Calls grow for a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Here’s what it would mean.
BREEDLOVE: I am actually a proponent of it. But let me now tell you why it will probably not happen: because the reality of a no-fly zone is — it is an act of war. There are a lot of people who don’t understand no-fly zones. You don’t just say, “That’s a no fly zone.” You have to enforce a no-fly zone, which means you have to be willing to use force against those who break the no-fly zone. The second thing, which nobody understands, is if you put a no-fly zone in the eastern part of Ukraine, for instance, and we’re going to fly coalition or NATO aircraft into that no-fly zone, then we have to take out all the weapons that can fire into our no-fly zone and cause harm to our aircraft. So that means bombing enemy radars and missile systems on the other side of the border. And you know what that means, right? That is tantamount to war.
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Q: Yet, in spite of all of that, you said you would actually support the idea of a no-fly zone?
BREEDLOVE: Are we going to sit and watch while a world power invades and destroys and subjugates a sovereign nation? Are we just going to watch? I mean, a friend recently said, “This is like biblical times, and the whole Colosseum is watching the lions and the Christians, and they’re pulling for the Christians, but they just watch.” So the question is, is the West going to tolerate Russia doing this to Ukraine? What if the Russians do what they did in eastern Syria and they drop barrel bombs and make rubble of cities and terrorize citizens and force them on the road and make them refugees across Europe? Where is the line that Russia crosses in its inhumanity such that the rest of the world reacts?
