I'm very surprised the US doesn't seem to be taking the risk of Ukraine becoming a Nuclear Weapons state seriously. By now, they surely would have had time to develop get to the brink of weaponization as a backup plan - they've after all always had a nuclear industry. If they do so and offer cover to their neighbors who realize NATO may not be sufficient, we are in for interesting times.
Right stealing nukes you cannot immediately operate as a 0-year old nation, to me it doesn't seems like an incredibly bright idea in a world where the existing nuclear states doesn't want anyone else to get nukes too.
And in any case it's was not simply removing the safety devices on the weapons, you need to be able to target the ICBMs at Russia, which Ukraine could not do:
> In fact, the presence of strategic nuclear missiles on its territory posed several dilemmas to a Ukraine hypothetically bent on keeping them to deter Russia. The SS-24s do not have the ability to strike targets at relatively short distances (that is, below about 2000 km); the variable-range SS- 19s are able, but Ukraine cannot properly maintain them. [...] the SS-19s were built in Russia and use a highly toxic and volatile liquid fuel. To complicate matters further, targeting programs and blocking devices for the SS-24 are Russian made. The retargeting of ICBM is probably impossible without geodetic data from satellites which are not available to Kiev.
> Cruise missiles for strategic bombers stored in Ukraine have long been 'disabled in place'.[...] As with ICBMs, however, retargeting them would be impossible for Ukraine, which does not have access to data from geodetic satellites; the same goes for computer maintenance.
From SIPRI research report 10; The Soviet Nuclear Weapon Legacy
So Ukraine did not have usable weapons at hand. But it did, and does, certainly have the capacity to build entirely new weapons, if given time.
> stealing nukes you cannot immediately operate as a 0-year old nation
Agreed. But nobody was invading Ukraine in 1994.
The weapons were seen as a security liability. In reality, they were bargaining chips.
> to me it doesn't seems like an incredibly bright idea in a world where the existing nuclear states doesn't want anyone else to get nukes too
To be clear, Kyiv made the right decision given what they knew in 1994. Non-proliferation was in vogue. America and British security guarantees meant something.
If Kyiv knew what we know today, that the Budapest security guarantees were worthless from each of Washington, London and Moscow; that wars of conquest would be back; and that non-proliferation would be seen through the lens of regional versus global security, it would have been a bright idea to demand more before letting them go, or at least to drag out negotiations so Ukraine could study the weapons and maybe even extract some samples.
> SS-24s do not have the ability to strike targets at relatively short distances (that is, below about 2000 km)
Again, having the nukes would give Kyiv leverage. At a minimum they'd have HEU and a proven design to study.
And again, don't undervalue bullshitting in geopolitics. If Kyiv said they have a short-range nuclear missile, it would not be credible. But would it be incredible enough to green light an invasion?
The US and Russia would have done a joint invasion under UN flag if Ukraine tried to steal the nukes dude, it's downright embarrassing to pretend that's the sort of thing you can do unpunished.
And doing that for some design info is really not worth the risk: just recruit some soviet weapons designers, for sure there are Ukrainians in that project already.
Oh, please, please, exclude Romania. I live close to our nuclear power plant. I'm scared of our incompetence as it is, without trying to make any nukes.
Those were Soviet nukes, physically located in Ukraine but not controlled by it, same as any French/US nukes stationed in Germany would not make it a nuclear state.
The ones in Ukraine got moved into Russia, in exchange for Ukraine receiving money and security guarantees.
> Those were Soviet nukes, physically located in Ukraine but not controlled by it, same as any French/US nukes stationed in Germany would not make it a nuclear state.
This is not an accurate comparison.
It's not that Russia had nukes in Ukraine and withdrew them. Many of the Soviet soldiers manning them were Ukrainians and stayed behind. Much of the infrastructure for maintaining the Soviet arsenal was also in Ukraine and had to be rebuilt in Russia. The situation was more akin to if the US broke up and Louisiana (which has a lot of nuclear warheads stationed in it) is dealing with whether they are now a nuclear power, or if they need to hand them over to South Carolina or something.
> It's not that Russia had nukes in Ukraine and withdrew them.
Russia is the single legal successor of the USSR, so all Soviet nukes became Russian nukes, regardless where they were located. So after the USSR broke up, Russia did have nukes in Ukraine and withdrew them.
Legal succession is mostly irrelevant and more complicated than that. Russia had operational control because it had taken physical control of the ex-Soviet command and control systems which were in Russia, and hence had the launch codes, etc.
To be fair, Russia becoming the single successor of the USSR wasn't a foregone conclusion in the early 1990s. There wasn't relevant precedent of a country dissolving I think -- Yugoslavia was still battling it out, Austria-Hungary was too long ago.
> Those were Soviet nukes, physically located in Ukraine but not controlled by it, same as any French/US nukes stationed in Germany would not make it a nuclear state
It's not quite the same, since Ukraine was part of the USSR, and Ukrainian scientists, engineers, and tradesmen contributed to the effort. Germany, on the other hand, was never part of the American federation, and didn't contribute to American weapons development...since Wernher von Braun/Operation Paperclip.
Indeed. There was even a question of whether they could legally be considered Ukrainian or Russian weapons, regardless of where the command centre was. To solve that while the talks were ongoing they set up a ‘joint’ command centre in Moscow with ex-SSR countries theoretically sharing joint control over the weapons with Moscow.
Ukraine at one point wanted to formally claim ownership over the weapons, as after all breaking the permissive action locks wasn’t that difficult. The US talked them out of it, as a lead up to the Budapest Memorandum.
We all know how much the security guarantees of that agreement were worth.
> We all know how much the security guarantees of that agreement were worth.
They were worth 30 years of peace. It wasn't a treaty. Everyone knew it was a handshake agreement without consequences for breaking it. It prevented an immediate war in eastern Europe after the fall of the USSR. A war that could have been much worse involving nuclear weapons.
20 years, not 30, and not even that. There were other clashes plus massive Russian interference in Ukrainian affairs just a few years after Budapest.
For something as serious as giving up a nuclear arsenal it’s reasonable to expect to get more than 20 years of peace and for the co-signers to actual fulfil their parts of the agreement, whether legally binding or not.
The end result is that no country will soon trust a Russian non-aggression promise and none will trust an American promise of support.
Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. That’s 20 years later.
It is also widely believed to have had a hand in the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko with dioxin in 2004, in order to give an edge to his pro-Russian opponent, Viktor Yanukovych.
But even if that’s not true there’s ample evidence of overt Russian influence campaigns to support Yanukovych in that election, which was just 10 years after the Budapest Memorandum.
There was no such promise. Everyone who was actually in the room during those talks, including Premier Gorbachev, has denied it.
Nor was Ukraine anywhere close to joining NATO. It’s application had effectively been frozen in 2008, and it was not even being offered a MAP which is about step 1 on a 20 step ladder of actions to take before joining.
It’s a red herring being used to justify Russia’s territorial and imperial ambitions.
What would happen if Canada joined a mutual defense pact with Russia? Or Mexico? Think about this scenario, would the US invade immediately?. Something similar actually happened with Cuba in the 60s, and the US invaded them, doing a total naval siege [1]
The issue with Cuba was the stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba, not merely its membership of a pact with the USSR.
The US didn’t invade Cuba, it assisted Cuban exiles to do so in the embarrassing Bay of Pigs disaster which took place before the naval blockade as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Naturally, Bay of Pigs should never have happened, and it’s one of the things that led to the CIA’s powers and freedom from oversight being drastically curtailed the following decade.
Furthermore, the world and international law has moved on since the 1960s. That sort of brinkmanship has been much reduced.
"nothing should" is correct; "nothing would" is fantasy
> The issue with Cuba was the stationing of nuclear missiles in Cuba, not merely its membership of a pact with the USSR.
Yes, putting nukes there brought things to a serious crisis, but the issue with Cuba
> The US didn’t invade Cuba, it assisted Cuban exiles to do so
Come on, let's be real here. Sure, _technically_ the US didn't invade Cuba. But it funded and assisted a mercenary force in a (very poor) attempt to do so. And that wasn't the only time the US tried to force regime change in Cuba, just like it did in Chile.
If we’re talking about funding and supporting local groups, activists, and insurgents, then we’re going to have to cast the net far wider and include many similar actions by the USSR and then Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Israel, and many others.
That might be a worthwhile discussion to have, but it’s categorically not the same thing as invasion, occupation, and annexation.
And just like it tries to still do in Venezuela. They also did something similar in Nicaragua. Latin America has suffered tremendously from the US's Monroe Doctrine. [1]
I love that whenever I mention this exact argument, no one actually wants to refute it :D just downvoting
Its a simple question, would the US tolerate Canada or Mexico being a military alliance with Russia or China? Or any other country really, say Nigeria :D
The US was invited into South Vietnam to help defend them against an invasion from North Vietnam. We can debate the morality of the resulting war, which was questionable, but it was not a US invasion.
The US invasion of Nicaragua was in 1912, long before the modern post-WWII era of stronger international law.
Chile was not invaded by the US.
If these are the examples you have, you don’t have a strong argument.
The argument is that these rules that you describe that any country can join any mutual defence pact without any repercussions is just plain wrong, mainly because the US would be immediately working against that even with military interventions. Its the same thing with how the US's stance for foreign policy is to push democracy where it suits them if they have big influence with one of the parties, and to push favourable dictatorships if not. There's double standards and twofacedness by the US foreign policy which really everyone else sees besides US citizens themselves, mostly because the average american barely even knows anything about domestic politics let alone foreign ones (except the few propaganda topics we get from the three letter tv channels).
Just answer this question, would the US object to, possibly with military intervention, if Mexico or Canada would join a military defence pact with China or Russia, or India, or say really any other country besides the US, even Brazil. We both know the answer to this.
Now lets do even easier. Would the US object to any South American countries joining a mutual defence pact with Russia / China? We already have the answer to this.
What would happen if Canada joined a mutual defense pact with Russia? Or Mexico? Think about this scenario, would the US invade immediately?. Something similar actually happened with Cuba in the 60s, and the US invaded them, doing a total naval siege [1]
The assurances made by western leaders were made verbally, but not codified into treaties or agreements, as per the famous line "not one inch eastward". Does that make western leaders lying twofaces?
At the 2008 NATO meeting in Bucharest, NATO gave open invitation to both Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO sometime in the future, without any MAPs. Not that MAPs are very important here on a timescale basis, since both Montenegro and Macedonia joined NATO in matter of months, without the consent of the population, but by corruption of the leadership. What is an open invitation stated publicly, also consists of thousands of conversations in private.
Hence, Russia would not allow this to happen at any cost. Would the US tolerate Russia meeting up with Canada and Mexico behind closed doors and offering them nuclear protection, first covertly, then even publicly?
‘Not one inch eastward’, as Gorbachev himself made clear, was only about stationing troops in East Germany during the immediate Soviet withdrawal. It did not constrain the future unified Germany or NATO.
There was no such open invitation to Georgia and Ukraine, only vague promises. MAPs were still required.
The US would have no right to invade either Canada or Mexico if they were discussing joining a mutual defence pact with Russia, yes.
1. Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act).[10]
2. Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
(...)
The same article says the US itself claimed the Memorandum was not legally binding when it sanctioned Belarus. And the Analysis section starts with a clear:
The Budapest Memorandum is not a treaty, and it does not confer any new legal obligations for signatory states.
It also states that many Ukrainians at the time considered that keeping the nukes was an unrealistic option since all maintenance and equipment required to maintain them were located in Russia, Ukraine was under a financial crisis at the time and had no means to develop those things itself. I just can’t understand people now claiming it was a mistake to give up the nukes. Russia might have reasonably invaded Ukraine as soon as it was clear they intended to keep them as they knew they didn’t really have the ability to use them and no Western government would support them using them and starting a war that would likely contaminate half of Europe and cause terrible loss of life. It was absolutely the right thing to do for Ukraine. Even if that didn’t save them from future aggression, which I think was mostly the fault of the West for not being prepared to really sign a binding document and put the lives of their own soldiers on the line.
Not really, went through the last post and its an utter pile of shit to be very polite. Basically russian propaganda, seen 1000 times.
It ignores that people should have their right to self-determination, don't want to live under russian oppression. As somebody whose family lives were ruined by exactly same oppression of exactly same russia (err soviet union but we all know who set the absolute tone of that 'union' and once possible everybody else run the fuck away as quickly as possible) I can fully understand anybody who wants to have basic freedom and some prospect of future for their children - russia takes that away, they subjugate, oppress, erase whole ethnicities, whoever sticks out and their close ones is dealt with brutally.
Not worth the electrical energy used to display that text. Unless you enjoy russian propaganda, then all is good.
I think this guy paints a difference in thought that is not really there.
Putin sees Ukraine neutrality and impotence as vital to Russia's security. No, he probably does not want to actually annex Ukraine, that would be a ball ache he doesn't need, but he would like it to behave like Belarus.
I think the real difference lies in whether one believes Ukraine deserves to decide its own path, or if it's forever doomed to be a chess piece on the board between spheres of influence, which seems to be the mindset both Putin and Trump are stuck in.
I wonder where people get these ideas. The Budapest Memorandum is very short, it'll take five minutes to read if you want to know what was actually agreed. It seems like people just sort of imagine what they would have agreed to, and run with it.
They got paid mainly in nuclear fuel, there was some disagreement at the rate by which they got fuel in exchange for the weapons and maybe they didn't get quite all the fuel they should have, but for sure they did get paid at least partially.
The US did not agree to protect them. The signatures to the Budapest Memorandum agreed to respect Ukraine's sovereignty. Of the signatories, Russia is the only one that has violated the agreement.
Are you sure about that? Wikipedia says the following: "
3. Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus, and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
4. Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
Both seems to not happen as stipulated.
Edit: I didn't read properly, 4 obviously didn't happen, my bad.
The actual memorandum is shorter than the Wikipedia article about it. The English-language portion is literally only three pages of double spaced text.
I guess you could argue the US is kinda violating 3, since I think the Trump administration tried to ask for future financial reparations in exchange for support during the war. But 4? This isn't a nuclear conflict yet right?
> 3. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the Republic of Belarus of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
I don't see how this qualifies. Being given weapons isn't part of sovereignty, and putting conditions on the continued flow of weapons isn't a violation of it.
Economic coercion attempting to violate sovereignty would be something like the threatened (actual?) tariffs on Brazil for imprisoning Bolsonaro.
The ideal scenario would have been if Ukraine had secretly retained 30-100 warheads. Everyone likes to prattle on about how they couldn't even have used them: those people are mentally retarded. A sophisticated government with nuclear and aerospace scientists could have easily dismantled interlocks and installed their own. Maybe not in a hurry, but they had 3 decades more or less. And if they didn't have the expertise, they might have outsourced it to Taiwan for the fee of a few nukes to keep.
Ukraine *desperately* needs to be a nuclear weapons state. Nothing else will suffice. They need more than one bomb, really more than three or four. Putin has to be terrified that no matter how many nuclear strikes he endures, another waits to follow. When he fears that, the war will end.
The war might end in Ukraine being flattened by Russian nuclear weapons if that happened. Putin would be backed into a corner. End the invasion after suffering a nuclear strike (or just the threat of one) and he'll risk being deposed and meet a gruesome end. Retaliate overwhelmingly and risk escalation from other nuclear powers. It's not clear to me that the second risk would be worse, and definitely not clear to me that Putin wouldn't see that as the better of two bad options.
As has been illustrated so well over the past few years, the power of nuclear weapons is a paradox. It allows you to make the ultimate threat. But that threat isn't credible unless people believe you'll use them. Because the consequences of using them are so severe, they're only credible if used in response to a correspondingly severe threat. Russia's arsenal hasn't allowed it to stop a constant flow of weapons to its enemy, an enemy which has invaded and still controls a small bit of Russian territory, and which frequently carries out aerial attacks on Russian territory. Ukraine faces much more of an existential threat (Ukraine has no prospect of conquering Russia, but the reverse is a serious possibility) so a nuclear threat from Ukraine would be more credible, but it could easily still not be enough. Certainly they're not an automatic "leave me alone" card.
I agree with most of what you said but there’s zero possibility Russia will take over all of Ukraine. Even Putin never claimed they would, this seems like a fantasy some people like to propagate to instigate fear in Europe or something. They spent three years on a gruesome fight to take less than a fifth of the territory and the rest is much harder as the further West you go, the more nationalist Ukrainians are. Check the maps of political opinion on Russia before the war started. Looks pretty close to the current frontline where the divide between pro and against Russia lies. Attacking a NATO country would mean the end for Russia and both sides know it perfectly well even if they may say otherwise publicly to either scare people into supporting their militarism or to gain political points.
I don't think it's likely, but I do think it's possible. If the US and EU get tired of helping Ukraine, they'll have a much harder time resisting Russian attacks. Once they do, why would Russia stop? Maybe they would. Maybe they'd pause, declare peace, and take the rest a year or three later. Maybe they'd just keep going. Putin saying he doesn't want it doesn't convince me in the slightest. He's a Soviet Union revanchist in terms of territory if not political system, and they owned the place before.
Not sure what the consequences of attacking NATO has to do with this.
Russia would still stop because controlling the rest of Ukraine would be more trouble than it is worth for them. And they might gain some concessions from the West. Attacking NATO is a common talk point in the West about what happens after Russia takes over Ukraine and Zelenskyy is more than happy to suggest that is to be expected as he says they are fighting for all of Europe.
On the contrary they seem to be doing much better than anyone expected, maybe even themselves, and they appear to have successfully stopped Ukraine from ever joining NATO which was absolutely their main objective, just see what they have been saying since 1992.
He'd be backed into the door marked "exit". There is no corner to trap him here.
>End the invasion after suffering a nuclear strike
And why do you believe that Zelensky or whoever is in charge would nuke Moscow first? Do you think that, if they had say 30 nukes (plenty for a few relatively harmless demonstrations) that this would be the first target? Obviously they'd pick something that he could decide to de-escalate afterwards.
>they're only credible if used in response to a correspondingly severe threat.
You mean such as the severe threat that Ukraine has endured for a decade at this point? The war now threatens to make them functionally extinct. Many have fled and will never return, their population is reduced to something absurdly low, many of their children have been forcibly abducted to be indoctrinated or tormented/tortured.
That condition you impose was pre-satisfied.
>Certainly they're not an automatic "leave me alone" card.
Of course not. They'd have to be used intelligently (readers: "used" does not imply detonated). It's not entirely clear to me that this would be the case with Ukraine/Zelensky. But nothing less at this point will suffice. Even if the US promised to put 150,000 troops on the ground, this wouldn't end. It would only escalate. Perhaps to that nuclear war you seem to fear.
I don't think Putin would have an exit. Losing the war would result in a major risk to his continued rule, and thus to his person, from a collapse of domestic support. A Ukrainian nuclear strike would present him with a choice: risk internal revolt, or risk the consequences of nuclear retaliation. I'm not remotely confident he'd choose the first. And, to be very clear, the second would make Ukraine (and likely the rest of the world) a lot worse off than they are today.
I dunno if I agree with them being nuclear. It just ups the possibility of a thermonuclear war instead of a conventional war. Just as I’d prefer that IN or PK or both not having those weapons.
The only historical examples we have of nuclear war occurred when the capability was unilateral. MAD actually works. The fear you have of a thermonuclear war is a good thing, and that fear can exist in Putin as well... but only if Ukraine has the weapons to instill such fear.
> Just as I’d prefer that IN or PK or both not having those weapons.
The only reason we haven't seen a Ukraine-like invasion in that region is that they both have nukes. MAD works.
Mini nukes change the equation. If you get two crazy hot-heads making decisions where no-one can overrule their decisions; things could go in unexpected ways. MAD presumes rational actors. If Iraq and Iran would have had nukes in the mid 80s I’m not sure that they wouldn’t have used them.
