Question O’ The Day
The real question is, did Ukraine hold any back when it “disarmed?”
What would you have done?
Here is Ukraine President Zelensky’s speech
A salient piece
Has the world forgotten its mistakes of the twentieth century? What do attempts at appeasement lead to? As the question ‘Why die for Danzig’ turned into the need to die for Dunkirk and dozens of other cities in Europe and the world. At the cost of tens of millions of lives. These are terrible lessons of history. I just want to make sure you and I read the same books………….
The security system is slow. It crashes again. Because of different things: selfishness, self-confidence, irresponsibility of states at the global level. As a result, we have crimes of some and indifference of others. Indifference that makes you an accomplice. It is symbolic that I am talking about this right here. It was here 15 years ago that Russia announced its intention to challenge global security. What did the world say? Appeasement. Result? At least—the annexation of Crimea and aggression against my state……..
Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability. We don’t have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly—we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this.
Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.
Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three times without success. Today Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I, as President, will do this for the first time. But both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time. I am initiating consultations in the framework of the Budapest Memorandum.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs was commissioned to convene them. If they do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt.
Ukraine intends to develop its own nuclear weapons, and it is not an empty bravado. Ukraine indeed has Soviet nuclear technologies and delivery systems for such weapons, including aviation and Tochka-U tactical missiles, developed back in the Soviet; their range is over 100 km, but they will develop even longer-range ones, it is only a matter of time. There is groundwork from Soviet era………..
Claire Belinski:
Is it empty bravado? I don’t know. But we know this: For years, leaders around the world in Japan, Germany, South Korea, even Taiwan—have asked themselves this question: Which is safer? If we build the Bomb, we will enter an arms race that encourages our adversaries to obliterate us in a first strike. But if instead we shelter under the American nuclear umbrella, the Americans may not have our back. The NPT has held, more or less, because countries with the technical ability and resources to build the Bomb have considered this question and concluded that on balance, it’s best to trust us.
This is what we really mean when we talk about the “international order” and the “rules-based security system.”
It’s a shame we don’t speak of it plainly, because high school intellects the world around will always pipe up, “What international order?” “What rules-based security system?” They are always pleased with themselves; they always think it a clever thing to say.)
The balance is very fine. France, Israel, India, and Pakistan all considered the matter closely and concluded that however often Americans declared our fealty to the rules-based international order, when push came to shove, we’d forget we’d ever heard of them.
Fair? Unfair? Our record is mixed.
If we allow Ukraine to be gobbled up, in pieces or in whole, it may not change the world. But conversations in defense ministries the world around will surely take this into account. No one wants to be invaded by a bigger, stronger, rapacious neighbor.
There are only two solutions to the problem of a bigger, stronger, rapacious neighbor: a big, strong ally, or Shiva, destroyer of worlds.
The miserable, needless human tragedy engulfing Ukraine matters in its own right. It should matter to any sentient human even if American national security interests weren’t at play. But American national security interests—the security of the whole “rules based international order”—are very much at play, and Putin proposes to destroy that order, which will, ultimately, destroy everything.
Yes, well, this is what happens when the Pax Americana breaks down. And it breaks down when America is weak, and under Biden America isn’t just weak, it’s chosen to be weak.
