As Russian forces massed along the Ukrainian border late last year, the White House received a back-channel proposal from a defense contractor to send decommissioned fighter jets piloted by retired American airmen to defend the skies above the Eastern European country, according to a report Friday by RealClearPolitics.
The proposal, which was reportedly the brainchild of Blackwater founder Erik Prince, took inspiration from the World War II-era Lend-Lease program, which provided Britain with military armaments to help it fight Nazi Germany before the United States entered the war, and the Flying Tigers, a volunteer air corps that helped defend the Republic of China against Japanese invaders in 1941 and 1942.
A “close-knit group” decided to send the proposal directly to the White House through back channels out of fear that if it was sent to the Pentagon it would get bogged down by red tape, RealClearPolitics reported, but the proposal never got off the ground.
Prince alluded to the proposal during an interview last Thursday with Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
NATO REJECTS NO-FLY ZONE OVER UKRAINE
“Trust me, if 140 ex-American combat aircraft showed up by well-flown aggressive carnivore pilots, believe me, Putin would not have invaded because that is the kind of deterrence he was not expecting, because he needs air superiority,” Prince said.
“I provided that kind of thought, a concept to the administration already in early December, and they just don’t want to think outside the box,” Prince added. “It’s really frustrating, and so now, the permutations of what happens in this war, we certainly don’t want to send troops, but for heaven’s sake, it should have been stopped before it ever started.”
News of the rejected proposal comes as the White House and NATO have steadfastly rejected pleas from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to establish a “no-fly zone” over “significant” parts of his country.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said such a proposal would “essentially mean the U.S. military would be shooting down planes, Russian planes,” which could lead to a hot war between the U.S. and a nuclear-armed Russia.
U.S. Naval War College professor Tom Nichols told RealClearPolitics that the Prince proposal “is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever heard.”
“Not only is it an invitation to the Russians to identify such aircraft as some sort of secret NATO intervention, but if an American pilot is shot down over Ukraine, it will open an entirely new dimension of the crisis — and all for a moneymaking stunt that wouldn’t help Ukraine,” Nichols said.
The White House did not return a request for comment.
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Prince made headlines during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August when he helped evacuate Afghans. He received widespread condemnation for offering fleeing Afghans seats on chartered flights out of Kabul for $6,500 a person, with additional fees levied for passengers who required transportation to the Kabul airport, but he claimed the costs were justified by the danger his team and equipment faced.
