Nuclear Weapons 75 - Ukraine and Danger of Nuclear War
The situation in Ukraine continues to generate headlines as international relations are strained. It appears that Putin is moderating his stance and he claims to be withdrawing troops from the Russian - Ukrainian border. Miners and steelworks have chased out the pro-Russian insurgents who occupied government buildings in East Ukraine.
In 1997, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) signed an agreement with Russia in which the current members of NATO agreed that they would not deploy nuclear weapons in new member states that joined NATO in with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. NATO members also agreed to defending its members through "reinforcement" as opposed to permanently stationing "substantial combat forces" on their territory.
When the current crisis in Ukraine broke out, there were call for a reconsideration of the promises that NATO had made to Russia. Poland has called for the permanent stationing of NATO troops on its territory which Russia says would violate the 1997 agreement. Some NATO diplomats have said that as far as they were concerned, the Russian annexation of Crimea was a clear violation of the 1997 agreement. NATO representatives have said that at present they have no intention of violating their promises to Moscow. However, there will be a meeting of NATO leaders in Wales in September to discuss the Ukraine situation in addition to other European security concerns. NATO has suspended cooperation with Russia but has left open the possibility of high level talks between NATO representatives and Russian representatives. Russia has called for such talks but a date has not yet been set.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the third largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world, behind the United States and Russia. A "Trilateral Agreement" was signed between the United States, Russia and Ukraine. In return for sending all their nuclear warheads to Russia to be destroyed, Ukraine got security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Britain that the signatories would protect Ukraine from attack and invasion by other nations. In 2013, Ukraine signed agreement with China for protection against attack by other nations. Both of these agreements specifically mentioned that threats by nuclear armed nations would be answered by the signatories.
Recently officials of the new Ukrainian government have suggested that perhaps it was a mistake to remove all nuclear weapons and that it might be time for Ukraine to acquire nuclear weapons of its own in order to insure its territorial integrity. In addition, Russia has said that in an armed conflict over Ukraine, if Russian troops are being overwhelmed by Ukraine and its allies use of conventional weapons, Russia reserved the right to employ tactical nuclear weapons. Such a move could easily escalate into a full scale nuclear war that would destroy civilization. In a world where nuclear global disarmament has been an international goal for decades, these developments are very troubling.
