Putin’s War Is a Death Blow to Nuclear Nonproliferation | Hacker News Reader

Putin’s War Is a Death Blow to Nuclear Nonproliferation

foreignpolicy.com

43 pointsadventured72 comments

The same conclusion could have been drawn based on the West's actions in the Middle East. Whereby countries that at one point sought out nuclear tech and were persuaded to give it up by the West eventually ended up being attacked by it. It's kind of a weird take on the subject that the issue is that we can't attack a country with nuclear sovereignty and THAT'S the problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destr...

It's one thing when you try and fail to make nukes. Ukraine had them and voluntarily gave them up for security assurances that turned out to be bullshit. This is certainly partly the fault of Ukraine's politicians at the time - they should have seen the "Budapest memorandum" for the toilet paper it was. But it also buries any hopes that current nuclear states might be persuaded to give up nukes in the future.

My view on this is that nuclear non-proliferation is a kind of sacred cow that everyone must be seen to support, but everyone understands that nuclear arms can be a stabilizing factor - they prevented numerous wars already, and prevented wars from getting out of control (e.g. India vs Pakistan). I don't know what the best way to maximize peace is, but it's not in any way clear to me that eradication (but especially reduction without eradication) of nuclear weapons is the way to get there. And it really doesn't matter to me how civilians die, in a Nagasaki nuclear explosion or a Tokyo firestorm.

Ukraine had them, but Russia had exclusive control over those missiles [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

"Control" is a relative term. Ukraine had physical control, gaining full access is a problem akin to finding a way to open a safe you're lawfully in long-term possession of. Ukraine also has nuclear power stations galore and factories that allow it to make modern ballistic missiles.

No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures. But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control.

I'll try to find a pretty good thread, written by a nuclear expert who was part of the 1994s negotiations, that went into greater details and explained why ukraine never had the capacity to keep the nukes or even do anything useful with them.

>No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures.

But not so hard that a nation of 40 million with many thousands of engineers who took part in designing every aspect of that bomb cannot figure it out if they want to. This would simply not be a serious issue.

>But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s.

Hundreds of bombs, no. A dozen - easily. Yes, poor, but the sheer size of it would allow it to maintain a small nuclear arsenal.

>And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control.

It did control it, because it was on Ukrainian soil, and you greatly overestimate the ability of a large country to reverse engineer or replace some detonators.

This is such a ridiculous fact everyone likes to bring up.

If provided with an arsenal of working nukes sans launch control, it would take Ukrainian engineers and physicists maybe 2 weeks to bypass the existing controls and fabricate new ones. It's not like nukes have tamper proof switches.

2 weeks might be optimistic, but I agree that this is a non-issue.

Nuclear arms can be a stabilizing factor in the near term, but nuclear proliferation is unquestionably dangerous: the more nukes are around, the more likely it is that accidents will happen. Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes.

>Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes.

I don't see how such incentives are possible. At this point, any politician in a nuclear state who chooses to give up the ultimate insurance policy against the kind of invasion happening in Ukraine right now is essentially a traitor. What possible insurance policy can replace a nuke? Even things people consider ironclad security guarantees are very ambiguous and are only a sure thing short-term.

Who's to say how a US or a German government will interpret Article 5 in 2070, for example?

>The Parties agree ... that, if [an] armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force...

You can drive a truck through that kind of ambiguity. All options including doing nothing are firmly on the table. If I'm Estonia, I just hope for the current climate of firm resolve to fight against aggression to remain indefinitely. But if I'm Poland or Turkey, I'm thinking long and hard about convincing someone to proliferate.

I generally agree with your point, but...

> And it really doesn't matter to me how civilians die, in a Nagasaki nuclear explosion or a Tokyo firestorm.

I'm pretty sure it's not likely or feasible to firestorm an entire country absent nuclear weapons. Put differently, nuclear weapons are concerning because of scale, not method, of death.

While it's still thankfully impossible to firestorm an entire country, technological advancements in the 80 years that have passed since 1940s make it possible to inflict much greater damage using non-nuclear arms. If nukes deter countries from entering a war where such "conventional" power can be unleashed, then the (very real but nevertheless remote) threat of nuclear Armageddon is saving millions of lives by reducing much shorter odds of "conventional" regional/world wars. I always think about the millions currently living in India and Pakistan who would no longer be alive if not for nukes. It is also a significant deterrent in a conflict between China and India, two nations of 1+ billion people. Consequences of such a full-scale conflict would indeed be just short of nuclear Armageddon.

India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in 1998.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I

India and Pakistan then fought a war in 1999.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War

Preventing a war for a little more than 1 year is hardly stabilizing.

At least 2 conflicts since then, one cost several thousand lives before it was deescalated, the other in 2008 could have easily become "hot".

That's not comparable. Ukraine had weapons it gave up. None of these countries had nuclear weapons.

Although, while not being comparable, it's still true that the US's invasion of Iraq definitely hurt nuclear non proliferation, and has remained a driving force in pushing the likes of Iran and North Korea to build up nuclear stockpiles.

What Russia's invasion has done is basically extend the desire for nuclear weapons from what are inarguably bad actors on the global stage (Iran, North Korea) to pretty much every country in the world.

Definitely. The first gulf war proved that an enormous army with dated soviet equipment could be overrun in a matter of weeks.

Surprising exactly no-one, regimes with dated soviet equipment and huge armies (north korea, iran, china) started looking around for ways to protect themselves.

This shouldn't be entirely surprising. The states that have developed nukes have done so not just for defensive purposes--the threat of nuclear retaliation for an attack--but also as a not-so-subtle threat against their enemies. It is surely why Iran would like to join that club.

it is also not so surprising that Russia would pull this card out, when it has become clear that in a conventional military sense, Russia would lose in a fight with the full force of NATO against it.

I'm now convinced that Russia would lose a conventional military fight against a quarter of the force of NATO.

Looking at what happened in the past weeks, I don’t think it would need a quarter.

https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.php says both Spain and Italy have a better army than the Ukraine. If that’s correct, it seems to me those two combined could beat Russia is a conventional war. Of course, that ranking now seems way off for Russia, so it may be way off for other countries, too.

Looking at https://www.visualcapitalist.com/this-is-how-much-nato-count..., the USA does about ⅔ of all NATO military spending and (Spain+Italy) about 4%.

That doesn’t necessarily make their army 4% of the full the power of NATO, but I don’t see it getting up to 25%.

Things might change if the fighting took place in Russia. Its military probably would be more motivated, would have fewer logistics issues, etc.

On paper, Russia had a better military than Ukraine, but "paper" doesn't account for intangible factors like "ability to plan and execute". Moreover, from my understanding, Russian generals or intelligence officials were kept out of the loop until a week or two before the invasion was launched--they planned for a military exercise. So it's possible that the Russian military is a lot more capable, but that Putin foolishly hamstrung it.

The main thing it didn't account for is two decades of graft and mismanagement's influence on operational readiness and troop morale.

The worrisome thing, of course, is that if Russia succeeds in Ukraine (for some value of 'succeeds' that is not complete failure), then there will be some squirrelly part of Putin's brain that will tell him that he could make that work against Romania or the Baltics, which would trigger a direct NATO response.

> which would trigger a direct NATO response.

In spite of everything that has been said about this: or not. I'm not convinced that NATO is going to actually deliver on its obligations, after all, if we're willing to let a country of 45 million people be invaded and murdered wholesale I have a hard time convincing myself that NATO's obligations will suddenly make everything different if for instance say Estonia (much, much smaller) would get invaded.

I've seen this take before, but I don't understand it at all. The whole point of a defensive treaty is to draw a line in the sand. Ukraine is on the other side of that line, unfortunately. This is black and white.

Russia would certainly screech threats of nuclear retaliation in response to conventional defenses, but NATO has no choice but to defend all its members. To do anything else is madness, it destroys the treaty entirely.

Indeed it does. Now ponder that for a while. NATO has never been actually tested, except when it was convenient (see: the coalition of the willing/bribed).

I totally understand the point of the treaty. But the treaty never took into account nuclear blackmail - because that is what is happening here - and if that works once I don't see any reason why it would not work again. Country 'x' should leave NATO or we'll nuke everybody. After all, why not? Once you've crossed the line of using nuclear weapons for blackmail I really don't see why you'd stop.

Because strategy isn't binary. Putin expected to gain a certain amount of benefit and suffer a certain amount of cost. It seems like he's paying a higher cost than he'd predicted.

Nothing about that scenario makes it obvious for him to consider paying an even higher cost for a different adventure.

That depends. If you look at it from the perspective of a rational player in a non-zero sum game, then yes, you are right. But if you look at it from the perspective of a gambler with nothing to lose then there is no reason why at some point he would not go 'all in' to get a potential win versus a sure loss.

Well, geopolitics is (generally) rational players in a non-zero sum game. I can't imagine how any world leader could have "nothing to lose", but regardless, it doesn't describe Putin.

This is the problem, it may very well describe Putin.

A defensive treaty has to be plausible. When NATO was just Western and Southern Europe, it was at least somewhat plausible that the US would go to the brink of nuclear war in its defense. The expansion into Eastern Europe, and especially the expansion into small (and with all due respect, not geopolitically important) Eastern European countries, NATO has lost credibility. The US should not be willing to go to total war in defense in the Baltic countries. Everyone knows that. Honestly, the only reason to take the threat seriously is if you think the US establishment is irrational. And there is reason to think that. See, for example, the hysterical demands for a shooting war with Russia over Ukraine from sitting US Senators and retired generals.

The US should encourage the development of a European army and the creation of a purely European defense pact. Certainly, Germany, France, and Poland have more interest in the Baltics than the US. Then, NATO should be contracted to only include core US interests.

Certainly, the United States had more interest in Iraq and Afghanistan than say Germany, France and Poland.

Ukraine is not a NATO country while Estonia is a NATO country.

Yes, that's why I used those two as examples.

If Estonia were invaded, that might not seem vital to the US, but it might seem very vital to Poland, Latvia, Romania, Finland, etc., who would all feel quite directly threatened by such an event. They would all be immediately on the phone to Germany, France, and all the other NATO countries.

On current evidence, Russia would easily lose a conventional war against the EU (Germany, France, Italy, etc), which is the scenario that would theoretically arise if they attacked non-NATO Finland.

And how much to defeat the USA after our failures in afghanistan and iraq?

Arms reduction treaties were broken by the US first. The US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019.

Perhaps, but this was done in response to Russia's blatant violation and disregard to it first.

Nuclear proliferation is absolutely good thing. Just imagine if Iraq or Afghanistan had nukes and capability to deliver them to DC or NYC. And did exactly that in response. World would be much more happy and safe place.

So world would be a much safer place if Iraq dropped a nuke in NYC?

Next you're gonna tell me that pinning NPM dependencies is a bad thing.

You don't think that it would not deter further acts of aggressions?

There would obviously be retaliation and a huge number of dead people on both sides. So.. No?

Possibly US would use your reasoning to erase Iraq from map, depending on who the current president is.

The next paradigm of Nuclear arms is going to be on the defense side. If nation (whether nuclear armed or not) can parry ICBMs with close to 100% certainty, the entire game theory of Nuclear arms falls apart.

Can nations effectively parry ICBMs with anywhere close to 100% certainty? I assume ICBMs aren't created equal, and at a certain point you can presumably just throw more volume at the problem and overwhelm defenses (depends on the economics of defensive systems vs ICBMs).

But you never get to 100%, so this is not a useful thing to mention.

You could get 99%, then just add some more re-entry vehicles on the bus and call it a day, it's like perfect security for websites, you have to get everything they only have to get something. And they always do. Starwars failed for a pretty good reason, the numbers just don't work out to the advantage of the defenders. The best way to defend against nukes is to make sure they don't make it off the launchpad/sub.

Yeeeeah, that ship has sailed. Look up hypersonic missiles. China and the US have both tested them already, and there is basically no hopes of a counter measure that I'm aware of.

I was going to mention that. I don't think there is any violation of Physics or Engineering principles that prevents one from developing counter hypersonic missile measures. My guess is that it is already under research (Laser!?).

SpaceX's Starlink program has a military component to it and no one can say for sure, but the CTO of Starlink was a 4-star general heading US Space Force until 2021.

Even Doctor Manhattan couldn't catch them all.

The death blow came when Khadaffi was brutally murdered in 2011 by NATO allies after promising to give up his nuke program in exchange for non aggression pact.

This is what spurred North Korea to finish its nuke program.

This is ultimately also what led to Russia seeing NATO encroachment on Ukraine a an offensive threat.

It was possibly one of the worst pieces of foreign policy ever executed.

Wikipedia suggests he was killed by the Misrata militia, not NATO or any NATO allies. NATO's intervention in Libya was implementing UN Security Council Resolution, in order to stop Gadaffi's slaughter of civilians and other war crimes.

Pretty much agree with this sentiment, but it is techincally correct that Gadaffi's death was partially responsibility of a very loose ally (National Liberation Army) of a couple NATO nations (US, France, and UK). These NATO nations supplied equipment to anti-Gadaffi forces.

Of course, the way it was worded was to ensure it was technically correct while sending an entirely different message. The best kind of propoganda.

It's worth noting nukes don't necessarily stop a civil war. Gadaffi's murder was one of the most poetic pieces of justice witnessed in the modern era, a blade shoved up his asshole perforating his internal organs as a beautiful piece of red-soaked art representing the fruits of his metaphorical fucking in the ass of protestors who were systematically shot.

Of course the idea that Gadaffi was actually a murderous psychopath (one with many domestic enemies) who orchestrated the killing of innocent protestors (who later joined overthrowing domestic militias with only the loosest affiliation to NATO nations) challenges a strongly held world view of some romanticists and is therefore very hard to swallow.

> These NATO nations supplied equipment to anti-Gadaffi forces.

>> Moments after it was reported that Gaddafi was killed, Fox News published an article titled "U.S. Drone Involved in Final Qaddafi Strike, as Obama Heralds Regime's 'End'",[49] noting that a U.S. Predator drone was involved in the airstrike on Gaddafi's convoy in the moments before his death. An anonymous U.S. official subsequently described their policy in hindsight as "lead[ing] from behind".[50]

>> Because Libyan rebels had consistently told American government officials that they did not want overt foreign military assistance in toppling Gaddafi, covert military assistance was used (including arms shipments to opposition). The plan following Gaddafi's death was to immediately begin flowing humanitarian assistance to eastern Libya and later western Libya, as the symbolism would be critically important. U.S. sources stressed it as important that they would "not allow Turkey, Italy and others to steal a march on it".[51]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Muammar_Gaddafi#For...

That's just a long winded way of agreeing with my statement that said "These NATO nations supplied equipment to anti-Gadaffi forces."

There's a decent argument to be made these people were temporary allies of a few NATO nations, although I think it distorts the reality that they were just militias supplied as part of a campaign to destabilize Libya and opportunistically kill Gadaffi, and were at best only marginally considered meaningfully being 'NATO allies.' The actions themselves of course were performed largely by citizens (or unrecognized/undocumented residents, such as Taureg [ although many Taureg were pro-Gadaffi] ) of Libya.

*sigh*

> noting that a U.S. Predator drone was involved in the airstrike on Gaddafi's convoy in the moments before his death

> U.S. Predator drone was involved in the airstrike on Gaddafi's convoy

> U.S. Predator drone

Nobody "supplied" Predators to anyone. USAF (!) not only flown Predator there, but at least relayed some information about the convoy to the ... intersted parties and quite possibly actively participated in the airstrike. I can't sweep that under "just supplied equipment" banner.

>Of course, the way it was worded was to ensure it was technically correct while sending an entirely different message.

I'm confused. Was I misleading? What message was I supposed to be sending that was so very wrong?

For some reason I've noticed this particular topic (I've raised it a few times in the last three weeks) has led to some truly bizarre straw man inferences about what I really meant that I never thought I would have to refute.

I am not sure why.

It's because it challenges a strongly held world view and is therefore very hard to swallow.

And the fact that US and some other NATO members do sketchy shit across the world isn't a strongly held world view? In my experience it's not controversial at all to suggest the US does stuff like fund nun-raping El Salvadorian mercs. I get it, I'm american and I love blaming my government too because they pretty often deserve it.

People practically salivate to blame everything on the richest NATO nations like US/UK/France but often can't handle the notion that a disgusting dictator got ass-raped via knife by a bunch of pissed off locals and the entire thing wasn't orchestrated step-by-step by some dude in a suit in the Pentagon. Of course I don't deny the US cheered the whole thing on by showering the opposition with equipment and cash, there's nothing the Pentagon and White House love more than a good 3rd world blood orgy.

And now Putin is destroying a country of 40 million people because he believes that this is what WE have planned for him. With good reason. We probably do.

Yeah we do love a good 3rd world blood orgy. We will keep loving it until one day it spills over to where we live.

By that time it'll be a decade or so too late.

And do you think destroying Ukraine has improved Putin's chance of avoiding 'what WE have planned for him' (whatever that is)?

The average person who hears 'NATO allies' presumes the allies who are members of NATO. I get what you actually meant was some (largely domestic to Libya or at least regional) militias who could technically be called a temporary 'ally' (more like useful idiots for destabilizing Libya) of NATO members in the sense they were provided equipment by a few NATO aligned nations. Saying 'loose affiliates receiving equipment from a few nations in NATO' doesn't have quite the ring to it though.

But I think you know full well what 'NATO allies' is perceived to be by the general populace, namely the allied member nations of NATO. Of course you can simply deny this, and no one will be able to disprove it.

>The average person who hears 'NATO allies' presumes the allies who are members of NATO.

Theyre called member states.

>who could technically be called a temporary 'ally'

I really dont see what else you'd call the Libyan militants other than allies of NATO.

It's pretty clear that the facts as they stand without implication of any sort make you uncomfortable.

>Theyre called member states.

The actual treaty does not call them member states. Member states is one accurate term to use, you can also call them 'NATO allies' or use the words NATO themselves use which is 'NATO countries.' Wikipedia for instance calls the member countries 'NATO allies' to refer to the member states at one point in the 'NATO' page, which you know damn well is what someone thinks of when you say 'NATO allies.' When you ask a 'member state' who their NATO allies are, no one is gonna say "Libyan Militias!"

>It's pretty clear that the facts as they stand without implication of any sort make you uncomfortable.

The only thing I find 'uncomfortable' is unscrupulous use of deceptive terminology.

I don't think that what you said contradicts the parent post, that nukes would have protected Ghaddifi.

Wouldn't the Misrata be considered NATO allies in Libya at the time, given they were both fighting against Ghaddafi? Do you think NATO would have intervened if Ghaddafi had nukes? Would the Misrata have been able to kill him if NATO had not intervened?

It doesn't matter why someone wants to attack. It's been the case that countries with nukes don't get attacked like countries without nukes.

>NATO's intervention in Libya was implementing UN Security Council Resolution, in order to stop Gadaffi's slaughter of civilians and other war crimes

If NATO can pretend it intervened just to implement the UN security council resolution and protect civvies then Putin can say he invaded Ukraine to denazify it.

NATO committed war crimes in Libya. It wasnt the slightest bit interested in preventing the slaughter of civilians - NATO ships wouldnt even rescue refugees on a sinking ship that were calling out to them.

They only wanted regime change and once Khadaffi was gone and the country was a destroyed mess and a failed state they immediately lost interest.

I am very surprised by the comments on this thread.

If there’s one thing that is clear from Putin’s war is that we need to eliminate all nuclear weapons from this planet. No exceptions. Humanity is going nowhere if we maintain the status quo.

Not easy, of course. That does not mean we should not do it.

The US failed immensely.

As soon as the B2 was operational in 97, our policy should have been that we will immediately destroy any site not declared in advance and thoroughly monitored by the IAEA.

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