5 ms·

It's good to remember Ukraine never possessed operational control of them [0], so I'm not sure how much is "willingly giving up own's nuclear weapons" since the

by 0x_rs 5y ago

It's good to remember Ukraine never possessed operational control of them [0], so I'm not sure how much is "willingly giving up own's nuclear weapons" since they never had concrete nuclear deterrence capability, and circumstances (treaties and support from both Russia and NATO) required them to do so. Their decision has been impacting their condition ever since. But this may be the good outcome for all we may ever know, for they may have been alone otherwise. 0. https://www.nti.org/countries/ukraine/ https://www.nti.org/countries/ukraine/

adrian_b 5y ago
While it is correct that Ukraine did not have operational control over the nuclear weapons, anybody who have nuclear weapons in their possession, and who have the engineering resources of an entire state, would be easily able to disassemble the weapons, reverse engineer the connections to the devices that initiate the detonation and substitute the control units in order to gain operational control. Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. Therefore Ukraine, and any country which would have been in the same situation and would have chosen to give up their own nuclear weapons, really made willingly a choice to act in this way, because they also had the alternative choice of gaining control over the weapons and the Russians would not have been able to stop them.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. But how much would it have cost to keep those warheads and their rocket engines and all the associated infrastructure in good working order, and secure from accidental launch or denotation, for decades up to the present day? When the decision was made, I suspect it was not at all clear that having the ability to nuke Russia might be an option worth spending billions on, and at the end of the Cold War many Ukrainians might have thought that the real threat would be from the West (so they could rely on Russian nukes to protect them). The point still stands, though, that nuclear weapons are a powerful (if expensive) insurance policy for a sovereign nation against unforeseeable future geopolitical risks.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Ukraine has a space industry. Just this week a rocket went up which was Russian engines, on a Ukranian second stage, with a US payload. So while it would be expensive..history pretty much shows it would've been cheaper for Ukraine then what's currently happening, and they definitely have the knowledge and skills locally to do it.
  - Aeolun 5y ago
    > But how much would it have cost to keep those warheads and their rocket engines and all the associated infrastructure in good working order, and secure from accidental launch or denotation, for decades up to the present day? If Russia can do it for a few thousand warheads, Ukraine can too. It’s not like their economies are that different.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      I suspect that developing, maintaining, and securing a few thousand nuclear missiles is not 1000 times more expensive than doing so for just a few nuclear missiles. To give some figures, the IMF estimates that the sizes of the economies in 2021 (in US$ million, PPP) were: * Russia 4,328,122 * Ukraine 576,106 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >would be easily able to disassemble the weapons, reverse engineer the connections to the devices that initiate the detonation and substitute the control units in order to gain operational control. Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. I think you're massively underestimating the effort needed to have operational nuclear weapons. Nuclear missiles aren't like a car that you can just hotwire and jump start and something you can store and forget in their silos for years and then dust them off when you need them, but require constant and ludicrously expensive maintenance to stay operational. First you need to have the rockets well maintained and tested to make sure then can have successful lift-off, then make sure the guidance systems are accurate enough to deliver your payload to the target. Secondly and probably the most difficult, you need the detonation mechanism well maintained and tested, as the nuclear reaction needs super precise timing of the fissile material inside the chamber. Otherwise, even if you're lucky and hit your target, if the nuclear reaction is off, the explosion will be a dud and not cause much damage. This is not something trivial that can be pulled off successfully in a few months notice, but you need a coordinated round the clock, and very costly, national program like the nuclear programs of France, UK, US, etc.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Ukraine had all the necessary resources, except funds maybe. Not that transforming your fancy missle warheads into free-falling bombs wouldn't work. Or artillery shells, a country running quite a few nuclear reactors should be able to do so if it really wants.
  - baybal2 5y ago
    Russia actually had much harder time to maintain its arsenal than Ukraine because most of USSR's nuclear industry was in Ukraine.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  > and who have the engineering resources of an entire state It's not at all clear Ukraine had that kind of resources to invest in a nuclear weapons program, even if its government decided it would like to have one. Not to mention the fact that, were a decision like this taken, a Russian invasion would have been put into motion within the week. > Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. I believe you are massively underestimating here.
baybal2 5y ago
> It's good to remember Ukraine never possessed operational control of them [0], Ukraine had full control, and an operational arsenal for a few years. There was no such thing as a PAL on Soviet nuclear weapons. Ukraine had a fully functioning nuclear force for these few years. I will give no credibility to claims of Western think tanks who can't tell apart a tank from an apc.
- 0x_rs 5y ago
  This goes against my knowledge and documentation available on the matter. Any sources on these claims? Thank you. >By early 1994 the only barrier to Ukraine's ability to exercise full operational control over the nuclear weapons on missiles and bombers deployed on its soil was its inability to circumvent Russian permissive action links (PALs). (from "Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink" by Barry R. Schneider)
  - baybal2 5y ago
    I find the whole corpus of Western military writing on USSR, and later as "generally unreliable." Just too much of fiction writers working in these think tanks to pump grants, and research funding. Even today, go and lookup a number of articles on something very trivial, say, "Russian general military doctrine," and your will get absolutely random, and bizarre assortment of opinions not agreeing on anything, despite that the official doctrine document in Russian is not secret at all, and is easily googleable on the internet. A lot of them are just regurgitating each other's data without any original input, or validation. A broken telephone effect ensures.
    - 0x_rs 5y ago
      But all sources I can see indicate Soviet weapons did indeed use PAL-equivalent security systems and there's no indication that Ukraine ever had a "fully functioning nuclear force". Some argue it would have taken a few years to acquire complete control of those within their borders had they not been handed over or destroyed. Excerpts from "The Soviet Nuclear Legacy", 1995: >Fourth, nuclear warheads and or delivery vehicles are equipped with switches that permit arming and fusing only when a given code is entered-these devices are called permissive action links (PALs) in the USA. Launch crews do not have these enabling codes, which are provided by higher commanders prior to actual use. All categories of strategic weapons in the FSU are believed to be covered by PALs. >To launch an ICBM, for example, now requires a '12-digit key' inserted via a complex and apparently highly secure system, and originating with the top political and military leadership. The ICBM crews do not normally have access to be able to launch missiles, but must receive a special 'preliminary' command from the top military leadership. Then they must receive additional codes that physically unblock the missiles for which they are responsible. Only when they have received these codes and commands do the crews have the physical ability to fire any of the 10 missiles in their group , . . The crews must correctly insert the codes in three tries, with an allowable time span of several seconds between each try, or else the crews are locked out and unable to perform the launch sequence. After a certain span of time has expired, the blocking system is automatically activated. consultable at https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/RR/SIPRIRR10.pdf https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/RR/SIPRIRR10...
raxxorrax 5y ago
Ukrainians are highly educated despite the poor situation of the economy. The main blockage for nuclear weapons is getting uranium enriched to weapons grade. If you have that, the next step to a bomb is much easier. Japan does not have nukes although they possess a full enrichment cycle. But they are the only country that does to my knowledge and have their reasons for a moratorium.

by 0x_rs 5y ago

adrian_b 5y ago

While it is correct that Ukraine did not have operational control over the nuclear weapons, anybody who have nuclear weapons in their possession, and who have the engineering resources of an entire state, would be easily able to disassemble the weapons, reverse engineer the connections to the devices that initiate the detonation and substitute the control units in order to gain operational control. Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. Therefore Ukraine, and any country which would have been in the same situation and would have chosen to give up their own nuclear weapons, really made willingly a choice to act in this way, because they also had the alternative choice of gaining control over the weapons and the Russians would not have been able to stop them.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. But how much would it have cost to keep those warheads and their rocket engines and all the associated infrastructure in good working order, and secure from accidental launch or denotation, for decades up to the present day? When the decision was made, I suspect it was not at all clear that having the ability to nuke Russia might be an option worth spending billions on, and at the end of the Cold War many Ukrainians might have thought that the real threat would be from the West (so they could rely on Russian nukes to protect them). The point still stands, though, that nuclear weapons are a powerful (if expensive) insurance policy for a sovereign nation against unforeseeable future geopolitical risks.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Ukraine has a space industry. Just this week a rocket went up which was Russian engines, on a Ukranian second stage, with a US payload. So while it would be expensive..history pretty much shows it would've been cheaper for Ukraine then what's currently happening, and they definitely have the knowledge and skills locally to do it.
- Aeolun 5y ago
  > But how much would it have cost to keep those warheads and their rocket engines and all the associated infrastructure in good working order, and secure from accidental launch or denotation, for decades up to the present day? If Russia can do it for a few thousand warheads, Ukraine can too. It’s not like their economies are that different.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    I suspect that developing, maintaining, and securing a few thousand nuclear missiles is not 1000 times more expensive than doing so for just a few nuclear missiles. To give some figures, the IMF estimates that the sizes of the economies in 2021 (in US$ million, PPP) were: * Russia 4,328,122 * Ukraine 576,106 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...
ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>would be easily able to disassemble the weapons, reverse engineer the connections to the devices that initiate the detonation and substitute the control units in order to gain operational control. Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. I think you're massively underestimating the effort needed to have operational nuclear weapons. Nuclear missiles aren't like a car that you can just hotwire and jump start and something you can store and forget in their silos for years and then dust them off when you need them, but require constant and ludicrously expensive maintenance to stay operational. First you need to have the rockets well maintained and tested to make sure then can have successful lift-off, then make sure the guidance systems are accurate enough to deliver your payload to the target. Secondly and probably the most difficult, you need the detonation mechanism well maintained and tested, as the nuclear reaction needs super precise timing of the fissile material inside the chamber. Otherwise, even if you're lucky and hit your target, if the nuclear reaction is off, the explosion will be a dud and not cause much damage. This is not something trivial that can be pulled off successfully in a few months notice, but you need a coordinated round the clock, and very costly, national program like the nuclear programs of France, UK, US, etc.
- hef19898 5y ago
  Ukraine had all the necessary resources, except funds maybe. Not that transforming your fancy missle warheads into free-falling bombs wouldn't work. Or artillery shells, a country running quite a few nuclear reactors should be able to do so if it really wants.
- baybal2 5y ago
  Russia actually had much harder time to maintain its arsenal than Ukraine because most of USSR's nuclear industry was in Ukraine.
einpoklum 5y ago
> and who have the engineering resources of an entire state It's not at all clear Ukraine had that kind of resources to invest in a nuclear weapons program, even if its government decided it would like to have one. Not to mention the fact that, were a decision like this taken, a Russian invasion would have been put into motion within the week. > Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most. I believe you are massively underestimating here.

baybal2 5y ago

> It's good to remember Ukraine never possessed operational control of them [0], Ukraine had full control, and an operational arsenal for a few years. There was no such thing as a PAL on Soviet nuclear weapons. Ukraine had a fully functioning nuclear force for these few years. I will give no credibility to claims of Western think tanks who can't tell apart a tank from an apc.

0x_rs 5y ago
This goes against my knowledge and documentation available on the matter. Any sources on these claims? Thank you. >By early 1994 the only barrier to Ukraine's ability to exercise full operational control over the nuclear weapons on missiles and bombers deployed on its soil was its inability to circumvent Russian permissive action links (PALs). (from "Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink" by Barry R. Schneider)
- baybal2 5y ago
  I find the whole corpus of Western military writing on USSR, and later as "generally unreliable." Just too much of fiction writers working in these think tanks to pump grants, and research funding. Even today, go and lookup a number of articles on something very trivial, say, "Russian general military doctrine," and your will get absolutely random, and bizarre assortment of opinions not agreeing on anything, despite that the official doctrine document in Russian is not secret at all, and is easily googleable on the internet. A lot of them are just regurgitating each other's data without any original input, or validation. A broken telephone effect ensures.
  - 0x_rs 5y ago
    But all sources I can see indicate Soviet weapons did indeed use PAL-equivalent security systems and there's no indication that Ukraine ever had a "fully functioning nuclear force". Some argue it would have taken a few years to acquire complete control of those within their borders had they not been handed over or destroyed. Excerpts from "The Soviet Nuclear Legacy", 1995: >Fourth, nuclear warheads and or delivery vehicles are equipped with switches that permit arming and fusing only when a given code is entered-these devices are called permissive action links (PALs) in the USA. Launch crews do not have these enabling codes, which are provided by higher commanders prior to actual use. All categories of strategic weapons in the FSU are believed to be covered by PALs. >To launch an ICBM, for example, now requires a '12-digit key' inserted via a complex and apparently highly secure system, and originating with the top political and military leadership. The ICBM crews do not normally have access to be able to launch missiles, but must receive a special 'preliminary' command from the top military leadership. Then they must receive additional codes that physically unblock the missiles for which they are responsible. Only when they have received these codes and commands do the crews have the physical ability to fire any of the 10 missiles in their group , . . The crews must correctly insert the codes in three tries, with an allowable time span of several seconds between each try, or else the crews are locked out and unable to perform the launch sequence. After a certain span of time has expired, the blocking system is automatically activated. consultable at https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/RR/SIPRIRR10.pdf https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/RR/SIPRIRR10...

raxxorrax 5y ago

Ukrainians are highly educated despite the poor situation of the economy. The main blockage for nuclear weapons is getting uranium enriched to weapons grade. If you have that, the next step to a bomb is much easier. Japan does not have nukes although they possess a full enrichment cycle. But they are the only country that does to my knowledge and have their reasons for a moratorium.