A no-fly zone in Ukraine could work

March brought to Washington warm weather and heated debate about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeal for a no-fly zone over his embattled country. NATO and Pentagon defense officials reflexively rebuffed the idea as escalatory, an assessment that Moscow swiftly endorsed. There is consensus on all sides that a no-fly zone would be dangerous, disruptive and frightening. That is precisely why it should be considered.

It will be dangerous, but Ukraine is not Syria 

Establishing air dominance over a prescribed piece of ground is something the U.S. military knows how to do. But to do it within current U.S. doctrine takes violence and risk. Combatant air defense systems and personnel below, in and around the no-fly zone are subject to attack.  Violations, intentional or not, can be deadly. And while most American forces remain in the air, some presence of “boots on the ground” is essential to support targeting and rescue operations.

Concern over this violence and risk was why many defense officials who are now in the Biden administration resisted Turkey’s requests for a no-fly zone in Syria in previous roles they held with the Obama administration. Transference of that concern to Ukraine today is understandable, but it is also imprecise. Again, Ukraine is not Syria. In some ways, with advanced Russian combat power in and around Ukraine, the air is more dangerous. Unlike in Syria, however, the ground is more certain.  

Turkey’s request a half-decade ago would have committed Turkish and U.S. forces to defend the air space above factions of the Syrian opposition with obscure objectives and divided trust.  Assessments may vary on preparedness of Ukrainian ground forces, but three decades of NATO and U.S. security assistance affords them a unity of confidence, training and equipping for command and control any zone would demand.        

It will be disruptive, but that is not bad 

The drumbeat from Moscow is daily: Russian President Vladimir Putin and others in his regime verbalizing that any move to disrupt his plan in Ukraine will escalate toward nuclear World War III. As shocking as those threats are, they follow Russia’s broadly telegraphed “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine. While they cannot be discounted, they should not distract from the hourly escalation of conventional lethality, destruction and misery actually inflicted in and around Ukraine. 

U.S. and other Western nations are working feverishly to increase security assistance to Ukrainian defense forces. But even in the Pentagon, billions of dollars take a long time to spend.  Russian forces have a timeline, and it is unlikely to hold for Washington’s appropriations and acquisitions to execute. Meanwhile, hope that economic sanctions would meet a measured response were shattered as Putin publicly likened them to war. 

The result is a Kremlin so confident in escalation dominance as to unilaterally claim a right to dictate Ukraine’s fate as a state. Escalate to de-escalate can only be disrupted on, or above, the ground. Declaring a no-fly zone, or other air operations, over western territory critical for humanitarian and NATO border security would do just that. Within the hours needed to communicate delimiting coordinates and days necessary to mobilize operations, Russian operational calculus would need to account for new military capabilities entering their theater, Russian tactical procedure would need to adjust for communication with new forces maneuvering in their vicinity, and — most importantly — Russian strategic calculus would need to accept further escalation as a negotiation rather than an entitlement.

Fortunately, both sides have a template — Syria — where the U.S. was forced to reset and adapt as Russian jets deployed there in 2015. The result was an operational deconfliction regime that has awkwardly but successfully kept U.S. and Russian air forces from warring with each other as they support warring adversaries and divergent objectives. The complexity in Ukraine would be much higher, but so are the stakes.

It will be frightening, but also humane   

The most compelling case for thinking beyond fear of a no-fly zone in Ukraine, however, rests in the lives it could save. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. More than 2 million people have been displaced. These are the statistics after just two weeks of fighting, and they account for less than 5 percent of the Ukrainian nation. They will go up — significantly.   

State or no state, escalation or de-escalation, these people have lives. An air operation, confined in scale and scope to defensive rules of engagement over humanitarian corridors in western Ukraine, will not save them all. But it could save a great many. 

Pondering this option, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Phil Breedlove asks, “What is it we stand for?” Yes, U.S. air operations in Ukraine will be dangerous, disruptive and frightening but there is a point in conflict that caution and complicity produce the same results.  When that arrives, what is it we fly for?        

Frank T. Goertner, a retired U.S. Navy commander, is director for federal and veteran affairs at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. His military assignments included no-fly zone policy planning on the U.S. Joint Staff and duty as a Eurasia Foreign Area Officer. The opinions expressed here are his alone.