If everyone has nuclear weapons, humanity will destroy itself.
And it is still not too late to do something about this, but the clock is running out fast. Luckily, every single one of us can help it by making that clock run slower with donations directly to the Ukrainian military effort (not some wishy-washy "non-combat humanitarian aid" stuff). Every dollar spent on buying drones for Ukraine to blow up Russian tanks with buys that many more minutes on that clock.
As for the rest: the failure to uphold the commitments made in the Budapest Memorandum contributed to the deterioration of relations between Ukraine and Russia, leading to the conflict in eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreements were then pursued as a diplomatic effort to address and resolve the resulting crisis.
Regardless of any of that, it was between pro-Russians in eastern Ukraine vs. the Ukrainian government. The conflict in eastern Ukraine involved clashes between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups. These groups, often referred to as "separatists" or "rebels" declared independence in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and established self-proclaimed republics. Amidst the conflict, efforts were made to negotiate ceasefires and peace agreements. The Minsk agreements, as mentioned earlier, were one such attempt to bring about a cessation of hostilities and a political resolution to the conflict. However, the ceasefire has been repeatedly violated, and the conflict remains unresolved. Might I add that the ceasefire in eastern Ukraine has been repeatedly violated by both Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups. Both sides have been accused of violating the terms of the ceasefire agreements outlined in the Minsk accords. You can read more about it.
For the record, Donbass is often used as a term to refer to the eastern regions of Ukraine, particularly Donetsk and Luhansk, where the conflict between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatist groups has been ongoing since 2014. Those regions are where pro-Russian sentiment is significant.
The Court held, on the basis of the vast body of evidence before it, that Russia had effective control over all areas in the hands of separatists from 11 May 2014 on account of its military presence in eastern Ukraine and the decisive degree of influence it enjoyed over these areas as a result of its military, political and economic support to the “DPR” and the “LPR”. In particular, the Court found it established beyond any reasonable doubt that there had been Russian military personnel present in an active capacity in Donbass from April 2014 and that there had been a large-scale deployment of Russian troops from, at the very latest, August 2014. It further found that the respondent State had a significant influence on the separatists’ military strategy. Several prominent separatists in command positions were senior members of the Russian military acting under Russian instructions, including the person who had had formal overall command of the armed forces of the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Further, Russia had provided weapons and other military equipment to separatists on a significant scale (including the Buk-missile used to shoot down flight MH17). Russia had carried out artillery attacks upon requests from the separatists and provided other military support. There was also clear evidence of political support, including at international level, being provided to the “DPR” and the “LPR” and the Russian Federation had played a significant role in their financing enabling their economic survival.
By the time of the 11 May 2014 “referendums”, the separatist operation as a whole had been managed and coordinated by the Russian Federation. The threshold for establishing Russian jurisdiction in respect of allegations concerning events which took place within these areas after 11 May 2014 had therefore been passed. That finding meant that the acts and omissions of the separatists were automatically attributable to the Russian Federation. /---/ In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that the dependence of the entities on Russia had decreased since 2014, the jurisdiction of the respondent State continued as at the date of the hearing on 26 January 2022.As far as knowing what it's all about - I am a Russian citizen, I was born in Russia and lived most of my life there; I know full well what it's about, thank you very much. I've read military fiction about invading Ukraine (where Russians were, of course, the good guys) as far back as 2008 ("Эпоха мертворожденных), and I've heard others joking and sharing wishful thoughts about the same back in 1990s. If anything, what Western audiences often don't understand is that this isn't some kind of new thinking that first emerged in 2014, or even in 2004 during the Orange Revolution. The notion of restoring the historical "greater Russia", which unambiguously includes most of Ukraine, has been a staple of Russian imperial politics since the dissolution of the USSR - and open unabashed imperialism is very popular in Russia.
(That word "imperial", by the way, is not some kind of political slur, either - "имперец" is what the adherents literally call themselves, because they are proud of it. So, yeah, Russia is the textbook imperialist invader. And imperialism is bad, without a doubt.)
Now, that all doesn't mean that Ukraine cannot and doesn't do bad things of its own. But that is not why it got invaded, so it's all irrelevant.
And it's even more irrelevant in the original context of my post. Regardless of the why, the point is this: Ukraine surrendered its nukes in exchange for security guarantees wrt its sovereignty and territorial integrity. This was hailed as as an exemplar act and a major milestone for nuclear non-proliferation. Then Ukraine got invaded - by one of the countries that provided those guarantees, no less! - and meanwhile other countries who signed that agreement and convinced Ukraine to sign it are unwilling to actually intervene to the degree necessary to secure its territorial integrity, effectively reneging on their promise. Now, Ukraine is at the risk of being completely overrun and fully occupied. And on the other hand, we have North Korea, which developed its own nukes from scratch, and, despite constant state of confrontation with US, has never been invaded or even bombed since. For any other small country watching all this from the sidelines, what is the obvious takeaway? Why, it's that international security guarantees aren't worth shit, and that a larger country can always steamroll over your conventional military, but nukes are an effective deterrent.
Thoughts?
In the extreme case of NATO breaking up, you should expect most central European countries will get nukes to deter Russia.
If US becomes more uncertain as a security backstop, Japan, Philippines and Vietnam will seek nukes because they have no choice if they wish to be assured security against China.
Small countries are observing Western appeasement and the US political right's betrayal of Ukraine and wondering if it'll happen to them. Remember the assurances Clinton gave them if they renounced nukes? Words and signed paper count for little.
Everyone cares about themselves, where the lesson is increasingly: if you do not have nuclear weapons, someone will, possibly very soon, destroy you.
I clearly stated that equilibrium is only attainable if everyone has access to nuclear weapons - as in every single sovereign nation - or no one.
I prefer an equilibrium of the latter kind.
[0] https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority...
Maybe consider real humans while evaluating game theory?