No. of Recommendations: 14
Hi Wendy,
While I agree with almost everything in your post I would like to disagree about this:
At the time of the breakup of the USSR, Ukraine had many nuclear warheads -- it was the third-largest nuclear power on Earth. Ukraine voluntarily transferred its nukes to Russia in exchange for a security guarantee.The folks in the arms control community have discussed this at length, for instance here:
armscontrolwonk.com - Ukraine and the budapest memorandumAnd according to these much more knowledgable people there is a big difference between having weapons stationed on your soil and having control of those weapons. From the above link:
While it had physical control, it’s not clear former Soviet military personnel would have executed Ukrainian launch orders, and regardless Kiev lacked the codes to overcome the permissive action links, electronically encrypted locks to prevent unauthorized use.So I think the proper analogy is that yes, North Dakota has many nuclear weapons stationed in its borders but that doesn't make NDak a nuclear power.
It is perfectly clear that Putin abrogated the terms of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and the Ukrainians cannot and should not trust the Russians to maintain a new agreement.
Rgds,
HH/Sean
