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It's one thing when you try and fail to make nukes. Ukraine had them and voluntarily gave them up for security assurances that turned out to be bullshit. This i

It's one thing when you try and fail to make nukes. Ukraine had them and voluntarily gave them up for security assurances that turned out to be bullshit. This is certainly partly the fault of Ukraine's politicians at the time - they should have seen the "Budapest memorandum" for the toilet paper it was. But it also buries any hopes that current nuclear states might be persuaded to give up nukes in the future. My view on this is that nuclear non-proliferation is a kind of sacred cow that everyone must be seen to support, but everyone understands that nuclear arms can be a stabilizing factor - they prevented numerous wars already, and prevented wars from getting out of control (e.g. India vs Pakistan). I don't know what the best way to maximize peace is, but it's not in any way clear to me that eradication (but especially reduction without eradication) of nuclear weapons is the way to get there. And it really doesn't matter to me how civilians die, in a Nagasaki nuclear explosion or a Tokyo firestorm.

tromp 5y ago
Ukraine had them, but Russia had exclusive control over those missiles [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  "Control" is a relative term. Ukraine had physical control, gaining full access is a problem akin to finding a way to open a safe you're lawfully in long-term possession of. Ukraine also has nuclear power stations galore and factories that allow it to make modern ballistic missiles.
  - mardifoufs 5y ago
    No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures. But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control. I'll try to find a pretty good thread, written by a nuclear expert who was part of the 1994s negotiations, that went into greater details and explained why ukraine never had the capacity to keep the nukes or even do anything useful with them.
    - kspacewalk2 5y ago
      >No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures. But not so hard that a nation of 40 million with many thousands of engineers who took part in designing every aspect of that bomb cannot figure it out if they want to. This would simply not be a serious issue. >But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. Hundreds of bombs, no. A dozen - easily. Yes, poor, but the sheer size of it would allow it to maintain a small nuclear arsenal. >And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control. It did control it, because it was on Ukrainian soil, and you greatly overestimate the ability of a large country to reverse engineer or replace some detonators.
- valdiorn 5y ago
  This is such a ridiculous fact everyone likes to bring up. If provided with an arsenal of working nukes sans launch control, it would take Ukrainian engineers and physicists maybe 2 weeks to bypass the existing controls and fabricate new ones. It's not like nukes have tamper proof switches.
  - kspacewalk2 5y ago
    2 weeks might be optimistic, but I agree that this is a non-issue.
zozbot234 5y ago
Nuclear arms can be a stabilizing factor in the near term, but nuclear proliferation is unquestionably dangerous: the more nukes are around, the more likely it is that accidents will happen. Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  >Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes. I don't see how such incentives are possible. At this point, any politician in a nuclear state who chooses to give up the ultimate insurance policy against the kind of invasion happening in Ukraine right now is essentially a traitor. What possible insurance policy can replace a nuke? Even things people consider ironclad security guarantees are very ambiguous and are only a sure thing short-term. Who's to say how a US or a German government will interpret Article 5 in 2070, for example? >The Parties agree ... that, if [an] armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force... You can drive a truck through that kind of ambiguity. All options including doing nothing are firmly on the table. If I'm Estonia, I just hope for the current climate of firm resolve to fight against aggression to remain indefinitely. But if I'm Poland or Turkey, I'm thinking long and hard about convincing someone to proliferate.
throwaway894345 5y ago
I generally agree with your point, but... > And it really doesn't matter to me how civilians die, in a Nagasaki nuclear explosion or a Tokyo firestorm. I'm pretty sure it's not likely or feasible to firestorm an entire country absent nuclear weapons. Put differently, nuclear weapons are concerning because of scale, not method, of death.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  While it's still thankfully impossible to firestorm an entire country, technological advancements in the 80 years that have passed since 1940s make it possible to inflict much greater damage using non-nuclear arms. If nukes deter countries from entering a war where such "conventional" power can be unleashed, then the (very real but nevertheless remote) threat of nuclear Armageddon is saving millions of lives by reducing much shorter odds of "conventional" regional/world wars. I always think about the millions currently living in India and Pakistan who would no longer be alive if not for nukes. It is also a significant deterrent in a conflict between China and India, two nations of 1+ billion people. Consequences of such a full-scale conflict would indeed be just short of nuclear Armageddon.
thaway2839 5y ago
India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in 1998. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I India and Pakistan then fought a war in 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War Preventing a war for a little more than 1 year is hardly stabilizing.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  At least 2 conflicts since then, one cost several thousand lives before it was deescalated, the other in 2008 could have easily become "hot".

tromp 5y ago

Ukraine had them, but Russia had exclusive control over those missiles [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

kspacewalk2 5y ago
"Control" is a relative term. Ukraine had physical control, gaining full access is a problem akin to finding a way to open a safe you're lawfully in long-term possession of. Ukraine also has nuclear power stations galore and factories that allow it to make modern ballistic missiles.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures. But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control. I'll try to find a pretty good thread, written by a nuclear expert who was part of the 1994s negotiations, that went into greater details and explained why ukraine never had the capacity to keep the nukes or even do anything useful with them.
  - kspacewalk2 5y ago
    >No, ukraine did not have the codes or any way to detonate the bombs otherwise. They were not functional and nukes are made to be extremely hard to detonate without the proper procedures. But not so hard that a nation of 40 million with many thousands of engineers who took part in designing every aspect of that bomb cannot figure it out if they want to. This would simply not be a serious issue. >But most importantly, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicules are enormously expensive to maintain. Ukraine is already a very poor country now, but there was absolutely no way it could have afforded to maintain a nuclear arsenal in the 1990s. Hundreds of bombs, no. A dozen - easily. Yes, poor, but the sheer size of it would allow it to maintain a small nuclear arsenal. >And that's even if they didn't have to reverse engineer an arsenal that it did not even control. It did control it, because it was on Ukrainian soil, and you greatly overestimate the ability of a large country to reverse engineer or replace some detonators.
valdiorn 5y ago
This is such a ridiculous fact everyone likes to bring up. If provided with an arsenal of working nukes sans launch control, it would take Ukrainian engineers and physicists maybe 2 weeks to bypass the existing controls and fabricate new ones. It's not like nukes have tamper proof switches.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  2 weeks might be optimistic, but I agree that this is a non-issue.

zozbot234 5y ago

Nuclear arms can be a stabilizing factor in the near term, but nuclear proliferation is unquestionably dangerous: the more nukes are around, the more likely it is that accidents will happen. Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
>Ultimately, we need meaningful incentives that can push even existing nuclear states to clean up their act, without having to worry that this might expose them to coercion by other states that have kept their nukes. I don't see how such incentives are possible. At this point, any politician in a nuclear state who chooses to give up the ultimate insurance policy against the kind of invasion happening in Ukraine right now is essentially a traitor. What possible insurance policy can replace a nuke? Even things people consider ironclad security guarantees are very ambiguous and are only a sure thing short-term. Who's to say how a US or a German government will interpret Article 5 in 2070, for example? >The Parties agree ... that, if [an] armed attack occurs, each of them ... will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force... You can drive a truck through that kind of ambiguity. All options including doing nothing are firmly on the table. If I'm Estonia, I just hope for the current climate of firm resolve to fight against aggression to remain indefinitely. But if I'm Poland or Turkey, I'm thinking long and hard about convincing someone to proliferate.

throwaway894345 5y ago

I generally agree with your point, but... > And it really doesn't matter to me how civilians die, in a Nagasaki nuclear explosion or a Tokyo firestorm. I'm pretty sure it's not likely or feasible to firestorm an entire country absent nuclear weapons. Put differently, nuclear weapons are concerning because of scale, not method, of death.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
While it's still thankfully impossible to firestorm an entire country, technological advancements in the 80 years that have passed since 1940s make it possible to inflict much greater damage using non-nuclear arms. If nukes deter countries from entering a war where such "conventional" power can be unleashed, then the (very real but nevertheless remote) threat of nuclear Armageddon is saving millions of lives by reducing much shorter odds of "conventional" regional/world wars. I always think about the millions currently living in India and Pakistan who would no longer be alive if not for nukes. It is also a significant deterrent in a conflict between China and India, two nations of 1+ billion people. Consequences of such a full-scale conflict would indeed be just short of nuclear Armageddon.

thaway2839 5y ago

India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in 1998. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokhran-II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagai-I India and Pakistan then fought a war in 1999. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War Preventing a war for a little more than 1 year is hardly stabilizing.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
At least 2 conflicts since then, one cost several thousand lives before it was deescalated, the other in 2008 could have easily become "hot".