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> 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 ass
by 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 agoUkraine 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 agoI 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...