What were Russia and the US were planning to do if Ukraine refused to give up their nuclear arsenal?
Upvote:0
These things tend to be kept secret, but some deductions are possible.
- Shortly after the breakup of the USSR, Russia would have made a targeting plan for nuclear strikes on Ukraine in case the Ukrainian government decided to be really stupid and attack them.
- At much the same time, the USA would have made their plans for nuclear attacks on the Ukraine-as-part-of-the-USSR into a separate plan for hitting just Ukraine, for the same reasons as Russia. They'd likely have adjusted the plans to reduce the amount of fallout that would reach other post-Soviet states.
- After that, Russia and America would have waited for Ukraine to accept that they didn't have the skills and industries available for maintaining nuclear warheads, and that giving them up was the sensible course of action. The Soviet nuclear warhead infrastructure was always in Russia, not shared out with the subject states of the USSR.
- Ukraine did have the capability to build and maintain ICBMs, because they had one of the USSR's design bureaus for those, and associated factories. I don't know if they had the capability to build and maintain the required inertial guidance systems, though.
Upvote:7
Its a pretty reasonable assumption that they'd have done what they do for other such nations (eg: France, China, India), and pressure them to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France and China signed on in 1992, and India still refuses to sign.
Ukraine of course, along with the other former soviet "republics" that happened to house atomic weapons, signed all those weapons over to Russia, and then signed on as a non-nuclear power.
As a nuclear power, a nation's main responsibilities are to not provide any tech or material help to non-nuclear powers that might help them develop nuclear weapons (or any at all to non-signatories), and to work towards disarmament in themselves and others. However you have to be allowed to sign on as a nuclear power. Pakistan has said they'd be willing to join that way, but no such offer has come.
For nations that own atomic weapons and join? Well, arguably not a lot of progress has really been made on disarmament. The US and Russia have gotten rid of a lot of their thousands of obsolete weapons, but they both still have plenty more. No signed-on power has ever dropped down from Nuclear to non-Nuclear status. Ukraine and the other former Republics were really (supposed to be) the success story there.
For nations that own atomic weapons and have not signed on, there you have to look at countries like India, Pakistan, and North Korea. All nuclear exports are supposed to be banned to such countries, which means they'd have a hard time getting any fuel for their nuclear power plants that they can't dig up on their own territory. It looks like Ukraine currently have 4 of those operating, with 15 reactors.
So there were definite non-military benefits to Ukraine for disarming. At the time Russia was a friendly democratic nation, so an attack from that quarter would have seemed much less likely than under the despotic Putin-run Russia that was still, at that time,a few years in their future. In exchange they got right on the NPT treaty with its access to the international nuclear trade with relatively little fuss.
More post
- 📝 What are the immediate legal effects of rendering a royal branch illegitimate?
- 📝 Why are Germans referred to so differently in different languages?
- 📝 The history of the idea that lack of moral censure leads to decline
- 📝 How were "Wehrbauern" (soldier peasants) in medieval Europe even a thing, at all?
- 📝 Is there any evidence for dual-wielding in the 12th Century?
- 📝 Micromanagement before the modern era?
- 📝 Why is 26th January India's Republic Day?
- 📝 What kind of training did Imperial military officers receive?
- 📝 How was Enguerrand VII de Coucy able to keep his allegiance to both king of England and France during the Hundred Years War?
- 📝 What was the context behind Felix Frankfurter's quote?
- 📝 When has serious unemployment among educated young populations not led to revolution or war?
- 📝 Was there ever a conqueror who named the place after themselves?
- 📝 What's the earliest evidence of drug abuse?
- 📝 Is Josephus a legitimate historical text?
- 📝 How can a diamond shape be a reference to Napoleon?
- 📝 What did the Baltic Fleet do in Reval in 1904 and when was it there?
- 📝 What group is identified by the term "Egyptians" in the Flushing Remonstrance?
- 📝 How historical are early Chinese (Shang dynasty and earlier) dynastic records?
- 📝 When and how did the West lose its dependency on the USSR for Titanium?
- 📝 What was the name of the Ottoman-Spanish truce in 1580?
- 📝 Why did East Germany fail? And why did DDR need hard currency 1986-1989?
- 📝 When has a military force used their own people as human shields?
- 📝 What similarities exist between the Kalapas theory from Subcontinental Indians, and the modern theory of atom?
- 📝 Gaulish logistics during Caesar's invasion
- 📝 Kurds and their relation to the start of civilization?
- 📝 Size of Viking armies and raiding parties in 9th-10th centuries?
- 📝 Was Woodrow Wilson really a Liberal?
- 📝 As many Germans fled Nazism, did some spies mix in?
- 📝 The meaning of Pan-India Character?
- 📝 How were little children dressed in medieval times?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What were Russia and the US were planning to do if Ukraine refused to give up their nuclear arsenal?
- 📝 What were the limitations on possession of wealth in Soviet Russia and how were they enforced?
- 📝 Is the history of relations between Ukraine and Russia similar to what was between Ireland and Uk?
- 📝 Were there any Germans in Japan after the surrender of Germany in May, 1945 and if so, what happened to them?
- 📝 In WWII, what were the major differences in tank combat on the eastern and western fronts?
- 📝 What were the EMP effects, if any, of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What East German laws and regulations were extended to the West after unification?
- 📝 What were the demographics and economics of South-East Asian islands around year 1400?
- 📝 What were the Nazi racial views on Hungarians and the Japanese?
- 📝 At what point were the most current and former US Presidents alive?
- 📝 What were the thoughts of the Celts, Romans and other ancient European people about the standing stones which survive from prehistoric times?
- 📝 What were the original casualty projections for Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
- 📝 What were the political and military constraints on Vercingetorix at Alesia?
- 📝 What were the operating principles of Japan's MITI during the 1950s and 60s?
- 📝 What were the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858 and why did they occur?
- 📝 What were the insignia of the Western Roman Empire and what happened to them?
- 📝 What transit restrictions were in place in Occupied Germany limiting military and civilian movement between the four occupation zones?
- 📝 What were the key differences between United States' and Indian revolutions?
- 📝 What were contemporary Japanese views on the Taiping Rebellion and Heavenly Kingdom?
- 📝 What benefits were there to the USA of developing both Uranium and Plutonium bombs in World War 2?
- 📝 What is the historical evidence for asserting Huns were one and the same as Xiongnu?
- 📝 What were the advantages and disadvantages of Mongolian cavalry (compared to European cavalry)?
- 📝 What universities existed in Dutch East Indies, and how available were they to the native population?
- 📝 What were the rights and responsibilities of (various classes of) 11th century English commonfolk?
- 📝 Were there bows employed by tribes living in the desert, and if so, what were they made of?
- 📝 What were the traveling practices of merchants, roughly between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance?
- 📝 What trains were used on the Dakar-Niger Railway in the late 1950s and early 1960s?
- 📝 What were the major imports and exports of Germany and France from 1850-1915?
- 📝 What happened when the Çatalhöyük burial holes were full and the houses had no more room?
- 📝 What were the typical types of ships used in the Persian Navy in the 1730's and 1740's?