My point is, Ukraine war and the way it evolved shows that not having nukes is a bad position.
Israel (allegedly? idk) has nukes. Did it stop October 7th? Did it stop Iran from firing ballistic missiles?
The war of today is not an open war (the war in Ukraine did not start on February 24 2022, but in 2014) where nuclear deterrence matters. Nuke will never help if the war is waged through proxies.
Citing:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47157393
> I've spoken with engineers who worked on nuclear weapons systems, the consensus is that the public is deeply misinformed about how they work, the dangers, and the implications of weapons being used. (...)
> The biggest danger of a nuclear weapon is being hit by flying debris.
> Fusion airburst bombs of the modern era are incredibly clean and radiation is only a risk in a very small area (tens of miles) for a short time (days to weeks). (...)
Plus if Israel thinks it's fine to use them, then countries that don't like Israel will be glad to get that approval to go ahead with using their own
Now you're getting closer to the real reason ...
And today Ukraine is doing quite amazing, considering 12 years of war. I can only dream what it would be if russians didn't steal a generation. Giving up nukes was a giant mistake.
Back then, giving up on nukes never was about compromising security. In 1993, I remember being full of hope and opportunity to live in peaceful world with less nukes. It felt like we had our backs by France, UK and USA. That was a move full of betrayed optimism, not desperation - giving up third world arsenal because the future is bright.
And pretty sure people who built those ICBMs and strategic bombers would have no issue maintaining them.
USA didn't pressure Ukraine into giving up nukes, at the same time bankrolling russian nuclear program for 'security' reasons.
However, a lot could have happened in two decades, and Ukraine had to go through many issues typical of post-Soviet countries at the time. The risk associated with warheads being sold by generals or oligarchs was seen as a real one, see for instance:
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-09/press-releases/russi...
Instead believing in bright and peaceful future USA, France and UK promised. As Ukrainian who lived in Ukraine in 90s that felt like being on a frontier of the modern world, giving up the nukes. Oh, how full of hope we were.
They couldn't operate them, all electronics were in Moscow anyway, nor afford to maintain them or even guard them.
At the very same time Ukraine's corrupted military sold out on the black market tens of billions of weaponry.
In your alternate universe, bad actors acquire and reverse engineer those nuclear weapons resulting in a world that's much more dangerous.
Ukraine would be better off keeping them and all of us would be safer.
Because as of now, bad actors (Russia, USA, China) have nukes. Ukraine does not and that is making Russia expand. Meanwhile USA is run entirely but bad actors.
Not six months ago, Trump launched a strike that "completely obliterated" Iran's ability to obtain nukes. And then, either because he has the memory of a goldfish, or thinks that we do (both are somewhat true), he pulled out "a week away", again, at the SOTU. "We must attack Iran to destroy what I told you we destroyed last year."
Iran may be planning to do so. But this is just a boogeyman being used (again) by Israel and the US.
Iran's theocratic regime just murdered tens of thousands of protestors, regularly organizes chants of "Death to America", calls the US "The Great Satan", sponsors terror organizations all around the region, has (through their Houthi proxies) cut off critical sea lanes in one of the most strategic areas, is very close to developing nuclear weapons (with enough HEU already to build maybe a dozen bombs), has extensive ballistic missile magazines and expertise, and is working on ICBMs explicitly to reach the US homeland.
But oh yeah, this is totally unprovoked and the US has no business attacking Iran. Right.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-stored-highly...
The IAEA estimates that Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to up to
60% before last year's Israeli-U.S. attacks - enough, if enriched further,
for 10 nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick.
The agency and Western powers believe the bulk of that is still intact.
Washington wants Tehran to give it up.
Keyword there. They said they were not pursuing weapon enrichment.
Let's also not pretend that the US and israel care about international law, after all, there are arrest warrants by the ICC against israeli officials.
> They said they were not pursuing weapon enrichment.
There is literally no other reason for Iran to enrich to 60% U235 than for weapons.
Like do people in US realize that countries around the world take notes about what happened to the Libyas and Iraqs and many others (like Colombia recently) and see that the US will attack other countries with impunity.
The US feels threatened by Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and has the military force to stop them, probably. Diplomatic avenues bore no fruit. Military force is now being used to--hopefully--end the threat definitively.
Yes, of course we are aware of what happened to Ghaddafi. It's very en vogue to point out the game theoretical incentives to develop nuclear weapons.
But seemingly people never bring up South Africa's disarmament. And nobody ever mentions that game theory also incentivizes the US prevent their adversaries from developing nuclear weapons where possible.
Giving up or stopping development of nukes may invite attack. Refusing to stop developing them may also invite attack.