According to a Wall Street Journal report citing US intelligence, Russia could be preparing a limited incursion against a NATO member state within weeks. The report comes as the war in Ukraine remains largely deadlocked and the impact of the conflict is increasingly felt inside Russia.
Analysts cited in the report suggest Vladimir Putin may seek to open a new front rather than risk being remembered as the leader who lost Ukraine, raising fresh questions about NATO’s readiness and resolve.
A no-fly zone isn’t just “we make their planes go away”. It means you need to fly there. And that means you need to take out their AA, and their airborne radar outside the zone, and their ground based radar. You need to take out their ability to fly, so you need to kill the airfields, which means taking out the close range AA at those fields.
To establish a no-fly zone, you need to bomb the ever living shit out of Russia, not just inside Ukraine but deep within Russian borders too. The 2011 no-fly zone over Libya involved attacking 600 tanks, for example (insert turret-toss joke here), and thousands of ground-attack sorties.
Make no mistake, a “NATO no-fly zone” is just a declaration of war, without any boots crossing the border at ground level.
Not that I think we shouldn’t, but it’s not exactly easy