MY LATEST CREATORS SYNDICATE COLUMN: Watching Ukraine, Japan and South Korea Consider Nuclear Weapons

…from Russia’s February 2014 attack on Crimea to this very minute’s nuclear weapons have been the Ukraine war’s deep global issue.

When Russia invaded Crimea, it violated a multilateral diplomatic agreement guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. The agreement traded Ukrainian nuclear weapons for mutual security guarantees. At the time Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, some 5,000 weapons.

The U.S. and Britain backed it. Bill Clinton signed it. The memorandum was part of a larger post-Cold War diplomatic framework forwarding disarmament, economic development, constructive cooperation and democratic development in former Iron Curtain countries.

The Clinton administration, Ukraine and Britain thought they had solved the problem of ex-Soviet nukes and Ukrainian territorial sovereignty.

Obviously, they didn’t. Now Ukraine confronts invasion and nuclear blackmail.

Trading nukes for paper security guarantees — the so called Western “anti-war” no nukes crowd of the Cold war era was all for it.

Related (From Ed): US Conducts Nuclear Missile Test Launch. “The U.S. launched an unarmed but nuclear-capable Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Thursday night in what the Pentagon characterized as a display of the U.S.’ effective nuclear deterrent against hostile foreign powers.”

(Updated and bumped.)