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Comment by sleepyguy | Hacker News Reader

I would like to see Canada arm itself with Nuclear Weapons. It is the only guarantee the USA/Russia will respect its territorial integrity.

North Korea has been the perfect example, and soon to be Iran, when it comes to securing yourself from invasion. Ukraine has been a lesson for the entire world, Nuclear Weapons are your only guarantee.

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North Korea and Iran are highly isolated regimes. Nearly all other countries are NPT signatories and can't just up and start assembling nukes in a basement without effectively dismantling the entire non-proliferation framework. It's unlikely Canada (or Poland) has any intent of doing that.

Nothing is stopping them from leaving the treaty. If it means your survival, it is a no brainer. Depending on other nations to honor their agreements for protection, etc is a joke. You have the US President openly speaking about annexing other nations and joining hands with Russia, Iran and North Korea. If that isn't enough of a warning than I don't know what is.

Nothing is stopping them from leaving the treaty.

Clearly, a lot of things are stopping them from leaving the treaty.

> can't just up and start assembling nukes in a basement without effectively dismantling the entire non-proliferation framework

Genuinely curious: what reason do you see they have to avoid this dismantling?

The fact that it's been reasonably (if imperfectly) effective for a very long time and statistically speaking, nobody is really looking forward to a universe in which, say, border or trade disputes turn into nuclear brinkmanship and the risk of proliferation to non-state actors is greatly increased. These agreements exist and continue to exist because the parties find them beneficial. I don't think a bit of ill-conceived smack talk from a Polish PM changes that.

I mean, Israel, South Africa, India and Pakistan did it, and the world didn’t end.

The NPT is arguably a relic of a world in which NATO was considered reliable. We may not be in that world anymore. If Putin invades Poland, will the US help? Or will Putin wave the piss tape in Trump’s face and bring him to heel? This is not as clear-cut as one might like it to be.

I didn't say anything about the world ending and none of these countries were NPT signatories. South Africa joined eventually.

We don't need to do this directly, but any attempt is high stakes. Cuba armed itself by proxy and while it has had some form of "independence" at what cost?

What a sad state of affairs really. Using nukes on your closest neighbour ? I understand why it is a deterrent but man, what happened in the past 6 months that we are now seeing news like these...?

I'm kidding. We know exactly what, I mean WHO, happened.

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