from Hacker News

Ask HN: Does No-Fly zone mean declaring a War with Russia?

by html5web on 3/10/22, 11:56 PM with 14 comments

• by html5web on 3/11/22, 12:48 AM

  Here's a workaround which can be imposed by UN.

  How might this work?

  - Using Articles 5 and 6 of the UN Charter, Russia's membership in the UN and, in particular, in the Security Council, should be suspended.

  - The UN Security Council could then approve the no-fly-zone according to Article 42 of the UN Charter.

  - In accordance with Article 47 of the UN Charter, a Military Staff Committee is established.

  - The newly created NFZ coalition is established, under Articles 45 and 49 of the UN Charter.

  - The NFZ is designed in a way that can ensure the protection of Ukraine’s airspace and avoid the escalation of military activities on the territory of other states.

  There are various ways to implement a no-fly-zone, including the exclusion of hostile aircraft within a clearly defined area. The only operations on the ground would be to suppress enemy air defenses posing a threat to allied aircraft.

  https://cepa.org/no-fly-zone-now/

• by allears on 3/11/22, 12:25 AM

  Yes, the thinking is that to actually enforce a no-fly zone would require NATO aircraft to attack Russian aircraft that attempt to violate the zone, thus escalating into a war between NATO and Russia. Supplying weapons or intelligence to Ukraine can be done "under the radar" so to speak, without engaging in actual fighting.

• by polski-g on 3/11/22, 12:00 AM

  Yes, shooting down Russian planes means war with Russia.

• by ordu on 3/11/22, 12:07 AM

  I withhold my own opinion, because I'm not an expert. Instead I can give you a link to another non-expert, Scott Alexander[1]. I like how he puts things together.

  [1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ukraine-thoughts-and-l...

• by html5web on 3/11/22, 12:13 AM

  This is what's confusing me, West already providing weapons to Ukraine. Doesn't that mean the same thing as providing the air defense, i.e. no-fly zone?

• by tomohawk on 3/11/22, 1:28 AM

  With Russia threatening the Ukraine border, the US and other NATO countries pulled their people out. Military, diplomat, civilian - all out.

  This cleared the space so that when Putin attacked, there would be no NATO personnel in the line of fire, and no excuse for a war.

  If there was any interest in preventing what is going on, those people would not have been pulled out, and instead, additional exercises with Ukraine would have been conducted, sending a strong message to Putin.

  Instead, a vacuum was created that would be hard for someone like Putin to resist.

  It's now pretty much too late, except for possibly establishing a no-fly zone in the west of Ukraine to deal with the humanitarian crisis. But, you would need some leadership ability to do that, and that is severely lacking.

• by borealis-dev on 3/11/22, 3:15 AM

  The sanctions don't directly threaten the lives of Russian citizens and soldiers (arguably they may indirectly threaten lives in some cases, though); whereas a no-fly zone that is actively enforced by NATO would almost certainly lead to war with Russia (you can't expect to shoot down Russian planes without military retaliation from them). IMHO, Putin doesn't want a war with NATO any more than NATO members want a war with Russia, so the distinction between perceived direct and indirect threats is important.