A million-dollar fiasco: NATO fires Sidewinders at $2,000 drones, by Vitaly Ryumshin

Europe doesn’t have what it would take to drive Russia out of Ukraine. From Vitaly Ryumshin at swentr.site:

Western Europe’s leaders wave no-fly zone banners while America shrugs

©  Dasha Zaitseva / Gazeta.Ru

Why did a handful of foam plastic drones leave NATO in a panic? And why is Poland now proposing establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine?

It has been a long time since the West entertained ideas as reckless as these. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski broke what had been a useful tradition of keeping quiet when he suggested NATO should impose a no-fly zone. The last time we heard this nonsense was at the very start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, when Vladimir Zelensky demanded that NATO shoot down every Russian missile and aircraft over Ukraine. Estonia cheered him on, but NATO leaders dismissed it. They knew then what should be obvious now: a no-fly zone would mean war with Russia. No one in the alliance dared risk it in 2022, and nothing has changed since.

So why bring it up again? Not because Warsaw has suddenly gone mad or discovered a taste for apocalypse. It is political theater, closer to the instincts of a porcupine fish puffing itself up than of a serious power. Poland – and much of Western Europe with it – is desperately trying to appear larger and scarier than it really is. The trigger was an incident in which a group of UAVs entered Polish airspace. Western European politicians seized on the episode, trying to extract maximum political mileage. But decisive action is the last thing on their minds.

The incident revealed just how unprepared NATO is for modern warfare. Nineteen unarmed, camera-less decoy drones crossed Polish skies. Their sole purpose was to commit “suicide” against air defenses before any real strike. NATO managed to shoot down only four. The rest wandered across Poland unhindered, some travelling nearly 500km before running out of fuel and falling from the sky.

Continue reading