No-fly zone

A no-fly zone increasingly is a tool of grand strategy, imprecisely defined term in international law. Loosely, it is a politcomilitary operation analogous to a naval blockade, but focused on airspace rather than areas at sea. Well-known examples include those over northern and southern Iraq between the Gulf War and Iraq War, and over Kosovo. There have been proposals for making such a zone over Darfur, and, in March 2011, there are suggestions about implementing one over Libya.

Effective air blockades are far more complex to implement than news media may suggest. Implementing them takes several kinds of aircraft: air superiority fighters, electronic and kinetic attack aircraft for suppression of enemy air defense, and command, control, communications and intelligence aircraft. All these aircraft will require huge amounts of fuel, and substantial spare parts and maintenance personnel -- many modern aircraft need tens of hours of maintenance for every hour they fly. Bases are needed both for the actual aircraft and for their control and coordination. In practice, there usually must be decent transportation from seaport(s) to the operating locations.

Initial phases

Intelligence activities are needed to locate the regular bases and potential hiding areas for enemy aircraft and support facilities. It is rather standard doctrine to do extensive communications intelligence analysis to learn the patterns by which the opposing force operates, especially if they are allowed to fly in some areas but not others -- communications intelligence, along with radar surveillance, can warn when aircraft aloft are moving toward a probibited zones.

Intelligence aircraft, ground sensors, and personnel need logistic support.