Resources for Understanding the Russian Invasion of Ukraine and Risks of Instituting a No-Fly Zone

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked the United States to support a "no-fly zone." Though a "no-fly zone" sounds innocuous, foreign policy analysts contend that it could spark war between nuclear armed nations. It is no exaggeration to say that such a war has the potential to be apocalyptical.

The Russian government's invasion of Ukraine is undoubtedly unjust and immoral. For example, the deputy mayor of Ukrainian city, Mariupol, said that Russian military bombed a theatre where hundreds of civilians were sheltering.

We should support the Russian anti-war movement, Ukrainians right to self-defense, and peace negotiations. Countless Russian citizens are doing their part to resist their nation’s war. In mid-March State TV journalist, Marina Ovsyannikova, protested her government's invasion of Ukraine by disrupting a state TV broadcast.

But we must not misunderstand the likely ramifications of a "no-fly zone." Dozens of relevant experts recently signed an open letter addressed to President Joe Biden, stating the implications of a no-fly zone.

"What the announcement of a no-fly zone would add would be the threat to engage in a shooting war with Russian forces. And if the United States threatens to do something, it will have to deliver. As two retired US officers have written, ‘Contrary to what so many in the commentariat seem to believe, a no-fly zone is not a military half-measure. It is a combat operation designed to deprive the enemy of its airpower, and it involves direct and sustained fighting.’"

To appreciate the full dangers of war with Russia we need to better understand the ongoing threat nuclear war poses to human survival. Ira Helfand, M.D., the immediate Past President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, writes,

“A 2002 report showed that if just 300 of Russia’s 1,600 deployed strategic warheads were detonated over US urban centers, 78 million people would die in the first half hour. In addition, the nation’s entire economic infrastructure would be destroyed—the electric grid, Internet, food distribution system, transportation network, and the public health system. All of the things necessary to sustain life would be gone, and in the months following this attack the vast majority of the US population would succumb to starvation, radiation sickness, exposure, and epidemic disease. A US attack on Russia would produce comparable devastation there. And if NATO were involved, most of Canada and Europe would suffer a similar fate.”

Helfand goes on to write that the most catastrophic effects of a nuclear war between Russia and members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would result from its impact on global climate. Temperatures, globally, would likely drop temperatures so much that food production would be decimated, leading to an unprecedented famine. A famine so severe as to jeopardize if not outright destroy human civilization.

Lastly, those of us in the U.S. in particular need to educate ourselves on the geo-political context for the current war, and how our nation has actively intervened in Ukrainian affairs in ways that have contributed to regional tension and instability. Andrew Bacevich, retired Colonel and Co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, believes that the United States has failed to make policy choices that could have averted the current conflict. Bacevich is unequivocal in identifying Russia’s autocratic leader, Vladimir Putin, as the “principal cause” of the sanguinary invasion of Ukraine, but notes that the U.S. and its allies failed to seriously consider the clearly telegraphed position of Russia’s leadership on NATO expansion.

“The key issue here I think is when the Cold War ended…Russia was in a position of great weakness and vulnerability and the United States and its allies chose to exploit that weakness. The most vivid expression of that was the eastward expansion of NATO. Let’s remind ourselves, NATO was an anti-Soviet alliance when it was created in 1949. The expansion of NATO basically moved it up to the borders of post-Soviet Russia. At that time, there were many Americans—George Kennan, the diplomat, would be perhaps the most prominent—that warned against NATO expansion as likely to cause us troubles down the road. We ignored those warnings, and I think that we’re kind of in a chickens coming home to roost situation right here.”

This is to say nothing of our nation’s efforts in shaping post-Soviet Union Russia, nor the fact that U.S. officials under the Obama administration actively meddled in the internal electoral affairs of Ukraine. Meddling that preceded the removal of the democratically elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, who had close relations with Russia and was disfavored by the U.S. and other Western governments. Audio recordings show that assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, and U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffey Pyatt, were working behind the scenes in support of a U.S.-backed opposition figures in the lead-up to Yanukovych’s ouster. One of the favored candidates (Arseniy Yatsenyuk) became prime minister following Yanukovych’s removal from office.

This does not mean that we should allow ourselves to be taken in by the false-choice fallacy. We do not need to choose to either condemn the Russian government’s war of aggression or acknowledge that U.S.-led foreign policy decisions of the last few decades have informed the political context for this invasion. (And understanding the political context does not mean denying the agency of the Russian government.) We can and should do both, with our primary emphasis on consistently condemning aggressive war wherever it occurs and whoever initiates it.

Doing this will inevitably lead us to condemn Russian aggression, with Putin understood as the principal agent causing the bloodshed in Ukraine. But principled thinking would also require us to critically evaluate of our nation’s role in facilitating Saudi Arabia’s ongoing war in Yemen not to mention owning up to the catastrophic results of the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

Here are a handful of helpful videos and one essay to improve our understanding of these important topics as we grapple with the tragic suffering of the Ukrainian people being subjected to invasion and occupation.

Understanding No-Fly Zones

Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explains the meaning and implications of a "no fly zone."

In this interview, Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, offers in-depth explanation of no-fly zones, making it clear that the first step in creating such zones is a direct military confrontation between involved parties. Bennis also discusses the prospects for the ongoing peace negotiations and concerns about growing militarization in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Foreign Policy Context

Retired colonel Andrew Bacevich, president and co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discusses our nation's foreign policy with regards to Ukraine and NATO and the context it provides for Russia's invasion of Ukraine

Looming Threat of Nuclear War

Brian Toon, professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

Devastation in Ukraine and Anti-war Russian Resistance

Joshua Yaffa, longtime Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker, discusses the devastation of the Russian government’s invasion and the courage of Russian anti-war activists

Rejecting False-Choices and Confronting Ethnocentrism

Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic, Slavoj Zizek, challenges those excusing the Russian government’s invasion of Ukraine on grounds that it was forced to by Western nations’ policies. But he also contends that the best way for Western nations to combat Russian authoritarianism is by coming to terms with legitimate criticisms of Western ethnocentrism, exemplified in prejudicial refugee policies, and to build mutually respectful “bridges to developing and emerging countries.”

• Slavoj Zizek, "What Does Defending Europe Mean?," Project Syndicate, March 2, 2022

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