Why is Russia setting up a nuclear weapons infrastructure in its captured portion of Ukraine, and what does it mean for the West? (The Jamestown Foundation notes that “TU-22M3 long-range bombers, which would be able to carry and deliver [nuclear] weapons, have now been deployed to Crimea.”)
Although it rarely gets mentioned, Ukraine voluntarily surrendered its nuclear arsenal—the third largest in the world– in return for guarantees of its territorial sovereignty.
The US, the UK, and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum in 1994 supposedly safeguarding Ukraine . Clearly, all three guarantors, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have broken their word. Moscow invaded and annexed a portion of Ukraine, and neither London nor Washington did anything substantive in response.
That failure sent a reverberating, powerful message to aggressors across the globe. Russia, which is in violation of other treaties, has learned that it can abrogate agreements with impunity. So can other anti-Western powers.
Moscow currently is also in violation of the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) . The Hudson Institute notes that “The agreement bans the testing or deployment of intermediate range cruise and ballistic missiles, those with a range between 500km and 5500 km. In its annual 2014 arms control Compliance Report, the Department of State noted that Russia had violated the pact when it deployed a ground-launched cruise missile, whose unique Iskandar system can fire both cruise and ballistic missiles and a system Russia plans to deploy to Crimea… Nor is it Russia’s only INF violation. Moscow also has converted a single-warhead ICBM into a three-warhead intermediate-range ballistic missile, a violation missing from the 2014 Compliance Report.”
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Iran and Syria know that America’s threats, and promises of protection to its allies, are not serious. China has harassed and stolen assets from its neighbors.
Apologists for Putin may claim that Russia is only solidifying his grip on a strategic occupied portion of Ukraine. However, Jamestown reports that “Nor are these Russian military reinforcements seemingly aimed only at the strategic Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. They are also occurring in and around Belarus and sites in western Russia like Belgorod, where massed Russian forces can be turned against the inviting defense-industry target of Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 16). These reinforcements also derive from previously announced plans to emphasize Russian military buildups for 2015, in the Baltic, Crimea and the Arctic (RIA Novosti, March 17). Moscow’s boosting of its nuclear and conventional forces suggests a continuing Russian effort not just to deter NATO but also to intimidate European governments.”
The message to the West is clear: Russia is asserting hegemony over the former Soviet republics and the Kremlin’s former captive nations in Eastern Europe. It is also returning to Moscow’s former desire to cow the rest of Europe into relative submission.
There has been an historically rapid turnaround from the late 20th century collapse of the Soviet Empire, and the potential era of peace that could have resulted from it. The failure of the West, the United States in particular, to maintain an adequate military capability, and the pacifist/isolationist policies of the Obama Administration in particular, have squandered what was a true opportunity for a prolonged period of international peace.