[…] NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg encouraged escalation too, arguing that “it will be up to each ally to decide whether to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but the country has the right to self-defense, including striking legitimate Russian military targets outside Ukraine.” The issue is not just the range of the planes, but who would fly them. Moscow assumes NATO would also provide pilots, however unlikely that might seem to Americans. But then, Russians flew planes on behalf of North Korea against the U.S. and Egypt against Israel. […]
Some Ukraine partisans would push the boundary of potential casus belli outward. Foreign troops could play a variety of non-combat roles in Ukraine, but all would risk drawing NATO into the fray. Paris admitted that one purpose of introducing troops would be the hope that the “presence of French soldiers or [those] of other nations would potentially protect certain areas of the Ukrainian territory.” That is, the French military operating in a war zone would become a human shield behind which Ukraine could freely attack Russia while avoiding retaliation. Rather like President Woodrow Wilson’s ludicrous claim that one American on board immunized a British reserve cruiser carrying munitions through a war zone, one French soldier in Kiev, Odessa, or Kharkiv would immunize an entire city from attack. That would be ridiculous, of course, with French soldiers choosing to enter a war zone. However, Paris already has complained to Moscow about killing its citizens in Ukraine. Läs artikel