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.
It was an explicit decision by both CIS and UN. Russia took USSR's seat on UNSC two weeks after USSR was dissolved, and that happened in 1991. Budapest Memorandum was negotiated 3 years later, by which time this was already a firmly established thing.
> 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]
You are conveniently omitting the reason why all those Eastern European states wanted to join NATO, which is that they were previously invaded and occupied by USSR and/or Imperial Russia, in some cases more than once (e.g. Poland).
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.
Pardon me, you have gotten yourself dragged into a tu quoque defense of Russia.
It is best not to engage in these arguments, because they are almost never conducted in good faith.
The goal is partially to make the claim that "the US is just as bad/worse, therefore, Russia is acting morally/logically/blamelessly", but primarily to simply turn the conversation into one where you are defending everything the US has ever done wrong, instead of discussing whatever Russia is currently doing, which is where the bad faith comes in.
If you do feel compelled to engage, I recommend at most acknowledging whatever the US did previously, before pivoting back to discussing the actual current situation. Otherwise, you're playing into the strategy.
My argument is that Russia was compelled to attack both Georgia and Ukraine because of NATO expansion, or rather preventing NATO expansion, not because of "Putin is crazy, wants to be a Tsar".
Your argument is that Russia wants to occupy territory just for the sake of expanding Russia, which is really not logical or reasonable.
My argument is that if Mexico or Canada joined a military pact with Russia, the US would invade those countries immediately.
Your argument is that any country can join a mutually defence pact without any consequences, as should be the case for Ukraine.
Buddy, pal, even if it wasn't absolutely craven to attack a country for fear they'd join a defensive pact because they were afraid you'd attack them, you're already begging the question that Ukraine was about to join NATO, which has been shelved for two decades, and even more off the table for the last decade since joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea.
There was a 0% chance of Ukraine joining NATO in the next N years prior to Russia's invasion of them in 2021.
Even if by some twisted logic that were pretext for a quote-unquote "just war", it cannot be a justification for the land grab Russia is making in Ukraine today, killing civilians and committing various war crimes on the daily to do it.
The land grab is Russia's assurance that the crimean pipelines and access to the black sea and the sea of azov remain unchallenged. The pipelines are extremely important to Russia's economy, and they will of course make sure to secure them. Fortunately for Russia, the eastern part of Ukraine also leans pro-Russia, has the most ethnically russian population, votes for pro-russian politicians, and also speaks the most russian, unlike the western part.[1] Russia's strategy is to secure those areas only, since those areas would be the easiest to operate. Russia would never able to rule over the current western ukrainian territories, because of the ethnical and demographical divide.
Russia wouldnt attack both Georgia and Ukraine, and spend billions of resources just for the 0% chance of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO admission. Both Montenegro and Macedonia joined NATO in a matter of months, in the latter case when the regime was toppled. Enabling any talks between NATO and Ukraine/Georgia would be considered extremely terrifying for the national security of Russia.
> joining NATO would have required relinquishing its claim on Crimea.
That’s...not at all clear (there is no such legal requirement, though there were some NATO members who publicly suggested that resolving the territorial disputes with Russia first was their then-current diplomatic position at various times in the discussion of the possibility. But diplomatic positions are sometimes prone to change in response to inducements from parties with different preferences.)
> My argument is that Russia was compelled to attack both Georgia and Ukraine because of NATO expansion, or rather preventing NATO expansion, not because of "Putin is crazy, wants to be a Tsar".
This fails to explain why Russia attacked both countries after NATO had decided not to offer them a path to membership.
Putin's intense hostility toward NATO stems from the fact that NATO stands in the way of invading Europe. The blitzkrieg against Ukraine also failed largely because of military support from European NATO members, who used established NATO communication channels to coordinate their efforts - exactly the thing NATO was established for!
If Russia were a normal European country, it would have nothing to lose and much to gain from bordering NATO. NATO membership comes with oversight and separation requirements that make member states stable and predictable. A former, pre-Putin foreign minister of Russia described this as "free-of-charge security on Russia's western border".
It is a problem for Putin only because he seeks to invade Europe; NATO stands in the way.
> Your argument is that Russia wants to occupy territory just for the sake of expanding Russia, which is really not logical or reasonable.
It is perfectly reasonable when you look at who holds power in Russia: the old revanchist KGB clan seeking to restore the USSR and the Eastern Bloc. This is the world they grew up in and were indoctrinated into in KGB schools. For them, it is a "normalcy" to which they must return.
> My argument is that if Mexico or Canada joined a military pact with Russia, the US would invade those countries immediately.
There is no need for guessing games when Cuba was actually in a military pact with the USSR until 1991 and hosted jets, bombers, missile cruisers and other conventional weapons for decades after the missile crisis. You can read about Soviet warships conducting missile drills off the coast of Florida in old newspapers. This is far more than anyone has done for countries that have joined NATO since the end of the Cold War. And yet, the US did not invade Cuba.
> Your argument is that any country can join a mutually defence pact without any consequences, as should be the case for Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly, in writing, pledged to respect the sovereignty of other European countries, including Ukraine, and their freedom to join military alliances. There's nothing to discuss - unless you want to turn Europe into a landscape of semi-sovereign nations ruled by Russia, which raises the question: why should Russia, in particular, be the European master race? Shouldn't the Franco-German alliance, with its much larger economy, bigger population, and numerous allies, instead dictate what Russia can and cannot do?
> Putin's intense hostility toward NATO stems from the fact that NATO stands in the way of invading Europe
....
> It is a problem for Putin only because he seeks to invade Europe; NATO stands in the way.
These are the most outlandish sensationalist claims I've heard on this subject, that are basically bordering on primary school children discussions. There is absolutely 0% chance or even any rational thought or discussion that has happened by the leadership in Russia on this topic. Not even Russia, but any leader with half a brain would not even simulate this scenario. This is not post WW2 anymore. Even if theoretically Russia had the military capability to "invade Europe", not only would that be the most pointless invasion, since Russia wouldn't be able gain anything after they invaded. What can they gain? They'll go to the banks and loot them, get the gold and send it home? They'll rule over the French or the Germans and make them buy Ladas? Loot some factory machines? They'll install puppets dictators? I really see in no way how this can be anyhow practical or even feasible, even if Russia had that capability. Lets say hypothetically Russia already invaded and occupied Europe, and by tonight their military has control of every piece of territory in Europe, then what? What will they do tomorrow? If you give me a single argument of why that costly occupation of europe would actually give them any benefits that outweigh those costs, then I would surrender this debate to you and never debate this again...
> There is no need for guessing games when Cuba was actually in a military pact with the USSR until 1991 and hosted jets, bombers, missile cruisers and other conventional weapons for decades after the missile crisis. You can read about Soviet warships conducting missile drills off the coast of Florida in old newspapers. This is far more than anyone has done for countries that have joined NATO since the end of the Cold War. And yet, the US did not invade Cuba.
Cuba and Russia were never in a FORMAL military alliance or pact, since that would've provoked an immediate US invasion. They were collaborating when needed given their mutual enemy - the US. What brought the missile crisis was the planning of Russia to install nuclear weapons on the island that threatened the US (they were never installed for your information), this was as a result of the US initially installing similar nuclear weapons in Italy, Turkey and England, and also as a result of the CIA training a paramilitary cuban force to overthrow Castro (which failed of course). Again this crisis was brought on solely because of US actions, but that is out of scope for this argument. But after the missile crisis, Russia never really escalated, never put any weapons that were threatening to the US, and the only military help Cuba got was for the defense from attempts of overthrowing Castro by the US-led cabal.
> There is absolutely 0% chance or even any rational thought or discussion that has happened by the leadership in Russia on this topic.
All military and intelligence chiefs of the European nations that share a border with Russia disagree with that and warn that their societies must be prepared for an invasion within 2 to 5 years after the war in Ukraine ends. What you call "outlandish sensational claims" by "primary school children" is something they take very seriously and it has fundamentally reshaped their approach to defense policy. Sweden, most notably, abandoned 200 years of neutrality, joined NATO, and began hardening its vulnerable points, such as the island of Gotland, which was demilitarized in 2005. Now Sweden has re-established a military presence on the island, brought back heavy weaponry, and is building up a defensive force. Why does an island in the middle of the Baltic sea need tanks, air defense systems and fighter jets on high alert?
Finland, known for its progressive policies, left the Ottawa treaty that banned anti-personnel mines. Why do you think they did that? Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are building bunkers and digging defensive lines on their border with Russia. Latvian news reported just today that the government is considering dismantling rail tracks connecting to Russia to make them unavailable to invading force. Not to mention Poland's buying spree: Poland is acquiring hundreds of rocket artillery systems and a thousand tanks.
Are they all foolish children who don't know what they are doing? The looming threat of a Russian invasion is the sole reason Northern and Eastern Europe maintain militaries at all. There is no other threat in the region. Their militaries could be disbanded overnight if Russia were to vanish into thin air.
> Cuba and Russia were never in a FORMAL military alliance or pact, since that would've provoked an immediate US invasion.
It doesn't change the fact that in practical terms, the military cooperation between Cuba and the USSR was much deeper than the relationship post–Cold War NATO members have had with the older members. The newer NATO members have received only a promise of assistance in the event of an invasion. Cuba received actual tanks, submarines and fighter jets.
The military and intelligence chiefs of all these countries will of course act this way, the other side of the answer for this question is "No worries, Russia's not a threat, we'll keep everything as is". Imagine if a military general from Poland or Finland answers this, he'll lose his job immediately. If I am a Polish citizen and the Polish military general says this, I will absolutely make sure that guy gets fired, I will protest on the streets because of this. It would be ridiculous for a military general to say that all is fine, except if he's waging war of course :D
That answer, that Russia's not a threat, goes against the whole NATO and The West's side of the argument, which is that Ukraine needs financial and military support from the US and EU. What's happening in Ukraine is a proxy war, that has been cooking since 2008 if not even sooner. Why would the citizens of EU and US fund Ukraine if Russia's not an existential threat to us? Why would we care? We certainly care more about Palestinians, since we see all these massacred people on instagram and twitter, but none of our money goes there. Theres very little civilian videos coming out of Ukraine regarding war crimes. So we need explanations of why we are sending money to Ukraine, just as we needed those for Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria etc. Bush and the admin lied about WMDs and chemical weapons, which we found out 15 years after, and yet the taxpayer money was washed out of the voter base, into the military industrial complex.
The west is funding Ukraine so that they weaken Russia and do a regime-change that is favorable to The West, not because Russia is an existential threat. Russia can't even occupy Ukraine, a country with the lowest GDP per capita in europe, with one of the highest corruption indexes, let alone imagine occupying parts of Europe, say Poland, or the Baltics. It makes zero sense. Even if they did occupy, they wont be able to do anything? I dont get it? Europe doesnt have any major natural resources? What will they do with all of us? Enslave us and sell us to african tribal leaders? Steal the gold? I seriously dont understand.
The West needed a leader that would break that cold-war-ish pointless loop of blaming Russia for everything, since Russia is not a threat anymore, but China is. But any western leader claiming that would've actually caused a political suicide for him, his career would be over, because we the citizens have been fed this propaganda of Russian threat for decades, and its hard to forget it.
What happened with Trump was that he had enough mojo and approval to actually sell the public this argument of Russia not being a threat, and he successfully changed course by 180 degrees, completely disbanding all of the previous decades of foreign policy that was aimed against Russia, because it was useless. He hasnt done many good things since he took office, but just this one makes up for all of them and will go down in history for it.
P.S. just to add, I come from a country in the Balkans, but've lived for a long time in the UK, and now I live in the US. Even my homecountry started preparing for war against Russia :D, most probably because we were "advised" by our "allies" from the EU. The threat from Russia we have is NIL, NADA, not even that, its in the negative range, its embarrassing.
> The military and intelligence chiefs of all these countries will of course act this way, the other side of the answer for this question is "No worries, Russia's not a threat, we'll keep everything as is". Imagine if a military general from Poland or Finland answers this, he'll lose his job immediately.
Why? The public and other government institutions would much prefer to hear that there is no threat from Russia, and that we do not need to pull productive members of society away from their work and studies to serve as conscripts. Finnish law requires all apartment buildings to provide proper shelters, which adds about 2% to construction costs. Don't you think real estate developers and buyers would be very glad to eliminate this expense? If Russia is not a threat, then this is just a waste of resources.
But your argument is a tough sell when major Russian exercises simulate naval and airborne landings into Finland and missile strikes against Finnish cities. Combined with extreme rhetoric from Russian state media, which regularly questions Finland's right to exist, accuses it of being a Russophobic Nazi state, and portrays it as a "dangerous breakaway" instead of a legitimate independent nation, there is little room to underestimate the seriousness of the threat. This is the same rhetoric Russia has used against Ukraine, and we can all see how far they are willing to take it. Many dismissed the rhetoric as empty posturing until missiles started raining down.
> Russia can't even occupy Ukraine, a country with the lowest GDP per capita in europe, with one of the highest corruption indexes, let alone imagine occupying parts of Europe, say Poland, or the Baltics.
GDP per capita doesn't fight.
Ukraine had vast Soviet stockpiles that had not been scrapped. For example, independent counting has recorded at least 1330 visually confirmed Ukrainian tank losses. Compare that with Germany, which has twice the population and is far wealthier: as of 2022, the entire German fleet consisted of only ~200 operational tanks.
How many other countries in Europe can afford to lose 1330 tanks and still keep fighting? Who even has 1330 operational tanks to begin with? No one. Even major countries like the UK and France have only 160 and 220 tanks, respectively. These small numbers are not enough to stop the kind of onslaught Ukraine is experiencing, which is why European military leaders are rightfully so concerned.
> Finnish law requires all apartment buildings to provide proper shelters, which adds about 2% to construction costs.
When was this law enacted?
> The public and other government institutions would much prefer to hear that there is no threat from Russia, and that we do not need to pull productive members of society away from their work and studies to serve as conscripts.
Sadly this is not how politics works. If the human race was a giant insectoid hive mind, we would have way better use of resources than we have now. There is a great essay called Meditations on Moloch [1], that explains what youre describing, especially about war. The military industrial complex is its own self propelling feedback loop industry. If no country had a ministry of defense, we would all be better off, but if one country does it, then every country has to have it, so all of this percentages of GDP are sunk into it, instead of going into healthcare or education.
Since WW2, or even before maybe WW1, the rules of war and occupation have changed. Its not possible anymore for one country to just occupy another, mainly because more territory doesnt mean more economic growth or gain, and mainly because its impossible to rule over another peoples in the modern age, as opposed to in the past. The modern occupation consists of the occupying country having some kind of same-ethnicity but minority faction inside the occupied country, and trying to use that situation to create a breakaway state (which the occupied country wouldnt want of course) so it would create a pretense for war, or use that faction to influence politics for the whole country. The other modern occupation method is to influence the politics of the country by either heavily financially supporting a given faction, or heavily arming that faction (in a paramilitary way). Both of these methods provide political backsupport for the occupying country, in order for better economic deals and geopolitical positioning. But the main goal for the game of modern occupation and warfare is better economic deals.
What politicians and governments state in public is quite different than what actions they enact. Russia's politicians have to look strong. By stating those things about Finland, they hope to say "we hold Finland by the balls" because there is a Russian minority there, and because sometime ago parts of Finland was Russian territory, so they can sell those arguments to the public for a necessary invasion if needed. So they want to tell Finland to not escalate this further by putting nukes on the border, since that would result in war, and to keep being a buffer zone. But in all reality there's 0% chance of Russia invading Finland unprovoked, mainly because we western europeans consider Finland to be part of us, part of the EU, unlike Ukraine which we consider to be a part of the Russian sphere of influence. In all reality, if Russia invades Finland, that would be the biggest blunder for Russian politics because in a matter of seconds NATO would occupy Moscow.
> the entire German fleet consisted of only ~200 operational tanks
Germany was demilitarized until a few years ago, as part of post WW2 rules. They're not the example you're thinking of. In addition, tanks are not important for european warfare anymore, because most of the warfare NATO was waging was overseas. Most of the combat strategy has changed to involve combat aircraft and rockets, which NATO excels at.
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.
The initial expectation was for Ukraine to fall in weeks. The convoys that were headed for Kyiv had Rosgvardia in them - that's basically riot police, not military troops, and they were equipped as such. So no, they were absolutely going for the whole Ukraine (as a puppet state in the west and probably annexations in the east) and instead got stuck in the worst meat grinder Russia has seen since WW2.
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.
