Looks around facing this type of combat (8)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Fifteensquared have:

AIR and AIR (looks) around TO (facing). We had EYE TO EYE at first thinking that a ‘confrontation’ could perhaps be a type of combat. However, nothing else seemed to connect with it – not surprisingly as it was totally wrong. When we recognised the Nina, we realised that it could be considered thematic.