The Challenge of Confronting Putin

 After President Zelensky spoke to parliament, we got another wave of people arguing for the No Fly Zone and other more aggressive responses.  I, of course, pushed back since a No Fly Zone = War.  As a reminder, a No Fly Zone would involve killing Russians in and above Ukraine and probably in Belarus and Russia and ... it wouldn't change much.  This is not Syria where barrel bombs and the rest were a huge part of the destruction. This is atrocities by missile and artillery, and a No Fly Zone would not stop either missiles or arty.  

Folks are rightfully frustrated, and so they end up making a bunch of arguments that I have to address.

If we don't do the NFZ, we will watch people be killed in front of us.  
--Yeah, and that is awful, but we have done that before.  Syria, Bosnia, Rwanda, Myanmar, etc.  

If we don't stop Putin now, he will keep attacking, eventually attacking a NATO country directly.
--First, it is not inevitable that he would go beyond Ukraine (more on this below)
--Second, the war in Ukraine demonstrates that the Russian army is not ready for prime time
--Third, the war in Ukraine will simply drain the Russian military so it won't be able to attack again anytime too soon.
--Fourth, thus far, Putin has treated NATO and non-NATO differently, and it is not clear why that would change.

If you let Putin win in Ukraine, you are appeasing aggression, and you can't appease dictators.
--Actually, you can appease dictators, countries do it all the time.  Not everyone is Hitler.  The US made deals with Stalin and Khrushchev, not to mention Gorbachev.  The US made deals with China in the 1970s.  Plenty of dictators don't engage in global conquest efforts.

We have to do something!
--We are doing a lot, far more than we would have expected a month ago.  Very significant sanctions, very energetic/public arms transfers, providing intelligence, giving humanitarian assistance, and more.  We are doing pretty much everything we can short of going to war.

How about a humanitarian corridor?
--Unless Russia agrees, this too involved war.  And I can't help but be reminded of the "safe havens" that the UN negotiated in Bosnia which became killing fields. 

A bigger war is inevitable so let's fight it now rather than later.
--The idea that war is inevitable is the worst self-fulfilling prophecy, making war more likely.  Let's not do that.  Because, you know what, a larger war is not inevitable.

We have been fighting limited wars since Korea where we didn't nuke China or otherwise attack the Chinese mainland (and they didn't attack Japan).  Limited war is actually more of recurrent thing in history than total wars.  Most importantly, Rule #1 of the Cold War and since has been for the US and USSR/Russia not to engage in direct conflict, and it has worked pretty well in terms of avoiding global thermonuclear war even if it mean that we watched oppression, persecution, and mass murder.  What Russia is doing in Ukraine is horrible, but intervening would probably be even more horrible as it presents a real risk of escalation.  It again sucks.  But proponents of intervention, including an NFZ, need better arguments.  Because the ones they have now are not persuasive at all.