And here’s the problem nicely framed by you. Our, or the US government’s estimation of their integrity and trustworthiness regarding agreements made in the furtherance of nuclear non-proliferation is irrelevant. What we think about ourselves and our conduct makes no difference to people calculating the worth of acquiring a nuclear deterrence. Your position strikes me as sort of Lake Wobegonian:old salt wrote: ↑Mon Oct 17, 2022 12:46 am Nuclear Non-Proliferation for Dummies.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/R ... %20(ICBMs).
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fr ... emorandum/
Ukraine wanted guarantees or assurances of its security once it got rid of the nuclear arms. The Budapest Memorandum provided security assurances.
Unfortunately, Russia has broken virtually all the commitments it undertook in that document. It used military force to seize, and then illegally annex, Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in early 2014. Russian and Russian proxy forces have waged war for more than five years in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, claiming more than 13,000 lives and driving some two million people from their homes.
Some have argued that, since the United States did not invade Ukraine, it abided by its Budapest Memorandum commitments. True, in a narrow sense. However, when negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond.
Washington did not promise unlimited support. The Budapest Memorandum contains security “assurances,” not “guarantees.” Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances.
Beyond that, U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not discuss in detail how Washington might respond in the event of a Russian violation. That owed in part to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He had his flaws, but he insisted that there be no revision of the boundaries separating the states that emerged from the Soviet collapse. Yeltsin respected Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Vladimir Putin does not.
U.S. officials did assure their Ukrainian counterparts, however, that there would be a response. The United States should continue to provide reform and military assistance to Ukraine. It should continue sanctions on Russia. It should continue to demand that Moscow end its aggression against Ukraine. And it should continue to urge its European partners to assist Kyiv and keep the sanctions pressure on the Kremlin.
Washington should do this, because it said it would act if Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum. That was part of the price it paid in return for a drastic reduction in the nuclear threat to America. The United States should keep its word.
The US is more than keeping our word under the Budapest Memorandum.
We are enabling the Ukrainians to win this war & to secure their nation's survival & independence.
It is not an open ended defense treaty.
“Welcome to Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
Garrison Keillor
Or did you miss Garrison’s point?
By the by, how is the US and its word regarded by the Iraqi Marsh Arabs and the various groups of Kurds we have sold down the river? Just because they are different doesn’t make them stupid. In fact, I would regard anyone who took the US at its word as stupid, naive, or deceptive and not someone to conduct relations with.
So you think that a memo---not a treaty----that was already violated by Putin is still in place? And yet I'm the one who's nuts here? Okie dokie.
