A no-fly zone is an unambiguous combat operation.

What we used to talk about in the no-fly zones was that we were, this was a policy tool that was being used to enforce United Nations resolutions.

If you impose a no-fly zone, the no-fly zone has to be enforced. If you're going to enforce it, then there are only two outcomes. Either NATO fires the

first shot or the Russians fire the first shot. Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast. I'm John Amble, editorial director at

MWI, and in this episode, we're talking no-fly zones, which have been the subject of

considerable interest recently. Almost immediately after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian

President Volodomir Zelensky

began calling for a no-fly zone to be implemented over his country to negate the effects

of Russian air power.

It's a call that NATO leaders have resisted.

To discuss why and to offer a very unique perspective on what putting a no-fly zone

in place actually entails, I'm joined by

retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Mike Petruca. He is a veteran aviator with a great deal of combat

experience, and importantly for the subject we're tackling in this episode, he has been

involved in the enforcement of multiple no-fly zones. It's a conversation I really enjoyed on a very timely topic,

and what I hope listeners will find interesting and informative. Before we get to it, as always,

a couple notes. First, if you're not subscribed to the MWI podcast, please do so. You can find

it on your favorite podcast app, and while you're there, it would be terrific if you could give the podcast a rating or leave a review.

And second, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and don't represent

those of West Point, the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

All right, here's my conversation with Mike Petruca.

Mike, welcome to the podcast, and thanks for making some time to chat with me today.

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