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.
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.