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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Makes you wonder why we demanded ukraine disarm and give up its nukes after the fall of the Soviet Union

We were in the second nuclear age, that of non-proliferation [1]. As the USSR weakened, MAD became unstable. Non-proliferation was the superpowers’ solution. The system sort of worked. It started coming apart between the second Iraq war and Ghadaffi’s toppling (showing the consequences of lacking nukes) and Russia’s invasion of Crimea (showing the power of having them).

With the benefit of hindsight, non-proliferation stemmed from the same misplaced optimism that led the U.S. to welcome China into the WTO.

> Who is sanctioning or trying to sanction russia to prevent russia from trading their products around the world?

Nobody is targeting Russian grain, which continues to trade [2].

[1] https://mondediplo.com/2022/04/03nuclear

[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-17/russian-g...

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> With the benefit of hindsight, non-proliferation stemmed from the same misplaced optimism that led the U.S. to welcome China into the WTO.

Totally correct. It's impossible to talk of global peace when you know that 2 most malevolent political entities on the planet were not only let to live, but empowered by yesterday's victor, all knowing that internal elites of USSR, and PRC were burning with "Never forget USA!" It was totally the West repeating the folly of king Helu.

Yet, I believe the humanity was close to achieving real global peace after the USSR's collapse if more effort was made.

We already seen that UN based security can work in nineties, when Russia, and China were made to lay cathartic.

If we can defeat the USSR 2.0, and PRC, we would have a very real shot at working global security system as was imagined by UN's forefathers.

>Yet, I believe the humanity was close to achieving real global peace after the USSR's collapse if more effort was made.

Does global here mean "the US, Europe, Australia and Japan"? I followed this a bit, but it's concerning that you don't consider the US a malevolent entity. By numbers alone, the in the last 30 years the US has done the most harm to innocent civilians worldwide.

I read the GP a lot more differently, in that non-proliferation was a mistake and if you are a nation-state it's likely of utmost importance that you begin to build nukes in order to prevent Russia (if you are Ukraine), China (if you are Taiwan) or the US (if you are Iran, Palestine, Libya), for fucking your shit up.

It might make sense to integrate the effect.

Are aspects of US power malevolent? Absolutely.

Did US protected trade routes also bring billions out of poverty by letting the spice flow? Absolutely.

Are all countries flawed? Absolutely.

I'm interested what numbers you're pulling that tell the story of the US doing more harm (define harm?) to innocent civilians versus, just the first example that comes to mind, the uyghur genocide.

>"were not only let to live"

At that point Russia was choke full of nukes. How can you possibly not "let them live" without being annihilated in return.

>"UN based security can work"

Remind me when did UN security ever stop the US doing whatever they've decided to do.

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