenders. I want all the might of the civilized world—a world of which Putin is no longer a part—to obliterate the invading forces and save the people of Ukraine.
Others share these impulses. In recent days, I’ve heard various proposals for Western intervention, including support for a no-fly zone over Ukraine from former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove and the Russian dissident Garry Kasparov, among others. Social media is aflame with calls to send in American troops against the invading Russians.
And yet, I still counsel caution and restraint, a position I know many Americans find impossible to understand. Every measure of our outrage is natural, as are the calls for action. But emotions should never dictate policy. As President Joe Biden emphasized in his State of the Union address, we must do all we can to aid the Ukrainian resistance and to fortify NATO, but we cannot become involved in military operations in Ukraine.
But public figures and ordinary voters who are advocating for intervention also do so from the comfort of offices and homes where they can sound resolute by employing clinical euphemisms such as no-fly zone when what they mean is “war.” For now, fidelity to history requires us to remember that this isn’t the first time we’ve had little choice but to stand by and watch a dictator murder innocents.
Anybody embracing either position has to keep one thing in mind: there is no reversing the probable consequences of that first hostile encounter between a NATO plane and a Russian plane.
This is the extreme to which the human condition gets taken sometimes in this fallen world. When faced with nothing but rotten choices, what is the humane way to proceed?
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