As the refugee crisis across Europe continues and Syrian civil war drags on, it seems the only “solution” western politicians can muster for the conflict is to send more weapons for various fighters, drop more bombs from the sky and argue for a more entrenched war – actions that will all but guarantee to further descend the region into chaos.

The UK, France and Australia have already announced plans in recent weeks to start bombing Isis-controlled sections of Syria in response to the refugee crisis (they’ve failed to explain how dropping more bombs on an already-devastated country will cause fewer refugees rather than more). The US has military special forces units already fighting on the ground in Syria sans any debate from Congress or in the public arena, either from the current administration or any of the presidential candidates.

And now, fresh off his widely mocked suggestion that the US should be arming “moderate” members of al-Qaeda to defeat Isis in Syria, David Petraeus testified in front of Congress on Tuesday about other potential “solutions” to the Syria tragedy which, make no mistake, would require untold billions of dollars of military spending and tens of thousands of US troops.

As the Guardian’s Spencer Ackerman reported:

[Petraeus] argued – in contradiction to the views of Central Command chief Lloyd Austin – that the US military ought to patrol a corridor by air to create a safe zone for Syrian civilians, partly as a staging ground for a Syrian opposition to fight both Assad and Isis, one that includes Syrians who do not take part in the shaky US initiative to train and equip so-called “moderate” fighters.

Sure, everyone would like a “safe zone” for Syrians who are trying to flee their worn torn land in the fight between the brutal Assad regime and the barbaric Isis. But rarely does anyone ask any questions about what, exactly, that would entail.

If you’re going to carve out a slice of land in Syria, it requires, at minimum, setting up a no-fly zone, and as journalist Adam Johnson explained last week, there’s never been a no-fly zone in modern history that hasn’t led to an actual war, given it usually requires destroying the air force of the country it’s set up in.

Even if we were to avoid going to active war against Assad’s forces (against all odds), everyone seems to ignore the fact that a “no-fly zone” will reportedly require 70,000 US troops. And that number is not an exaggeration – it comes from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and has been cited in the past as the number needed to secure the entire country’s skies.

If it would take 70,000 troops for the whole country, it’s safe to assume even breaking off a portion of it would include tens of thousands of American personnel. And how you can possibly secure a large swath of land in a country, which in various places is controlled by Assad or Isis, without a significant amount of ground forces to secure and protect the region beyond just air strikes is never explained either. So if a safe zone is what the US wants, then untold number of US troops on the ground in Syria is what they’ll get.

Sadly, the calls for a US military escalation will only get louder, as various Republican war mongers hog the stage during the high-profile Republican campaign. And the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton, is as hawkish, or more so, than Republicans. Gen. John Allen, the man in charge of the still-undeclared Isis war, supposedly someone who would “push back” against the more uber-militaristic elements in the Obama administration is stepping aside. Who his replacement will be is not known, but you can guess the drumbeat for someone who is even more “aggressive” will get louder by the day.

What is happening in Syria is an absolute tragedy, and one can only hope that the western powers will welcome refugees with open arms, and that a potential negotiated settlement is still somehow possible to at least stop the carnage on one side of the war. But while there are proposals everywhere for more war, no one has explained how adding more military destruction to the equation would actually help.