Selects: How No-fly Zones Work

They have become such a ubiquitous tool used by the UN and NATO to intervene in international crises, that it seems like no-fly zones have been around forever. But it was only the 1990s that the first one was enacted and they've only be used twice more since then. Learn about this peculiar military tool with Chuck and Josh in this classic episode.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Chuck here on a hopefully lovely Saturday afternoon,
wherever you are. And this week, everybody, we are going
to re release the episode on no fly zones. I
think for obvious reasons. What's going on. They're in Ukraine
with Russia's invasion and the idea of a no fly

(00:21):
zone being requested by Ukraine America saying we can't really
do that. Uh, the international community debating whether or not
no fly zone is a good idea in this case,
it's very complicated situation. Hopefully this episode that we recorded
and shed some light on that. Although it is from
quite a few years ago, it's basically still the same thing.

(00:43):
It's not super complicated. Uh. And you can decide for
yourself whether or not you think we should as Americans
wade into those waters right now. So here we go
with how no fly zones work. Welcome to Stuff you
should know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and

(01:11):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant mad as heck and he's not gonna take
it anymore. I said, heck. I revised a classic movie
quote in the heck Yeah Network man have you ever
seen that? Have you seen that recently? I've never seen it.
It was on Netflix streaming and I had hit my instinct.
Cuban passed it up, Well you should watch it again

(01:33):
because you'll watch it now and go. Man, when was
this made so far ahead of its time? Really as
far as like how things are in the media, like, uh,
coma yeah, but when you watch network back then, people
said things like how ridiculous, like stuff like this could
never happen. Oh, I see it's prescient right, very much.
So yeah, I'll have to watch it then. Yeah, it's

(01:54):
a good one. That's uh is it? Like? Um, what
is it? What's that Aaron Sorkin show? I don't like
a news hour that? Yeah, that just thinks? Is that
what it's called? News out? Newsroom? Yeah. I didn't care
for it other than the fact that it stars our
guest starred, Mr Paul Schneider, who's one of my one
of my boys. So uh, sometimes people accuse that show

(02:15):
being preachy. What do you think? I just I'm not
a sworking guy, so he's a little worthy for me.
I liked West Wing. I didn't watch it. You never
watched West Wing, not one episode guarantee you you would
like it. You think it was he I hate to
say this, but it was like his his masterpiece from beginning.
I'm not kid Chuck. I'm telling you, this is somebody

(02:36):
who didn't like Studio sixty, who doesn't like Newsroom West
Wing from beginning to end was just really great. I'll
try it, but I swear the way that guy writes,
I'm always just like nobody talks. I'm with you, I'm
totally with you. But this cast of characters, the characters
that he wrote, the actors, they pulled it off. I've

(02:56):
never seen a give a shot do Paul Schneider's not
on it. I'm come into your house this afternoon and
we're gonna watch them. Okay, okay, uh so, I guess
that's the segway for no flyes on. Not a bad
setup because this is political and presidential. I have something,
actually have a bit of an intro. Okay, well, let's
let's hear it. You've heard of the Wright brothers, Dayton's Pride,

(03:18):
Orville and Wilbur Wright. Oh yeah, can joined twins? Yes?
No they weren't, but they did fly. They did build
the first airplane. Yes, that flew and they flew it
out at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. And after they had
that flight, actually I think before they undertook that flight,
while they were still in the development stage, they went

(03:38):
to the United States government and said, hey, War Department,
you want in on this action. Not once, not twice,
but thrice did the War Department turn the Right Brothers down,
say what good our planes in the warfare? Exactly Luckily
there was a very smart person heading the Post Office
Department who said, Okay, maybe you shouldn't drop bricks out

(03:59):
of air planes onto people's heads, but we could use
this to deliver the mail. Martin ben Ostrin right to
heck with the auto gyro, We're gonna start using this
Wright Brothers plane to deliver mail. And for three years
the only aircraft that were in service under the United
States government was for delivering mail. And then a postal

(04:21):
carrier and as a pilot accidentally dropped a mail bomb
and they went, wow, that's a good idea, works very well. Yeah.
It didn't take very long for the War Department and
be like, oh, okay, maybe we should use this. And
then by nineteen fourteen, the aviation section of the Signal
Corps was set up and all of a sudden, planes
were militarized. Within just years of their invention, they were

(04:42):
being used to murder people. Yeah, and this article points
out in seven Spanish Fastest dropped a bunch of bombs
on the town of Guernica. A hundred thousand pounds of
explosives killed sixteen hundred people. And yeah, well, not only
was it the explosive, people were running on a down
and they were gunning them down for millions. Yeah, so

(05:03):
that's what fascists do. As outrageous and horrible as that is,
it was definitely the beginning of what would be a
long romance in warfare with the plane. Yeah, you had
the red baron Eddie Rick and Backer. Uh. They're a
very long, bloody history associated with planes and war. Um.

(05:23):
When the fascists in Spain used planes to take out
a lot of civilians, the world was, you know, appropriately disgusted.
It wasn't a whole lot that could be done. It
actually wasn't until the very early nineteen nineties that people
figured out a way to use planes to thwart planes

(05:45):
from being used against civilian populations by their own government. Yeah,
I thought no fly zones had been around long before that,
So this was very eye opening. I had no idea
that it was in the nineteen nineties when they first
did this. Right, no fly zones are new. They've only
been used three times. Like it just seems like there's
just it's something that they just commonly do. Yeah, but
it's kind of a big deal to issue no flies one.

(06:06):
And the reason why is because what you're doing is
intervening in a sovereign nation, undermining the power of the
ruler of that nation, choosing sides in a way. You're saying,
at the very least, I'm not gonna let you just
slaughter these civilians. I'm not going to cast my lot
one way or the other. Really, but I'm going to
protect these civilians. And uh, it takes a United Nations

(06:28):
mandate to to even get started, that's right. So, um,
you want to talk about the first one. Yes, Uh,
let's harken back to the spring of nine. I'm in
college drinking a lot of beer. That's where I first
discovered beer. I was drinking a lot of beer too,
and I wasn't in college. Well, I'm just kidding. I
was about um. So I remember sitting around and watching

(06:52):
like this stuff on CNN for the first time, like
being interested in politics really for the first time. Oh yeah, yeah,
that's kind of when I got into stuff like that. Well,
that was the first war that was really televised. I mean,
Vietnam was, but this was the one that this is
the first one that had like twenty four hour coverage.
Was the goal was the first goal four And it
was spectacular to watch. Uh, it was pretty enthralling, especially

(07:15):
when you're you know, twenty years old and you're sitting
around with your friends drinking beer. Yeah, like look at
that's good. Safe in Athens, Georgia. Um, so what happened
There was a guy named Saddam Hussein he Um was
not doing very nice things to the people in Kuwait
well well put and the Curtish minority in northern Iraq

(07:37):
was encouraged by American radio broadcast two Revolt, like take
a stand, and so they did. And Sadam Hussein Um
sent gunships and with napalm and chemical weapons and helicopters,
because that's that's what you do. That's what he does
when you have a civilian population that's unhappy with your rule. Yeah,

(07:58):
and so they fled. Basically hundreds of thousands of them,
uh Kurtish civilians fled um and sort of got wedged
there at the Turkish border. Yeah, because the Turks were like, yeah,
we feel for you, but stay there, so don't cross
over here. They didn't have food and water. And H. W.
Bush President George H. W. Bush and allies in Europe said,
you know what, oh boy, I don't know what to

(08:20):
do here because we kind of encourage these people to
do this and now they're stuck in a between a
rock and a hard place. And but we really don't
think we should invade and remove Sadam Hussein like with
all of our might. Yeah, let's give another ten twelve
years exactly. Or we could go to the U n
in and say, hey, how about passing a resolution against

(08:42):
this guy? Right what they did, but they did. They said, Okay,
we're gonna um deliver humanitarian aid to these Kurds who
are trapped along the Turkish border, and Hussein, if you
do anything to interfere, we're going to bomb you. We're
going to take on your guys that you send interfere
at the very least right um. And not only that,

(09:03):
we're establishing a safe zone for these people it's above
the thirty six parallel, and uh, if you send any
planes over there, we're gonna take them on. So this
is what we're going to call a no fly zone.
It was the first one, and Saddam Hussein went, no
fly zone. I've never heard of such a thing. That's stupid,
And the UN said that's because this brand new jerk, right,
and he's like, oh, I'm the first one. He went first. First,

(09:25):
he's so um they did this, and then second no
fly zone um south of the thirty second parallel was
established to protect the Shiite Muslims, who also rose up
under the encouragement of the United States. If you're interested
in this kind of thing, check out Three Kings. It
was a lot to do about that. It was after
the uprisings had started, and also after the time the

(09:48):
United States didn't support them. Remember the one scene where
when the guy made Marky Mark drink the oil. That
was hardcore man, a little over the ham fisted of
David o' rusty. Think you don't like that guy that
you get problems with him? No, I like Three Kings
a lot. Okay, what else has he done that I've
seen Silver Linx playbook? He didn't like. I thought it

(10:08):
was okay. Yeah, see, you don't love him, But I
like Three Kings a lot. I thought that was a
good movie. Yeah, me too. Uh So, no fly zone
is going on Sodom Hussein violates said no fly zone.
He's like, yeah, well, what's gonna happen. Let me send
some jets up there. And we responded by or the
coalition I should say, responded by shooting down these aircraft

(10:30):
or destroying just you know, military targets on the ground.
Because that's as we found out, one of the parts
of a no fly zone to be effective is to
also bomb like radar equipment and stuff on the ground
that can get jets up in the air and guide
them disabled. Their force can also find your jets. So
you want to disable their force, like you said, but

(10:50):
you also want to protect your own force. The thing was,
this is very new. Uh The U N was a
little squeamish at the idea of undermining again a sovereign
ruler a jerk, everyone agreed, but still a sovereign ruler
and kind of one of the stabilizing forces of the
Middle East, whether the US liked it or not. Um
So they just kind of said, yeah, protect these people,

(11:14):
but just really you got to take it all in
a case by case basis. Can't be the least bit aggressive.
You have to be completely reactive. And even then maybe
we should just kind of chase him out of the
no flies him rather than shoot him down over time
after sortie after sortie after shorty. They started just by attrition,
wearing down Hussain's defenses and his um, his air force

(11:37):
just because he kept sending him man and we kept
shooting him down until two thousand three, when we, you know,
went in in full force and took out Sadam Hussein. Right,
the northern part and the southern part of Iraq was
off limits to Sadam Hussein for twelve years his own country.
There was a wide swath in the middle that he
could move around him, but anything else he wasn't allowed. Okay,
so those are the that's the first use of the

(11:59):
no fly zone ever, right. Uh. In the early nineteen nineties,
when Yugoslavia broke up, um NATO forces said, all right,
how about another no fly zone. We're going to authorize
this one. It's over the breakaway region of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It was called Operation Denied Flight, which is terrible little

(12:19):
on the nose if you want to talk about on
the David R. Russell named said mission, and it was
gonna block Bosnian Serbs who controlled all the military aircraft
in that region, right, and who were using it against
all of their neighbors that they were um going to
war against, specifically the Um Muslims, Yeah, Serbian Muslims, right, yeah,

(12:41):
in a big way. Yeah. Um. So the I guess
NATO undertook that no fly zone that was number two. Yeah, um,
and uh, that was a little more aggressive. I believe
they went after they'd learned from you know, I guess
about eight years of the Iraqi no fly zone that
you really they kind of have to go after like

(13:01):
military installations and anything that can be used to violate
the no fly zone, and maybe even go a little
step further as punishment, like not only is is are
we gonna shoot down your plane, We're gonna maybe blow
up your base and pants you right in front of everyone. Right.
So that was the second no fly zone. The third

(13:22):
was even more aggressive, Yeah, against Khadafi just a couple
of years ago in two thousand eleven, that's right, And
it lasted about six months, I believe. Yeah, it was
extremely effective. Yeah, well that's because they authorized, um quote,
all necessary measures to protect the Libyan civilians. And that
was uh, you know, that meant a lot of a

(13:44):
lot of bombs being dropped, a lot of cruise missiles
taking out bases on land. And this one was named
by Angle. It was called Operation Odyssey Dawn. It was
the result of U N Security Council Resolution ninety three,
which is confused using because it was carried out in
two thousand eleven. That's right, But basically it said, you guys,

(14:06):
we think Kadafi is totally nut so um and he's
gonna kill a lot of his own people. Go in
there and declare all of Libya no fly zone. And
NATO said, okay, let's do it, right, So u US
and British led NATO coalition kind of took the reins

(14:27):
and turned the six hundred and eighty thousand square mile country,
which is about one point seven million square kilometers uh
into a no fly zone. All of Libya was a
no fly zone, all right. So since this is a

(15:04):
new thing, it's there is no as this article says, playbook,
there's not like a exact way that these go into effect.
It sort of depends on what you're dealing with, what
countries you're dealing with. But the first thing that you
have to do, according to Chapter seven, Article forty two
of the UN Charter, is UH, get the fifteen member
UN Security Council on board, right, which sounds easy, but

(15:26):
it's not necessarily because you have five permanent members the UK, France,
the US, China and Russia. And China and Russia loved
to veto anything that the US, the UK, and UM,
France are all about. UM, which is gets called a
balance of power, but UM specifically with Libya, France, or
Russia and China where they were against it, but they

(15:49):
were persuaded to abstain from the vote because all it
takes is one one permanent member nation on the Security
Council of veto and it's done. Yeah. I wonder what
that persuasion entailed. I don't know, you know, looking the
other way on human rights violations. Maybe I have no idea,
but I'm sure it wasn't just as easy as hey,
you mind sitting this one out? Sure, no problem, right,
I'm drunk anyway. So, UM, the the UN resolution for

(16:14):
the Libyan. Uh, no fly zone. UM, it's a pretty
good example of how this kind of thing can work.
So no flights in Libyan airspace bands all flying unless
it's a humanitarian mission carrying food or water or getting
out um for nationals who are in like bad places. Yeah,
you're allowed to do that. Other than that, no fly,

(16:35):
no fly and UM it's not uh. You don't just
shoot down any plane on site when you're patrolling the
no fly zone. If a if a plane is flying
in Libyan airspace, you want to first figure out if
it was there accidentally or if it's hostile. And if
it's hostile, you go back to the ground and say, hey, man,
can I shoot this thing down? Yeah? Well, first you
got figure out who's who's doing the shooting. You know,

(16:57):
you gotta set it all up. He's gonna be in
worsing all this. I was just jumping ahead of Okay, Yeah,
you gotta figure out who's who's in charge of the operation,
basically in the lib in the case of Libya, it
was NATO and UM. Then you established the Rules of
Engagement RU, which is partially has to do with hey,
do we shoot first and ask questions later? Do we

(17:19):
check passports. How's this gonna work? Right? And and like
you said, Olibya, it was pretty aggressive. Um. The first
thing that happened on day one was the US and
I believe the UK sailed warships off the coast of
Libya and started shooting missiles into Libya's interior, knocking out
military installations, radar installations, as much of the Libyan military

(17:44):
as or at least air force as could be destroyed.
Hundred twelve Tomahawk cruise missiles boom. Yeah, each one precisely shot.
That's right, and uh, I love the article says the
goal is to shape the battle space in quotes. Yeah,
that's the euphemism. Huh yeah, Victor time. So um, after
this they send in the drone surveillance aircraft to check

(18:04):
things out. You see what's going on? And did you
get the impression the US is kind of showing off
a little bit like, well, we've got some missiles we
can use, and then after we're we'll send in our
unmanned drones and make sure everything's bombed. And then after
that we're going to send in radar jamming equipment just
in case you have anything left on the ground. We'll
take care of that too. Yeah, that was the first

(18:27):
like two days. Yeah, and get off his his air
force was you know, they call them vintage jets in
this uh, in this article, and that's in that case,
vintage is not a good thing. You know, it's from
the nineteen sixties. It's old gear. Basically, it's vintage, not retro.
That's right. Um, so it's it's still it was effective.
It worked even beyond the fact that, um the jets

(18:50):
were vintage and we crippled the his radar system, his
air force military installations. Um, there was still a lot
of shoulder launched rockets in Libya an estimated six hundred.
I believe that like during this time, Kadafi was handing
out to people who were on his side. Yeah, And

(19:11):
Sadam Hussein famously offered a bounty on any aircraft shutdown
of like fourteen grand, which I thought, why not fifteen
you know, Yeah, that was a weird number. I wonder
if if that makes like a significant round number in
Iraqi money. You know, it's a lot of denari, Yes,
thank you. You shouldn't invest in those, by the way,

(19:34):
that's a big scam invest in denari. Have you heard
of people doing that. It's a thing where people buy
up Iraqi denari and thinking you're like, they're gonna hit
it big one day. You shouldn't do that. Why, it's
just you do a little research and it's it's sort
of one of those scams, is it. Yeah, so like
if you bought denari from a legitimate currency broker, it's
still not a good investment. Huh. I know someone who

(19:57):
did it. Oh no, yeah. Is it possible it's going
to come back in ten years? I doubt it. Are
they going to go euro I don't know. Huh, but yeah,
that's just a sidebar. Okay, that was a nice one.
Save your money, folks. So we were talking about the
possibility that a NATO jet or any jet patrolling a
no fly zone could get shot down by some dude

(20:19):
on the ground. Yeah, it hasn't happened. No, but it
couldn't have to be one lucky shot. It raises one
of the concerns. Uh, actually it has happened. It hasn't
happened from somebody on the ground, but it raises a concern,
a risk that, um, we're sending in people again into
a sovereign nation that maybe has to deal with his

(20:39):
own problems, and um, we're putting our people in danger
for that. Most people, I think myself included side on
the idea of going in and protecting civilians from certain slaughter. Um,
but I do agree that there is a risk as
well in um. Scott McGrady remember him, Oh yeah, yeah,

(21:01):
Owen Wilson. Yeah. During the Balkan War. Uh, during that
no fly zone he was shot down I guess by
a Serbian plane. Uh it was a surface to air missile.
But okay, so somebody has shot down somebody from the ground. Well,
I don't know if it was a person. Okay, Well,
he was shot down patrolling a no fly zone, and uh,
he was in very big trouble for a little while.

(21:24):
Had he not been quite the survivalist, who knows what
would have happened. Because the Serbs were hot on his
trail and he spent six days evading them. Yeah, he
did a really good job and a hero. Yeah. He
ate ants and and lived on collected rainwater and avoided
the bad guys and eventually got through. Uh a radio
signal and and Gene Hackman picked up. Gene Hackman was like,

(21:45):
we're going to get you out of there. Yeah, Uncommon
Valor man. That was the gene Hackman was in the
Owen Wilson movie too, Was he really? I'm pretty sure
he was the one that was in charge of saving him.
Oh man, Well he's he's always going in and saving
and uncomming Valor. It was his son who was a yeah,
Vietnampio w Right. Yea good Randall tex Cob Yeah, what

(22:07):
was his name in it? I don't remember that. That
movie came out at a great time for me though.
It was the perfect age. Uh. He wore like a
live grenade around his remember, Yeah, that's the second time
we talked about Uncommon Valor in like two months. When
was the other one? I remember? I don't remember. I
do remember talking about it and probably when what happens
if the earth stops spinning? Yeah? Probably so. Um so

(22:33):
you got anything else? I guess. We had the opportunity
to to really invade Libya, and in President Obama said,
you know what, let's not do that. Um, let's not
do the regime change game. Well, a lot of people
are like, we shouldn't be there in the first place.
A lot of other people are like, this is a
half measure. If you're gonna go do that and just

(22:53):
wipe out somebody's military, you might as well do a
ground invasion and take over and top all the regime.
Like you said, Obama was like, Noah, let's give it
a shot. And he was proven right in Libya at least,
because even if you take out their air defenses and
their air offenses, I guess they still have way better
weaponry and stuff on the ground than these uprising forces do. Right,

(23:14):
And it worked in Libya. It didn't necessarily work in
the Balkans. A lot of people point to Um the
slaughter at Um Sribrenicabrenica. Yeah, seven thousand Muslim Uh boys
and men were killed by the Bosnians. It's being Yeah,

(23:38):
who are being tried for war crimes because of it.
But the no fly zone didn't do anything to prison
prevent it. It's right, So I mean, is it effective?
It can be. I say that we don't have a
large enough body of work to study from here. We
need to get some more going, get some more enough
last sons, Remember how creepy it was after eleven when

(23:59):
all the shutdown Remember that, Oh yeah, it's just so odd.
You don't realize how used to the sounds and the
Kim Trails and Kim Trail. We did an episode on
that Calm Trails or did Kim Trails? We did Kem
We did about con Trails, Kim Trails. Yeah, yeah, you
know what I mean. Okay, I guess that's about it, right. Yeah.

(24:20):
If you want to learn more about no fly zones,
you can type no fly zone into the search bar
how stuff works dot com. Uh. And before we get
the listener mail, let's do a word from our sponsor.
M hm alright, listener mail time. Yeah, okay, Josh, I'm

(24:54):
gonna call this um. She kid gets his way good,
which I try not to do, but this and everybody
loves it when pushy kids get there. This is a
shout out for a teacher. This is Jack, and Jack
and I had been emailing each other and he says,
by the way, Chuck, I think I told you in
the past about my Civics teacher that listens to the show.
This week, we have a special project in this class
is to make a podcast about one of the Supreme

(25:16):
Court cases. We've been studying for some hints. We listened
to tidbits of your show, and my teacher and I
just grinned from ear to ear at each other like
a really funny inside joke, because they're like the only
two in the class that listen. Um, I plan for
my pseudonym to be either Chuck or even Chuckers, if
you would allow, I give you permission, sir uh. He
says he sees himself as a younger version of me,

(25:37):
which is writing, although the actual content of the show
is more like this American life because we are required
to have Collins seric like to have Collins. Uh do they?
I don't know. I don't think so. I will always
think to myself that I'm sitting there in your little studio,
if you can give my spectacular teacher, Mr Kristof a

(25:59):
shout out that was mind boggling, stupendously incredible. But I
understand if you can't, Mr Kristof. Yep, Mr Kristoph Civics teacher.
And I said, sure, Jack, I'll do that. And then
he emailed again from Washington, d C. And said, I
hate to seem demanding, Chuck, but if you could also
mention Mrs Kristoff because I have her for math and

(26:19):
I don't want to make her feel left out. So
if it's too late. I get it. I can't complain.
This might be the best day of my life after all.
Have a nice long weekend. And that is Jack outside Washington,
d C. And Mr and Mrs Kristoff, good job listening
to the show, and we thank you for using it
in your classroom. Yes, thank you to the Kristof's. Mr
and Mrs Kristoff's thank you for shaping your minds. We

(26:42):
can see that shout out, uh and way to go, Jack.
You're cool, dude. UM, if you have a shout out
you want us to give, Chuck gives in on those
pretty frequently. Sometimes. You can tweet to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com uh slash Stuff you Should Know, or you
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how

(27:03):
Stuff Works dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio,
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. H