Any nation that wants to keep their sovereignty needs nukes. Agreements like the Budapest Memorandum were a mistake for some of the countries involved (Ukraine).
I mean, I have a chaotic solution we might try. Let's simply...reverse the Budapest Memorandum! Let's just hand Ukraine a few hundred thermonuclear warheads, with launchers and launch codes and say, "here, go have fun!"
"The president has announced...that we have reversed the Budapest Memorandum..."
:D
Unironically this
Lol, I wonder when Ukrainians will connect the dots that they're in this position solely because they put their faith into western powers that didn't deliver on their side of the bargain.
When did western powers promise that they would stop Putin invading Ukraine?
Ukraine is in their current position because Putin decided to invade Ukraine
Ukraine is the only nation to ever give up their nuclear weapons (after the dissolution of the USSR). At the time, they were assured by the world that their security would be provided for if there was ever a need.
I just looked at the text of the Budapest Memorandum. The US, the UK, and Russia all agreed in that memorandum to "refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine".
Russia is the country who broke that commitment, when they invaded Ukraine in 2014. I wouldn't say that the US or the UK broke that commitment, because they haven't used force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.
There's another commitment in there saying that the US, the UK, and Russia will "seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine... if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression". It seems there were UNSC meetings - like this one - shortly after Russia sent troops into Crimea. If you think the US and UK didn't do enough in this regard then fair enough, but I don't their actions were as bad as Russia invading Ukraine.
Semantics.
The point is Ukraine wouldn't be in this position if they didn't give up their Nukes, and they gave up their Nukes because they believed more would be done.
I'm talking about what was actually agreed to. To me it seems that Russia quite clearly abandoned its commitments within the Budapest Memorandum. I don't think you can say that the US and the UK did, unless you're saying that those two countries didn't do enough within the UN Security Council to back Ukraine.
Surely the primary country to blame for this situation is Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014. Western countries didn't invade Ukraine.
No one is placing blame here.
They're discussing the material factors that have led to the current situation. Lack of nukes is one of those, and it's likely that Ukraine wouldn't be under a state of defensive war at the moment had they maintained their nuclear arsenal.
Sure, if Ukraine had kept their nukes and maintained them, they might not be in this current position.
But anyway, I was responding to the post that said "they’re [Ukraine] in this position solely because they put their faith into western powers that didn’t deliver on their side of the bargain".
In my view that just isn't true. Their current position is not "solely" because they put faith into western powers who haven't delivered. Their current position is happening because the Kremlin decided to invade Ukraine. I absolutely hope that western powers do more to help Ukraine, but western powers didn't make Russia invade Ukraine. It also seems to me that western powers probably have upheld "their side of the bargain" under the Budapest Memorandum, although like I say, I hope western powers do more to help Ukraine.
Western powers promised Ukraine protection against attack or invasion by themselves and Russia in the December 5th, 1994 Budapest Memorandum.
The US, France, UK, Russia, and China all agreed not to invade Ukraine and in fact to provide protection, and in exchange, Ukraine gave up their nukes.
Russia violated this just 20 years later when they invaded and stole Crimea from Ukraine, and now 30 years later they are trying to conquer the entire country.
Thats why everyone is so hell bent on providing support for Ukraine. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because they were promised protection by world powers.
Anyone else feeling WW3 vibes yet? No? Just me? K
Rising fascism all over the place, what can possibly go wrong
Definitely not just you.
And all of this sits at the feet of Russia.
Actually, no.
We've heard WW3 analogies tossed around for the last 30 years.
I think it's more fair to say that we're not facing WW3 precisely because the world has seen the destructive power of nuclear weapons and they've proliferated so much. That is, obviously, particularly true for Japan.
Short answer is yes. Trump has proven that any alliance is useless. So every country needs the ultimate deterrent. That means nuclear and a reliable delivery system. Thats the only way Russia, the us, China or other aggressors can be held at bay. Ukraine and Venezuela probably both regretting decisions that removed their deterrent.
This is scary for the increased risk of some pretty terrible outcomes but with US security guarantees as untrustworthy as they have become then actions like this are tough to argue against
If I was a South Korean or Taiwanese government official working to ensure future sovereignty, I'd be considering the same
The more nations that have them, the higher the chance they'll be used. It's going to happen sooner than we think.
I actually think the Star TREK First Contact dates may be right.
Let's see next is Germany and Italy to say it.
I thought Japan could never have an army again after WW2, never mind nukes??
Japan has been allowed a self-defense force. What that force can consist of/have/do has been quite restricted. They've built a lot of stuff that they probably technically aren't allowed to but have said "oh, that's not a ThingWeCannotHave but a SimlarButAllowedOrReducedThing". Recent rumblings have been about what constitutes self defense, which some wanting to include attacks on Taiwan, cyber warfare, pre-emptive strikes, and other stuff.
Then there are the factions that want to strip out the article of the constitution about self-defense-forces-only entirely. Unless I missed it, this has yet to be done.
As for nuclear weapons, I don't actually know if that's covered anywhere in the constitution or self-imposed. We're only recently getting to the point that there aren't really any survivors left, but their kids are still around and many fight against having it. As the US becomes a less-reliable ally, I see this resistance falling. Tension has always been high, particularly in Okinawa which always get shafted, between the US forces and civilians and I suspect it will continue to increase.
~ Dude living in Japan for a bit over a decade.
It's been 80 years. Now USA is a bigger threat than japan.
Rules don’t seem to apply anymore, so fuck it
They had restrictions on their military, which were recently (in the last decade or so) lifted.
Not exactly, or at least not insofaras repealing article 9 (I think is the one). Japan has done a lot of "this isn't what it looks like and you can't prove it's not what we say it is" as a strategy for building things they probably "shouldn't".
The Security Dilemma of international relations: Keeping your own country safe requires doing things that will make your neighbours feel less safe.
Ask USA for some...
They should choose the atomic bomb instead.
Now I want to see a movie where the only country that can have nukes is the last one that got nuked.
Every country needs to have a nuke, based on what we're seeing the US and Israel do to Palestine and what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
I need em too.
Denmark needs the nuke too to protect it self from Russia, but also the US.
Med plutonium tvingar vi dansken på knä
If one country has nukes, all countries should have nukes. It’s only fair.
No country should have nukes, and more countries acquiring them makes that goal even harder to achieve.
Yeah but who’s gonna stop them? I know that’s the right answer for a pageant contestant, but be realistic.
If some countries have nukes, probability of nuclear attack is high
As more countries have nukes, probability of nuclear attack drops significantly
It's impossible to have zero countries with nukes anymore, someone will always have secret nukes, which leads to high risk
And it's open season for those with nukes to invade others without.
This exactly. The most significant result of hoisting up nonproliferation as a virtue has been to sustain and grow US hegemony. That is a bad deal for everyone, including Americans.
As more countries have nukes, the chance goes up. More leaders have the opportunity to pull the trigger. It only takes one crazy guy taking power. Or one nuke left improperly secured, especially in an unstable country, and then it gets stolen and used, even as a dirty bomb.
This is not true, it's called the stability instability paradox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability%E2%80%93instability_paradox
Oh yeah what a great idea, let yet another fascist country possess nukes. What could go wrong?
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