Why we should worry about nuclear weapons again
Why we should worry about nuclear weapons again
The prospect of global destruction in the Cold War has faded from people's consciousness, but the prospect of living on a nuclear wasteland remains.
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I mean, vis a vis Russia and China, the equation hasn’t really changed.
What has changed:
- low key pretty certain that orangeboi wants to set one off just because he can, because he has a psychopathic toddler mindset
- nuclear proliferation is the new black. As a direct result of the non-Russian signatories of the Budapest Memorandum doing effectively fuck-all to concretely back the security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity guarantees laid out in the agreement, it’s very obvious to any geopolitical actor worth their salt that the Memorandum is worth far less than the paper it’s written on. Nukes are the absolute, final word in territorial and sovereignty guarantees. Nobody will invade you if a possible response is “we will start glassing your cities”.
it’s very obvious to any geopolitical actor worth their salt that the Memorandum is worth far less than the paper it’s written on.
This has always been the case. Treaties are worthless if your opponent has more military might than you and decides you're its next target because fuck you that's why. After what happened with Ukraine, no country is ever going to give up their nukes again.
Well, yes and no.
We COULD have created a world in which security guarantees backed by major powers and/or alliances could serve as an effective guarantee of territory and sovereignty. All it would have taken is the geopolitical will to actually meaningfully assist Ukraine way back in 2014. But we didn’t, and here we are.
Oh absolutely.
But again, at the end of the day, the treaty is still a piece of paper, and the backing would only hold until the next megalomaniac rises to power, decides you're its next victim because fuck you that's why, and has the military might to back it up.
It's one of those weird paradoxes. If world leaders are sincerely interested in world peace, treaties are a formality that are barely even necessary. If our world leaders are the Donald Trumps and Vladmir Putins of the world, treaties are worthless pieces of paper.
It’s all about credibility.
If the promises/threats backing any geopolitical agreement aren’t seen as realistic, actionable, and credible, then the promises/threats are not meaningful.
Side note: what the US is doing right now is setting the credibility we’ve built up over a literal century on fire.