Trump has stated he will cut American aid to Ukraine, which makes a majority of total aid. Recently Zelensky stated that if Ukraine’s only hope for sovereignty is its own nuclear arsenal, they will build it.
YES
The US and Russia promised to defend Ukraine if it surrendered its nukes. Russia is currently destroying Ukraine, and trump will let them so it’s time since that agreement was now worthless
If they’re allowed to do it, so will others who have signed NPT, like Iran. To be fair, Russia seems to have violated the Budapest Memorandum so Ukraine should at least be allowed to have nuclear weapons, by maybe not develop their own.
So if they do, should we put boots on the ground?
I mean it’s the ultimate protection so I’m for it if we, as the west, fails to stand up to putin.
If Iran starts making nuclear weapons? We’ve done other things like sanctions in the past that seemingly worked. If they just keep doing it then that’s bigger than a U.S. problem.
Iran? You mean the pro-democratic country that got invaded?
It’s not really the same discussion IMO.
The irony is that Ukraine had “the bomb”, but the US and its allies promised to protect them if they gave it up. Oops.
The US and Russia. Ya know, the Russia that’s murdering, raping, and torturing Ukrainians and claiming they shouldn’t exist like genocide
It was even the same fucker personally, who signed it and then rationalized the war, lavrov.
This is like saying that Germany has the right to keep the American nukes stationed on its soil if the US was to ever leaver Germany.
The soviet bombs were built, operated and guarded by a Russian department of the Russian Republic member of the Soviet union. what Ukraine signed on was a smooth repatriation of those nukes back to Russian. there is no real way Ukraine could have confiscated them even if they tried.
Giving up nukes, and remaining neutral, is also the conditions for their liberation granted by USSR/Russia. Germany asking US to end its occupation is going to need the US to be allowed to take their weapons for them to agree peacefully.
Since I see this claim constantly: where in the Budapest memorandum did they promise protection?
Looking at the Wikipedia summary nowhere does anyone give security assurances similar to NATO article 5 or the even stronger worded mutual defense clause article 42 TEU of the EU. The closest it comes to is in the fourth point, but that is only in the case of nuclear weapons being used. Which obviously hasn’t happened yet. Beyond that it is just a promise not to attack, which Russia has broken, but every other singator has kept. And as far as I can see it does not contain anything that compells others to act on someone else’s breach.
From what I understand, it primarily stems from that first stipulation, specifically from points 1 and 4 of the Helsinki Accords
(1) Sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty (4) Territorial integrity of states
That said, it was very clearly done in a way that didn’t actually guarantee that protection, and assuming that the Ukrainians thought otherwise is frankly an insult to their intelligence.
"A resolution passed by the Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, on Nov. 18, 1993, attached conditions to its ratification of START that Russia and the United States deemed unacceptable. Those stated that Ukraine would only dismantle 36 percent of its delivery vehicles and 42 percent of its warheads; all others would remain under Ukrainian custody. Moreover, the resolution made those reductions contingent upon assurances from Russia and the United States to never use nuclear weapons against Ukraine (referred to as “security assurances”), along with foreign aid to pay for dismantlement.
In response, the Clinton and Yeltsin administrations intensified negotiations with Kyiv, eventually producing the Trilateral Statement, which was signed on Jan. 14, 1994. This agreement placated Ukrainian concerns by allowing Ukraine to cooperate in the transfer of the weapons to Russia, which would take place over a maximum period of seven years. The agreement further called for the transferred warheads to be dismantled and the highly enriched uranium they contained to be downblended into low-enriched uranium. Some of that material would then be transferred back to Ukraine for use as nuclear reactor fuel. Meanwhile, the United States would give Ukraine economic and technical aid to cover its dismantlement costs. Finally, the United States and Russia responded to Ukraine’s security concerns by agreeing to provide security assurances upon its NPT accession.
In turn, the Rada ratified START, implicitly endorsing the Trilateral Statement. However, it did not submit its instrument of accession to the NPT until Dec. 5, 1994, when Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States provided security assurances to Ukraine. That decision by the Rada met the final condition for Russia’s ratification of START and therefore subsequently brought that treaty into force.
For more information, see Ukraine, Nuclear Weapons and Security Assurances at a Glance."
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/lisbon-protocol-glance
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Thanks for adding another source with some more context
And that was the issue of the memorandum - it should’ve included something akin to Article 5
Russia would have never signed on to that. Their whole argument about Ukraine is the constant advancement of NATO territories towards its border.
Yeah… and Ukraine clearly shouldn’t have signed without it
The issue is that as someone already mentioned i doubt something like that was ever truly on the table.
I think you can’t give assurances like that in a vacuum. If a nation e.g. the US would grant them, they’d only do so while simultaniously building up a physical presence in the territory and possibly also do deeper integrations military wise. You wouldn’t give such strong assurances while weakening your own ability to act on them.
For Russia that would have never been acceptable.
That’s my understanding. Furthermore, they had the nuclear weapons of the soviet union. Even if they could maintain them at the time, without much of the infrastructure that the soviet Union had, I think legally they were Moscow’s. Moscow held the metaphorical button, if not the physical one. Similar to US nuclear weapons in Germany aren’t controlled by Berlin.
That being said, I think this whole war has lead to a situation where nuclear armament is very appealing, not just to Kyiv but to many of the similar states looking on. It is again, for world peace we need less nukes in the world, for Ukraine’s sovereign safety, they need (more) nukes.
That’s the lesson here… They gave up their nuclear weapons for nothing.
Zero benefit to the people
No protection, just non-agression. That was violated by russia.
Yep.
The US won’t be there for them anymore once trump takes the reins.
Ukraine, and potentially anyone in NATO as well, will have to fend for themselves.
Nuclear programs need a lot more leadtime than that, that’s why if Biden had balls he’d give them some of ours before it’s too late
Only Usamericans can think that nuclear weapons are a serious option to use.
MAD doctrine. And it works it seems.
He’s giving better nukes to NK in exchange for support, and there’s Intel he’s giving some to Iran as well.
He won’t stop until he is stopped, we should have learned that by now.
I was talking about the act of using it.
You must learn to distinguish between a threat and an act.
Then let’s threaten to nuke moscow tomorrow if he doesn’t immediately withdraw.
We’ll make it a really intense threat too, take all our missiles to defcon 1, deploy all our forces, have squadrons of f-22s and f-35s surrounding Ukraine and obviously tail all their borei.
“It’s just a threat, bro!”
Well, yes, every chess player and every really powerful man knows that the threat is stronger than the act.
Unfortunately, yours cannot be taken seriously.
Because?
This is the whole russian ethos, you must give them everything they want, because they don’t care.
It’s like the idiot who threatens to eat his own shit, and then does it.
We get that they have less respect for themselves and peace, but we learned a long time ago that giving in to those people doesn’t win peace, only more war, because you’re rewarding their behavior.
It is an absolutely credible threat that we could wipe out the entire Russian armed forces with a fraction of our power, and they know that.
You honestly think they pushed so hard to get Trump in power for no reason? We are the only thing holding them back.
Because?
Because you are not the world class strategist that you seem to think you are LOL. But Putin is.
Because my country is populated by worthless inbred trash that fall for something so simple as “Hey! Look over there!”
Russia and North Korea.
Depends what you mean by “use”.
The Americans are the only ones to have used them in terms of destroying enemy assets (and sadly in that case it was used against civilians). But as a deterrent it’s been used by a LOT of countries all around the world and is still being used for that purpose right now.
An argument could be made the Cold War could have been an all out world war if it weren’t for nukes, with the short peace after WW2 be considered just a break and not the end.
I hope nukes won’t be used, but Ukraine is in trouble and if they are backed into a corner and facing destruction who knows what they will do. Same could apply to Iran before long, if they have the ability to get nukes somehow, it might be their only hope. Just please let it be as a deterrent and not actual nuclear war.
If they get used it is obviously really going to be a bad time for all but one thing in their favour is that the prevailing wind goes from west to east.
Sadly, they don’t have enough time to build a defense. Trump is going to put them out for slaughter.
Numerous other entities are at high risk in the immediate future, eg: Palestinians, Taiwan, Japanese islands… etc.
Trump and Repugnants are not just the end of the U.S., but, also the World as we know it.
I wish y’all the best and I apologize for the ensuing insanity.
You’re absolutely correct and I hate it. Good luck with the horrors ahead.
I think nuclear deterant is the only thing that has a chance of working for countries that aren’t military super powers, and even military super powers have them for a reason. And a country having to rely on benevolence of other countries leaves too many things to chance for nations that wish to be sovereign.
Are you implying that russia is a military super power? Their performance in ukraine has shown they are a paper tiger with a few nukes up their sleeve from back when the soviet union was actually a major player.
Compared to Ukraine yes, and they have a lot more people to throw at the meat wave
Obviously, yes. That’s the only guarantee that nations have not to be fucked with.
If they build it, they have to be ready to use it. And they’d have to use it pretty close to home. Against an adversary with equal capabilities.
Either it would have no effect at all on the conflict, or it would result in annihilation. Doesn’t really seem worth it.
Though maybe to play devils advocate, creating a DMZ wasteland with tactical nukes might not be the worst outcome. Pretty terrible thought though.
Check out M A.D doctrine.
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
The problem is that when the other side is a madman who would rather end civilization than lose an ounce of power, you’re fucked.
Except that he wouldn’t. He is more afraid of losing his life than anything else, dictator personality goes with it.
It will surely help significantly preventing a tactical nuclear strike from russia, though it won’t end the war. It is an absolute last resort trigger. Ukraine will be annihilated after they use it (Russia has way more nuklear weapons).
So somewhat good for them and OK to do so, though no solution and no substitution for western military aid.
The reluctance to authorize long range missile strikes into Russia is based on the fear of nuclear strikes on the US/authorizers. The war was always meant to keep oil prices high and trickle through weapon sales until the last Ukrainian.
wow Putin’s bitch stopping aid to Ukraine? never could’ve seen this coming.
no kidding though, it took a while but Russia finally did it. they are the superpower now. good news, Europe!
No. Nuclear weapons should not exist.
Kurzgesagt recently made a video on the nuclear arms race. The end of the race was when the guy who invented the hydrogen bomb invented a bomb that could destroy the entire planet. The bomb wouldn’t even need to be dropped onto your enemy. It could be built inside your own country and detonated any time at all to end humanity. He thought of it as the biggest deterrent to war. Nobody else did. Politicians and military leaders threw out the idea entirely. Why would anyone detonate a nuclear bomb inside their own country??
The size of that bomb pales in comparison to the size of all nuclear weapons in existence today. We built that bomb. It’s just not one giant bomb, but split into 12,000 parts and spread over the world. Is it any different? If you cannot justify building a nuclear weapon that would destroy your own country to destroy another, how can you justify building any nuclear weapons at all?
In theory, I agree. Nuclear weaponry should never exist. The power to erase millions of people with a single push of a button is absolute insanity.
In practice, the world isn’t going to suddenly decide to de-arm itself and dismantle every nuke. So if they aren’t giving up theirs, refusing to make my own over that just leaves me another corpse on the moral high road.
Sometimes I wonder if the world would be a better place had the Manhattan project been sabotaged by the scientists and nuclear weapons were deemed unfeasible. I’d like to think so.
It’s the same outcome either way. You don’t have nukes and another country decides to nuke you? Your country doesn’t exist anymore! You do have nukes and another country decides to nukes you? Your country doesn’t exist anymore! What changes?
People say deterrence, but what is the deterrence? You built something that you’ll never use? What’s the point?? Oh you will use it? Great! You’ve decided there’s some event that is so bad you’d end the world if it happened. I’m not sure what event that is. Maybe you have one in mind? China attacks India? The world should surely be destroyed then! No? Too bad! You don’t get a say! China and India decide if humanity gets to continue! They definitely wouldn’t do that though.
They built their nukes to never use them. Which is the same as not having nukes, but having nukes is required so that nobody uses them, which is the same as never building them, but they need to be built so they won’t be used!
I don’t like this chapter of Alice in Wonderland but the writing is good
That video taught me that Project Sundial should have gone ahead.
Thanks. This is the only reasonable reply in here.
People are such fucking military industrial complex tech bro lemmings on world.
Even if they have the ability to build one, and do so without Russia turning the facility where they’re building it into rubble with hypersonic missiles, they would need dozens to have full MAD type protection.
Does Ukraine even have a missile system capable of carrying that kind of payload as far as Moscow?
Maybe not anymore, but they had a few orbital rockets:
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenit_(rocket_family)
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnepr_(rocket)
They definitely had the talent to do so, but realistically they couldn’t build one today :(
My sympathy for Ukraine says they should.
My survival instincts as an American would say they shouldn’t because then Russia get big mad and nuke us. I don’t enjoy radiation, so my survival brain is saying they shouldn’t.
But my suicidal brain after seeing the result of the US presidential election says: Fuck it, let them do whatever, hell we can even gift some to them. Climate is fucked anyways. Lets pretend this is a sandbox game and see what happens. What’s the worst that can happen, die? Hehe I’ve been dying inside and November 5 just cut off my life support.
So it depends which alter ego you ask. Ye know, like the angel and demon on your shoulders.
Edit: holy shit its 2AM and I’m wasting time on Lemmy. that just shows how dead on the inside i am… cant sleep, fucking election anxiety.
Fighting global warming with… nuclear winter.
🤔c/UnexpectedFuturama
I thought futurama fought it by pushing the earth into a more distant orbit by means of robot ass blasting
That too, but there was also a gag in an episode where they’re at a ski lodge where Fry says, “Thank god global warming never happened,” and Leela responds, “Actually it did, but thank god for nuclear winter.”
Lets pretend this is a sandbox game
Stop all childish talk. It is dead serious.
