No Fly Zone?

There's been much comment and discussion in the press and on my teevee about the US or some sort of multinational force (heh, as if) setting up a No-Fly Zone (NFZ) over Libya to prevent the batshit crazy Qaddafi from murdering his own people.  I saw Secretary Gates' remarks before a congressional committee on the subject and he was pretty lukewarm on the ideer.  This morning I got an e-mail from Michael Dunn, the president of the Air Force Association, on the same subject.  Here are some of Mr. Dunn's salient points: 

The central issue, in my mind, with a no-fly zone (NFZ) is a policy one.  What do you want to do?  It is too facile to say:  Stop aircraft from killing people and destroying things ... as it begs the question of:  “Soooooo, are you OK with ground forces killing people and destroying things?”  If the latter is answered in the negative, then the air piece is only one part of a larger answer.  [I worry this option is being considered just to be seen as “Doing Something.”]

A second, but lesser important question is:  How long do you want to do this.  If the answer is:  We don't know ... but plan for a month or so.  Then we'll need a couple hundred aircraft for 24/7 ops ... and either 3-4 carriers plus land-based support or bases in nearby nations or both.  Italy is the best choice ... and to get its OK, we'll need either a NATO sign off, a UN Security Council Resolution, or just plain leaning on a good friend with a weak government.  Other basing options are a bit unsavory.  Egypt probably won't help ... neither will Tunisia.  Algeria has its own terrorist problems.  Israel won't want to be seen in an active role.  Other African choices are pretty far away with little infrastructure.

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A subset of the first issue -- more in the tactical realm -- is you would want to take out some of the air defenses no matter what systems you use ... and that means killing Libyan troops ... with all the unintended consequences of such actions.  Secondly, what do you do about helicopters?  They are hard to kill ... especially if they know you are coming.  What if they just set down on the top of a building?  You can't get them with an air-to-air missile; you'd need bombs [or as some of our members have pointed out – bullets] ... and that may mean civilian casualties ... especially if you don't hit that which you are aiming.  Also, you don't generally configure fighters for both air-to-air missions and air-to-ground ones at the same time.  Thus the need for more aircraft.

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Finally, the Navy is not configured for round the clock operations, except in a short-term surge mode and has to keep a bit of its airpower to defend the fleet. This means less for NFZ ops.  The good news is that you would not have to establish a NFZ over the entire country -- probably just the major cities and perhaps a few key air bases.

Bottom line:  creating a NFZ over the country is “do-able” – but not simple  … and I would want to get the policy pieces answered before we embarked on this option.

All of that essentially mirrors what Secretary Gates said to Congress yesterday.  Military operations are expensive propositions, not to mention the wear and tear on our already stressed military.  I appreciate the humanitarian concerns people have on this issue but we MUST consider the effect the operation would have on the United States.  That should be first and foremost... we don't have to be "Team America, World Police" any longer.