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Worth also noting that the nuclear weapons that Ukraine had were useless. All modern (post-1960s) nukes except the UK's are equipped with PALs [1]. Without th
by nostrademons 2y ago
Worth also noting that the nuclear weapons that Ukraine had were useless. All modern (post-1960s) nukes except the UK's are equipped with PALs [1]. Without the launch codes, they are just very expensive hunks of lithium deuteride. The launch codes for Ukraine's nukes remained with the KGB/FSB in Moscow throughout the breakup of the Soviet Union. They had essentially zero negotiating leverage, and as a result got essentially zero out of the negotiation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_action_link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_action_link
- lamontcg 2y ago"This is the lockpicking lawyer, and what we have here today is the PAL from the reentry vehicle of a Russian R-36M ICBM..."
- ceejayoz 2y agoWithout the launch codes they still had highly enriched weapons grade nuclear material. That’s the tough part. Making it go bang we figured out in the 1940s. We also saw with DVD encryption that physical access to the device makes it tough to fully protect. Nuclear codes are protected significantly by “no one gets to tinker with the device without rapid lead poisoning”.
- nostrademons 2y agoEnriching uranium is within the capability of a nation-state the size of Ukraine. If Iran and North Korea can do it, Ukraine certainly can. Hell, even today, in the midst of a war, they have 8 operational reactors at 3 power plants, plus 2 under construction, one damaged and recently repaired, 6 at the Zaporizhzhia power plant in contested territory, and 4 in the decommissioned Chernobyl plant. Physical access to a nuke does not let you disable the PAL. They are constructed so that they are embedded within the device, and cannot be disabled or altered without deconstructing significant parts of the warhead. (I suspect that the PAL is not actually a separate device that can be separated from the warhead, but a series of design choices for how the warhead is constructed that make it unable to fire without the input of a cryptographic code. But then, details on this are very highly classified for obvious reasons, so we'll never know for sure.) The real reason they didn't and don't do this is because they don't want to end up an international pariah state like Iran and North Korea. It's very clear that the U.S. has a vested interest in nuclear non-proliferation; they were the ones who gave the PALs to all our adversaries in the first place, because in the game-theoretic calculus of MAD, a small number of enemies that you can bargain and reason with is better than a large number of nuclear states even if many of those states are on your side. We would not have supported Ukraine if they attempted to retain the nukes in the 1990s, and we wouldn't support them developing nukes now.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Enriching uranium is within the capability of a nation-state the size of Ukraine. Sure. But standing up a program makes you an international pariah. “We’re keeping this” would have had a bit less uproar. > Physical access to a nuke does not let you disable the PAL. They are constructed so that they are embedded within the device, and cannot be disabled or altered without deconstructing significant parts of the warhead. People say this sort of thing, but it comes out that the US arsenal was set to 00000000 in fear that they couldn’t be used. I have… severe doubts on the uncrackable nature of Soviet nuclear cryptography.
- oneshtein 2y agoUkraine is free to develop nukes for self-defence because it's attacked by nuclear country.
- bluGill 2y agoUkrain could have replaced those part if they wanted. Not worth the effort IMHO but they could have.