No-fly zone

A no-fly zone (or no-flight zone) (NFZ) is a territory or an area over which aircraft are not permitted to fly. Such zones are usually set up in a military context, somewhat like a demilitarized zone in the sky, and usually prohibit military aircraft of a belligerent power from operating in the region. Aircraft that break the no-fly zone may be shot down, depending on the terms of the NFZ.

No-fly zones are a modern phenomenon. They can be distinguished from traditional air power missions by their coercive appropriation of another nation’s airspace, in peacetime, without either the existence of a condition of war between the two nations or the surrender or occupation of the target nation. While the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted prototypical air control operations over contentious colonial possessions between the two World Wars of the 20th century, no-fly zones did not assume their modern form until the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

During the Cold War, the risk of local conflict escalating into nuclear showdown dampened the appeal of military intervention as a tool of U.S. statecraft. Perhaps more importantly, air power was a relatively blunt instrument until the operational maturation of stealth and precision-strike technologies. Before the Gulf War of 1991, air power had not demonstrated the “fidelity” needed to perform nuanced attacks against transitory, difficult-to-reach targets—it lacked the ability to produce decisive political effects short of total war. However, the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise in aerospace capabilities engendered by the technology revolution made no-fly zones viable in both political and military contexts.