Ukraine

Graphical representations of the state of russian air defenses in terms of damming the flow of Ukrainian air strikes.

At first air defenses start failing bit by bit but then far quicker than anyone is prepared for they fail all at once in a glorious run-away process.

What people miss about the hubris of US military air power as it has been applied to places like Vietnam, Cambodia, Libya or elsewhere is that while yes you can't bomb a country into submission and yes there is no magically winning a war from the sky and yes Air Power is politically impotent by its very nature... Air Power is NO JOKE militarily.

Ukrainians don't give a shit about those things though, all of the negative associations we have for the capability of Air Power have to do with trying to use it as a political not military instrument (as is the case with the Iran War happening right now too). Air Power to Ukrainians is perpendicular to that though, it means curbstomping the russian war machine, and in that respect air power has almost entirely been forgotten by the public as an existential doorjam on landwars.

To put it another way, the US cannot bomb Iran into wanting a different government, but Ukraine can absolutely bomb russia into being incapable of sustaining a landwar offensive against Ukraine.

War itself is subsumed by aviation since whatever world power has the most pilots and embraces a culture of flight most proactively also becomes the most powerful military power. This has been true since the invention of manned flight, it is one of the most enduring strengths of the US military and it is now one of the most enduring strengths of the Ukrainian military. While it might seem like this just has to do with having fancy aircraft that nobody else has, the point is deeper, this is about maintaining a culture and roster of expert pilots who are living full lives outside of war as expert pilots... so that when war comes knocking it has to contend with people who are already devastatingly proficient at flying and can make a joke out of fascists stiffly charging straight forward at the frontline defenses under the banner "might makes right".

Exhibit A: Might Doesn't Make Right

https://aerospaceglobalnews.com/news/military-pilots-fighter-jets-air-power/

Alex Hollings from Sandboxx News analysed the relative lack of training for Russian pilots compared to their much better-funded American counterparts. This is something backed up by think-tank Rusi.

Reports, like that of Business Insider supposedly quoting Rusi in 2022, that Russia had “entered the conflict with fewer than 100 fully trained and current pilots,” are likely exaggerated or misrepresented.

Even so, in January 2025, the Voice of Ukraine reported, “Russia has lost at least 267 elite military pilots.” It is reasonable to estimate that about 35% of the Russian Air Force pilots are fast jet pilots.

Russia is reported to be training new pilots at a rate of 100-150 graduates a year, but it takes years to gain experience as a fast jet pilot.

Do you want to go to war against a helicopter search and rescue pilot who has gotten used to using a helicopter to accomplish extremely precise, organic and difficult flight maneuvers over decades of experience? Do you want to figure out what they will be like when you temporarily force them to fly a helicopter optimized for war so that one day they can fly a helicopter optimized for lifesaving again? The answer is no, no you don't and it is the same thing for extremely skilled drone pilots.

https://www.thenmusa.org/armyinnovations/innovationsmedevac/

To understand the mystery of flight is to understand how war is not simply two opposing forces of brutality meeting head on as a test of pure "masculinity" but rather as a race to occupy positions that always ends in some kind of fight. War is inherently spatial and the power of flight is a restating of how the ability to move across the earth with freedom and speed can lead to far more abstract and fulfilling forms of freedom.

Don't take my word for it, just ask the Bar-tailed Godwit these lanky little shits put up distance records that embarass basically every other animal on Earth... and they do it all while attending the freshest most posh seafood joints apparently...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar-tailed_godwit

edit ...and before anyone thinks I am waxing lyrical about US 'Murican culture being superior, I am not. This is not as simple as that, there is a reason the US Army names its helicopters after Indigenous tribes that make up and yet resist the US and it is because the US military lost to the way of war of Indigenous calvary here long ago. We have forgotten that many times and will continue to forget it here, but it doesn't make it not true. The proof is flying in the air.

note The Huey might seem like an exception, but the proper name is the UH-1 Iroquois.

Howze said since the choppers were fast and agile, they would attack enemy flanks and fade away, similar to the way the tribes on the Great Plains fought during the aforementioned American Indian Wars. He decided the next helicopter produced -- the well-known H-13 of “M.A.S.H.” fame -- would be called the Sioux in honor of the Native Americans who fought Army Soldiers in the Sioux Wars and defeated the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

https://www.army.mil/article/240476/why_army_helicopters_have_native_american_names

It is likely that you assume the name for the UH-60 "Black Hawk" was chosen to refer to a menacing stealthy bird of prey, and you would be wrong. There is a perfect Thomas Pynchonian humor to unstability of the symbol presented by the military weapons system given the name Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, it goes back to Black Hawk himself in the way he was portrayed at the time, then portrayed retrospectively by US culture and finally reckoned with now in the present future. This particular arc of history with a Sikorsky Black Hawk landing to defend Pokrovsk might as well be a passage straight out of Mason & Dixon or Gravity's Rainbow.... or One Battle After Another if you prefer.

-Hey "Sikorsky" that name sounds familiar... wait where was he from again?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_(Sauk_leader)

The fact that someone like Black Hawk, with a legacy once thought of as problematic and complex for whites, has now become a cultural symbol for the area that settlers first took from his people is emblematic of the serious redefinition that his legacy has undergone in the years since his death. Despite his status as a familiar cultural icon, Black Hawk’s history as a warrior who fought against the United States and as a critic of white culture presents a complex legacy that does not fit in with the kind of 20th century narrative of the idealized Native American or the pacified modern symbol of the Quad cities represented in local literature like George Cram Cook’s The Spring.

https://www.augustana.edu/academics/areas-of-study/english-and-creative-writing/davenport-writers/russell/pacanowski-si