Build the Bomb
“No nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn.”
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I wrote a post earlier where I stated that Ukraine needs to forget about EU and NATO membership; they should build their own military. I still stand by that but I also believe they need a nuclear arsenal. Read on for my explanation.
I have a gripe about people who comment on the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict, they act as if there is no context. They write and comment as if Russia out of the blue attacked Ukraine for no reason.
They don’t factor in the coup of a democratically elected Prime Minister. They don’t think about how the present administration arrested the opposition and shut down all tv stations that didn’t praise Zelensky.
They are not only believing the propaganda, they are contributing to it also.
Ukraine was once home to thousands of nuclear weapons — the third-largest nuclear arsenal on Earth — which were stationed there by the Soviet Union and inherited by Ukraine at the end of the Cold War. In 1994, the Ukrainian government signed a memorandum that brought its country into the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in which Ukraine formally relinquished its status as a nuclear state. Ukraine surrendered all of its nuclear weapons which when viewed in hindsight, was a mistake.
The text of the treaty stated in exchange for relinquishing their nuclear arms, the “Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” It’s pretty ironic that one of the signatories of the Treaty — Russia — is occupying Ukraine. Today, that decision is looking like a bad one.
Ukraine’s territorial integrity hasn’t been much respected since, “We gave away the capability for nothing,” Andriy Zahorodniuk, a former defense minister of Ukraine, said this month about his nation’s former nuclear weapons. “Now, every time somebody offers us to sign a strip of paper, the response is, ‘Thank you very much. We already had one of those some time ago.’”
To date, no nuclear-armed state has ever faced a full-scale invasion by a foreign power, regardless of its own actions. Russia is proving this to be true as no country has invaded it despite invading and occupying Ukraine. Ukraine needs to become a nuclear nation again. Let’s look at Pakistan, which developed nuclear weapons decades ago in defiance of the US.
Abdul Qadeer Khan, the controversial nuclear scientist often known as the father of Pakistan’s bomb has argued, “[d]on’t overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn.” This sentiment has been repeated over and over since the Libyan crisis.
Despite being criticized at the time for contributing to nuclear proliferation, Pakistan faced periodic sanctions and even faced serious ostracism by the US. Today Pakistan remains a security partner of the US and receives billions of dollars of military aid every year. If Ukraine were to develop nuclear weapons and become a nuclear country again, they would get the respect of NATO, the EU, the US, and most of all Russia.
North Korea has managed to evade attacks from other countries even though the US has set up a demilitarised zone on North Korea’s southern border. Neither the US nor South Korea has invaded North Korea since they’ve acquired nuclear capabilities.
The Libyan crisis has been used many times as an example of why countries aspiring to have a nuclear program such as North Korea should acquire them. In 2011, as bombs rained down on Gaddafi’s government, a North Korean foreign ministry official said, “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson.” That official went on to refer to giving up weapons in signed agreements as “an invasion tactic to disarm the country.”
CONCLUSION
In 1981, the late political scientist Kenneth Waltz published an essay titled, “The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better.” In it he argued that nuclear weapons are revolutionary in allowing weaker nations to protect themselves from more powerful ones.
International relations is “a realm of anarchy as opposed to hierarchy… of self-help… you’re on your own,” Waltz explained.
The widespread assumption is the more nations that have nuclear weapons, the more dangerous the world will be. But is that really the case? I’m a believer that all countries should have a nuclear program. The more countries armed with nuclear weapons means that other nations will think twice before asserting undue aggression.
TL;DR
Ukraine made a major mistake by giving up their nuclear arsenal when they gained their independence from the Soviet Union. Even though the global Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that Ukraine signed guarantees protection from Russia, the UK, and the US, Russia — a signer of the Treaty — has occupied Ukraine. It looks as if Ukraine is headed down the road that Libya traveled when they gave up their nukes. Ukraine needs to build the bomb.
