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.
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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
There’s really no question that any nation that wants actual security should have a nuclear weapon. It’s one of the only things that keeps you safe. This has been proven time and time again. Treaties are all just paper that can be ripped up at a moment’s notice and disregarded as is needed. Nuclear weapons are the only thing that actually protects sovereignty.
I think that’s enough internet for today
The irony is that Ukraine had “the bomb”, but the US and its allies promised to protect them if they gave it up. Oops.
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.
"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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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.
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
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
Everyone in this thread is talking like they could. Even if the country wasn’t mired in a war of attrition, the process of building it takes time, expertise, money, and materials. They only have some of those. And not any money.
It would take them only a few months. Ukraine is filled with Soviet nuclear technology and Soviet nuclear engineers. They have nuclear reactors. Ukraine is richer than North Korea, and they have their own uranium mines. North Korea spent a couple billion on their nukes, but Ukraine’s military budget is $82B a year, so they could easily surpass North Korea.
Geopolitics experts agree that Ukraine could build a nuke if they wanted to. The issue is that the west definitely would not want to see a world where countries threatened by Russia turn to nuclear proliferation.
Here’s a video from a Danish military analyst talking about the decisions that have to be made on how to secure Ukraine after the war:
It’s important to note, Ukraine is willing to freeze the front line now in return for security guarantees. But If the US or the EU don’t step up to end the war soon, Ukrainian nuclear engineers will.
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
