Posted on 03/25/2022 1:33:33 PM PDT by Wuli
The inside story of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, when Kyiv returned its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for ‘assurances’ from Moscow and Washington.
Immediately after Ukraine signed its final agreement to renounce nuclear weapons in 1994, the country’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, grimly remarked: “If tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow.” As we now know, that isn’t all Moscow would attempt to reclaim. Recently released archival documents demonstrate how American officials, adamant about the country’s denuclearization, ignored the sentiments of Ukraine’s postcommunist leaders, who were desperate to secure their new country.
...snip... By its terms, Ukraine forfeited an inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal in exchange for Western pledges of aid and “assurances” from Russia, the U.S. and the U.K. that its borders would remain intact. Disarmament experts hailed the pact, but it invited Mr. Putin’s revanchism.
Kravchuk’s government therefore harbored apprehensions about abandoning it. He considered trading this ace for an ironclad territorial guarantee, something akin to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Article 5 umbrella. But Secretary of State James Baker balked. He believed this would result in identical demands from all post-Soviet states. When Ukraine subsequently resisted committing to disarmament ...snip..., Mr. Baker put this defiance to an end with a blistering phone call. ...snip...
Following U.S. elections that November, Mr. Kravchuk gained an untested negotiating partner but not new leverage. Bill Clinton’s administration proved even less amenable to his concerns. ...snip... Steven Pifer, a State Department official who later served as ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), recalled in 2018. “No one in the U.S. government questioned” this objective. A sign in the Office of New Independent States fashioned a Clintonian mantra to match the prevailing view: “It’s the nukes, stupid.”
The full-court press began on the president’s sixth day in office.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
An agreement isn’t a treaty which would require Senate approval. That should have been clear at the time.
The Clinton Administration, the gift that keeps on giving.
Sort of like herpes, only worse.
L
Imagine if Ukraine kept their nukes.
When things turn to sh!t, it is pretty much a given that, when traced back, a Democrat was responsible.
“An agreement isn’t a treaty which would require Senate approval. That should have been clear at the time.”
Congress should pass - with veto proof majorities - legal notice to U.S. presidents and to the world that mere “agreements” signed by any U.S. representative, even a president, with any foreign nation or entity, are not treaties, do not have the force of law of treaties and can be denied and abandoned by susequent U.S. leaders by mere executive fiat and with no notice to foreign parties concerned.
There was no security guaranty in the Budapest Memorandum. Even if Russia attacks Ukraine with nuclear weapons, the memorandum only requires that we “seek immediate United Nations Security Council action”. So far as the Budapest Memorandum, it has been broken by Russia many times, but we are not required by the memo to send direct military assistance.
https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf
Nobody wanted Ukraine to have nukes. Clinton was right to refuse military commitments. Basically, we got rid of the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal in the world, most of it ICBMs aimed at the USA, simply by paying for their destruction.
Hey, no problemo - just let a Freeper resupply Ukraine with nuclear weapons...
;>)
“Imagine if Ukraine kept their nukes.”
Putin would not have even taken Crimea much less started the current mess.
Typical liberal\leftist\progressive thinking you trade actual defense for defense by a piece of paper!
Everybody knows that. America has a long history of blowing off treaties, because we almost never even try to ratify them.
Wouldn't that have been somethin'? Our very own Biden crime family would probably own the whole works, and be the third-biggest nuclear power on the planet!
\s
“Nobody wanted Ukraine to have nukes.”
Not true. It seems the leadership of Ukraine actually wanted to keep them - seeing the Russian handwriting on the wall.
The fact that the arsenal incldued missiles aimed at the time at the U.S. would not have been a factor in time, as all evidence indicates from the start a Ukraine increaingly wanting to renew its attachment to Europe.
“Everybody knows that. America has a long history of blowing off treaties, because we almost never even try to ratify them.”
Name them.
From what I understand, Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal was pretty useless because the country was broke and couldn’t maintain the weapons anyway.
Lets start with the native indian populations
Pretty much every treaty we ever signed with the Indians. I don’t think SALT ever got ratified, or maybe SALT2, one of those. Kyoto definitely didn’t. It’s our thing. We rarely ratify treaties, we like to keep them as suggestions.
Apparently they didn't want them much, as they essentially gave them away. They were never going to get a security guaranty. All we had to do was pay to clean up the missile sites and sign an agreement to recognize their borders and not attack them.
Some corrupt Ukrainian colonel would have stolen one and sold it to Al Qaeda.
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