patrick.net

How Ukraine Was Betrayed in Budapest

Kyiv gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security assurances. So much for that.

As the people of Ukraine steel themselves for a Russian attack, it’s worth recalling how the U.S. persuaded the country to give up its nuclear weapons. The event was the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which the U.S., Great Britain and Russia offered security assurances to the nation that had won independence when the Soviet Union dissolved.

That was the halcyon post-Cold War era when history had supposedly ended. Some 1,800 nuclear weapons were on Ukrainian territory, including short-range tactical weapons and air-launched cruise missiles. The U.S. wanted fewer countries to have fewer nukes, and U.S. credibility was at its peak.

The memo begins with the U.S., U.K. and Russia noting that Ukraine had committed “to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory within a specified period of time.” Then the three countries “confirm” a half-dozen commitments to Ukraine.

The most important was to “reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine.” They also pledged to “refrain from economic coercion” against Ukraine and to “seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine” in the event of an “act of aggression” against the country. Ukraine had returned all of the nuclear weapons to Russia by 1996.

Vladimir Putin made the Budapest Memorandum a dead letter with his first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. But the betrayal of Budapest isn’t forgotten in Kyiv, as President Volodymyr Zelensky noted bitterly in weekend remarks in Munich.

Budapest shows again the folly of trusting parchment promises in a world where autocrats think might makes right. More damaging is the message that nations give up their nuclear arsenals at their peril. That’s the lesson North Korea has learned, and Iran is following the same playbook as it connives to build the bomb even as it promises not to do so.

The inability of the U.S. to enforce its Budapest commitments will also echo in allied capitals that rely on America’s military assurances. Don’t be surprised if Japan or South Korea seek their own nuclear deterrent. If Americans want to know why they should care about Ukraine, nuclear proliferation is one reason. Betrayal has consequences, as the world seems destined to learn again the hard way.