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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe dangerous Ukraine invasion issue no one is talking about
By David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory- Commentary
Published March 09, 2022
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Lets step back for a moment from the awful human tragedy in Ukraine as the Russian army targets civilians. There is an even bigger issue here. And until we come up with an answer its going to continue to plague the world.
Its an issue that Americans, more than anyone else, should understand. Yet based on all the news and commentary Ive been reading since the Russian buildup began almost a year ago, this overarching issue is not even on the table.
The bigger issue is that there is no way to stop a nuclear power from invading a non-nuclear power, as America did 18 years ago this month when it took down the dictatorship in Iraq.
https://www.rawstory.com/russia-nuclear-weapons/
jimfields33
(15,473 posts)I doubt this would be happening if they had said, hell no! Were not giving up our nukes. I hope this is a lessons learned for other countries. Yes nukes are bad, but they seem to be a deterrent.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,147 posts)know-how was Moscow's. They also didn't have the facilities or resources to maintain those weapons. They weren't "Ukraine's nukes."
Javaman
(62,442 posts)people have this weird notion that the nukes were Ukraines.
Javaman
(62,442 posts)this has been a major falsehood that's been perpetuated by the rumor mill.
at the fall of the soviet union, all nukes were removed by old soviet forces. Ukraine had nothing to give up.
this is the equivalent of US having nukes in say, Poland. they are not Poland's property. they would always be ours.
so the argument that Ukraine gave them up really has zero meaning at all.
Zeitghost
(3,796 posts)Russia like Ukraine is a former Soviet Republic. All nuclear weapons owned by the former USSR did not transfer to Russian ownership anymore than they all transferred to Ukrainian ownership or Armenian ownership. The Ukrainian government voluntarily agreed to destroy the weapons it possessed, foolishly IMO.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)Ukraine was a part of the USSR just as N. Dakota is part of the U.S. If N. Dakota went its own way it could not take the nuclear weapons stored there in the silos.
Zeitghost
(3,796 posts)The Ukraine did not leave the USSR so much as the USSR fell apart and no longer exists. Russia ≠ USSR. The nuclear weapons within the borders of the Ukraine were theirs just like the nuclear weapons inside Russia were Russian. Ukraine decided to destroy them, they are unfortunately paying the price for that decision now.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)The three sides agreed that Russia would compensate Ukraine for the value of the highly enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads transferred to Russia for elimination by providing Ukraine fuel rods containing an equivalent amount of low enriched uranium for its nuclear reactors. In the first ten months, Ukraine would transfer at least 200 warheads, and Russia would provide fuel rods containing 100 tons of low enriched uranium.
Two issuesthe date for transfer of the last nuclear warheads out of Ukraine and compensation for the highly enriched uranium that had been in tactical nuclear warheads removed from Ukraine to Russia by May 1992nearly derailed the Trilateral Statement. The sides, however, agreed to address those in private letters.
Presidents Clinton, Yeltsin and Kravchuk met briefly in Moscow on January 14, 1994 and signed the Trilateral Statement. That set in motion the transfer of nuclear warheads to Russia, accompanied by parallel shipments of fuel rods to Ukraine. The deactivation and dismantlement of missiles, bombers and missile silos in Ukraine began in earnest with Cooperative Threat Reduction funding.
In December 1994, Ukraine acceded to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and received security assurances from the United States, Russia and Britain in the Budapest Memorandum. France and China subsequently provided Kyiv similar assurances. Ukraine fully met its commitments under the Trilateral Statement. The last nuclear warheads were transferred out of Ukraine in May 1996.
https://fsi.stanford.edu/news/ukraine-nuclear-weapons-and-trilateral-statement-25-years-later
Zeitghost
(3,796 posts)Some were transferred, some destroyed, the point being, Ukraine made the choice to give them up under strong pressure from the US, UK and Russia. In exchange they were assured peace and Russian respect for their sovereignty and borders...
calimary
(80,700 posts)Id guess, would be the guy on the other side with a button of his own - whos growing more upset, agitated, desperate, as his invasion stalls, and that assumed easy victory over a purported pushover neighbor that he was expecting turns out to be anything but.
That presents a BIG problem. And I dont know how you figure a way around that - at least not safely.
Celerity
(42,668 posts)https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/61f9e4619d9e380022bdd931/no-ukraine-should-not-have-kept-nuclear-weapons/
The Russians are on the verge of dramatically expanding their previous invasion of Ukraine, this time with enough forces that they could roll through the streets of Kyiv. I will admit that when the Soviet Union collapsed 30 years ago, I did not expect that the new Russian Federationpoor, militarily weak, but finally freecould be, or would want to be, a threat to its neighbors. This was a failure of imagination on my part.
But about one thing I was certain, and remain so: Its a good thing that Ukraine never became a nuclear-weapons state. Now that the Russians are poised to invade, this bad idea is coming around again. There are sensible people I respect who disagree about this, and so I think its worth a little time to consider that no matter how bad things might get, they would only be worse if Ukrainian nuclear weapons were involved.
A series of historical and political circumstances have brought us to this point, going all the way back to how the USSR was created in the first place. (There are reasons, for example, that the Ukrainian state exists in its current borders and for why Crimea ended up a bone of contention, but thats a subject Ill explain in an additional newsletter later this week.) Today, lets just ask a basic question: Would nuclear weapons have protected Ukraine now?
American realists like Professor John Mearsheimer, among others, think so. This is a simplistic answer, as realist answers so often are. It is a view of the world as something like a big game of Risk, in which all the countries are basically alike except for how many pretty colored chips they control. This approach leads foreign-policy analysts to say things that sound deep and logical, but make no sense when real countries, with real histories, governed by real people, get involved.
snip
thucythucy
(7,986 posts)let alone disarmament, was killed by the Russian invasion.
It may well have died a less public death with "Desert Storm," but the invasion last month was the final nail in the coffin.
Which means the world will become even more dangerous, with the chance of an accident, or an act of desperation, or of terrorism involving a nuclear weapon will remain with us far into the foreseeable future.
Irish_Dem
(45,640 posts)Facing the reality of Russian and Chinese desire for world dominance.
Sad situation, what a planet we live on.
calimary
(80,700 posts)Chainfire
(17,308 posts)to destroy the world over some notion of national pride, over the pursuit of glory and over the worship of the almighty dollar. We are the ones who let the nuclear genii out of the bottle; we should have listened to Einstein. Putin has decided that it is time to put the weapons to work for the greater good of the Oligarchs who believe that the rich should inherit the Earth, and that the meek are unworthy of life.
We are so damn arrogant that we play species Russian roulette with our enhanced intelligence; our reptilian brain will be the death of the human experiment. When we melt our cities and poison our land we will have had our run. Who know, in a dozen million years or so, some more capable lifeform will get it right, or not... In the grand scheme of things, we will an insignificant loss to the Universe. We wont even get mention in the Encyclopedia Galactica. We are just an insignificant species, on an unimportant world circling a mediocre star in a modest galaxy. If we destroy ourselves, no one else will notice.
A warning to the religious people who will balk at my assessment, know that you gods will all die with us.
What, Cynical, me?
KS Toronado
(16,911 posts)The Encyclopedia Galactica is a fictional or hypothetical encyclopedia containing all the knowledge
accumulated by a galaxy-spanning civilization.
Preface mentions that no republican contributed any knowledge.
robbob
(3,514 posts)Thanks for all the fish! 🐠
KS Toronado
(16,911 posts)robbob
(3,514 posts)but whats the question again? 😁
KS Toronado
(16,911 posts)Was the question along the lines of what's the meaning of life? Been a long long time since I've seen the
movie. Thought everyone would recognize the "no republican contributed any knowledge" to the encyclopedia
because collectively they have no knowledge to share. Attempting at a funny, maybe should have added
the sarcasm thingie.
robbob
(3,514 posts)After 7.5 million years the supercomputer Deep Thought came up with the answer 42, which of course was not very satisfactory.
KS Toronado
(16,911 posts)Deep Thought must have been a reQublicOn computer design
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)And the Foundation series?
robbob
(3,514 posts)Which is why I asked. That line about no republicans contributed sounded like pure Douglas Adams, hence my Hitchhiker guess. Thanks for the correct answer!
On edit: researching further, it seems Adams DID mention the Encyclopedia in his Hitchhiker books, comparing it to the titled Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. So even though Asimov invented the idea, its also in Adams book
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)It is a lot of hours of thoughtful entertainment. I like science fiction that tries to leave the laws of physics intact as much as possible, and that doesn't involve the fantasy element. Of course, all science fiction has to break the speed limit, but I am good with that.
robbob
(3,514 posts)And now, thanks to your memory jogging I do remember how each chapter began with some background info from the Encyclopedia. You probably missed my edit on my previous post, so Ill mention again that Adams actually referenced the Encyclopedia in his book, which I find really cool, if slightly plagiaristic. More likely a homage
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)One of the joys of getting old is that I can read a book now, and in three months time, I can read it again, and it is all new. I have saved a heck of a lot of money.
KS Toronado
(16,911 posts)Came across my copy of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee the other day, so I set it aside to
remind myself to reread it. Early 1970's ? 1st & 2nd time I read it, brought tears both times.
I'll see what happens the third.
LiberatedUSA
(1,666 posts)of the Akashic Records?
Ferrets are Cool
(21,063 posts)lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Sheesh.
maxsolomon
(32,992 posts)I think I've seen about 20 "America is really the one to blame" takes on Rusher's invasion in the last week.
Amishman
(5,541 posts)The threat of economic total destruction will work just as well as the threat of physical annihilation
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)them? Would the US and other countries just sit by while the decimate Ukraine and make it inhabitable for years to come?
wnylib
(21,146 posts)be sent to us, too. By the time everyone uses their nukes, there will be no human life left and most of the plant and animal life will be gone, too.
calimary
(80,700 posts)Where we ALL get screwed. Everybody everywhere gets screwed.
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)No one left to light a cigarette when it is done...The final orgasm of the species.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)relayerbob
(6,510 posts)Why does the writer think Iran, North Korea and others want nukes in the first place? South Korea and even Japan are floating the ideas. Maybe the writer isn't paying attention, but the rest of us are.
Martin68
(22,671 posts)invasion by a military force that even Russia would be reluctant to go up against. Secondly, If we make such an invasion too expensive to be worth it, as Russia is in the process of discovering right now, nuclear nations will think twice before invading a non-nuclear state. The whole world is watching Russia flounder as their economy sinks.
ancianita
(35,814 posts)nuclear power is the aggressor, unless the aggressor moves directly on the power that values life more.
There is a way to stop a nuclear power from invading. It's a first fast strike at their opponent's delivery system, but still a gamble about their counterattack capability, and a steep human price to pay.
That said, why our military restrains itself probably has as much to do with what they know about the locations of Russian nuclear missile submarines as in their valuing human life. All of Putin's subs could be deployed around the EU and the US. China's could be deployed, too.
The point is that sometimes we can't say what our opponents will hear. So it's not that we don't want to talk about this, it's that even if it's obvious, we present the U.S. values, not just its power.
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)You think that Mother Earth is suffering from carbon fuels, wait till you see the damage nuclear fuels can do. Nuclear Winter will be a big game changer.
We, in our ultimate wisdom and judgement have used knowledge, gained over the millions of year since we came out of the trees, to built weapons that are capable of wiping human life from the face of the earth, We have designed foolproof systems of delivering them to our enemies doorsteps, and we have built enough of them to destroy it several times over, just to be sure.
Now, we seem to be surprised that someone is now suggesting that he may use them as a form of conflict resolution if he doesn't get his way. It is inevitable that we got to this point. We know that madmen gain power, it has happened over and over and over. Today our worlds leaders are playing a game of chicken with the future of mankind as the stakes. Are the people of of Russia, the US and the rest of the world demanding that the governments back off and stand down we are cheering our own team on! "Send the planes, bomb the convoy, lets see how far we we can push the madman." Go team go, rah, rah, rah!
Now who wants to tell me how damned intelligent our species is?
I have a message for the leaders of the world: CALM DOWN YOU STUPID BASTARDS BEFORE YOU KILL US ALL!
krkaufman
(13,429 posts)Johnston refers to the 2013-2014 uprising as the Orange Revolution but that was the 2004-2005 protests. The 2014 uprising is known as the Maidan Revolution or The Revolution of Dignity. (Watch Winter On Fire on Netflix or YouTube.)
WarGamer
(12,106 posts)For 75 years, the nuclear powers have had a secret deal...
"Don't interfere in OUR wars and we won't interfere in YOURS"
That's why nukes have never been exchanged.
Chainfire
(17,308 posts)For whenever any of us start to exercise our imperial instincts, the other side will always supply weapons and "advisors." For without that, what would our arms-makers do for a living, and what would we do with all of that surplus money?