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Comment by jabiko | Hacker News Reader

> These mutual arms restriction treaties are only followed by the major power as long as they see a mutual interest in doing so.

Sorry, but this really rubs me the wrong way. The whole reason we have these kind of treaties is to protect nations which don't have the power to defend their interests should a conflict arise.

Saying that it is normal for a nation to just ignore a treaty they have ratified IMHO instills a very wrong mindset. If a nation ignores a treaty, the reaction should not be "Oh, that was to be expected".

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> The whole reason we have these kind of treaties is to protect nations which don't have the power to defend their interests should a conflict arise.

It’s blatantly naive. The reason we have these restrictions is because it’s simply more efficient not to have an arms race.

If it was really about small countries we would already gotten rid of nuclear weapons.

Don’t forget that the amount of countries having the capability to detect the launches of nukes is even less than the amount of countries having nukes.

> If a nation ignores a treaty, the reaction should not be "Oh, that was to be expected".

A nation can withdraw from a treaty instead of ignoring it. The US just withdrew from the INF treaty. In retaliation, Russia withdrew too (they were the only signatories).

In 1936 Japan withdrew from the Washington Naval Treaty and built the formidable battleship Yamato (armed with 18 inch guns, by far the largest in WW2). What was the world supposed to do? The US imposed various sanctions on Japan. At some point the sanctions became so hard that they amounted to an economic death sentence. WW2 was not averted.

The unpleasant truth is that international treaties are not worth a whole lot. For the simple reason that there's no international equivalent of law enforcement.

> A nation can withdraw from a treaty instead of ignoring it

Yes, as far as I can see both the INF and the Outer Space Treaty explicitly include the possibility for a withdrawal (with prior notice).

At least this publicly signals the intent of a nation to do something which would violate the treaty instead of just silently ignoring it.

The US withdrew because Russia violated the treaty. Russia wasn't "retaliating" because the whole issue was instigated by them.

The powerful have control and the weak unfortunately have to sit by and hope the powerful live up to their word.

Without external forces (a higher authority or some sort of coalition of the weak) to check the impulses of the strong, the strong get to make and break the rules as they please.

This is inevitable and a fundamental fact of reality.

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