Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons because they gave them back to Russia in exchange for guarantees about their territorial sovereignty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Didn’t other countries say they’d have ukraines back if something like this happen though?

The wording is more akin to "we won't attack", not "we will defend". Two of the signatories are Russia and Belarus.

Yes, the US and the UK promised to protect Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for disarmament.

(we didn't)

Edit: just look it up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

No, they promised to respect it. That's a very significant difference.

Nothing in that document obliges the US or UK to intervene. It obliges them to go to the Security Council (done; Russia vetoed). They've gone beyond their obligations by providing arms and sanctions.

AFAIK, Ukraine never had nuclear weapons as a practical matter. They were always under the control of the Russian military.

Edit: More specifically, under the control of the Kremlin. Assuming they have properly implemented nuclear codes that are non-trivial to circumvent. Given the US's track record on that, I'd be nervous.

There wasn't really any clear legal status to them; the unit of the USSR military that was responsible for them wound up in the Ukranian armed forces after the split, as did quite a bit of other material. Thus, the agreement.

They could have, at the very least, used them as raw disasembled nuclear material for their own program, if they had wanted. As the recording industry discovered, once your stuff is in someone else's physical posession, it's hard to stop them from figuring out how it works.

The issue is by that time they'd have been overrun by both the Russians and the US.

I believe they had physical control but no launch codes.

The counterpoint of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) is that nuclear-armed countries are more free to start minor wars with non nuclear-armed countries, confident that there won't be direct intervention by other nuclear-armed countries. These wars become proxy wars between the nuclear powers.

It's referred to as the Stability-instability paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stability%E2%80%93instability_...

You might be asking the wrong question. You could instead be asking: “Do you think this would happen if Russia wouldn’t have Nuclear Weapons?”

Deterrence works both ways. If it really deters a military action against you, then perhaps you can be the aggressor and be safe from retaliation as long as you threaten your nukes.

MAD is the same concept as "an armed society is a polite society"

I don't like either idea. Being civil to one another simply because the other party might respond with incredibly disproportionate violence is not a civilised way to live.

They're quite different actually. A gun does not guarantee MAD. Hence why the invention of firearms did not end wars.

If I had a gun and you had a gun, I can kill you with said gun before you fire your weapon. That's not the case with nukes. With nukes, I see that you've fired yours, so I will fire mine. And due to the amount of nukes owned by the world, we know that said firing of all nukes will lead to the destruction of most if not all life on earth.

> Being civil to one another simply because the other party might respond with incredibly disproportionate violence is not a civilised way to live

Nature doesn't care about civility. Don't let the means get in the way of results. The world has been much more peaceful since the invention of nuclear weapons. In any case, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. We have no choice but to live with it.

What is the alternative? If I have a gun and you aren't armed, your only hope for a peaceful life is that I choose to leave you alone. If I choose to enslave you, abuse you, or kill you, what could you reasonably do about it at that point?

Nuclear weapons are the same. It would be irresponsible to disarm fully while you have enemies that seek to take advantage of you.

Making appeals to what is "civilized" or not is just fluff, it means nothing. At one point in "civilized" society people would duel to the death over insults.

Disarming and then getting rolled when your counterparty takes advantage isn't a civilized way to live. See: Ukraine.

What we call "civilization" is always founded on a threat of using force. Even in a primitive tribal society with nothing but spears, you keep in line with the tribe for fear of retaliation.

All civilizations have grown by incredible disproportionate violence and conquest.

China and Persia old empires, Greek, Egypt, Roman Empire, The Muslim expansion. In America the Incas and Mayas. The Spanish Empire, then the French and British. Then the American Empire.

The only exception to that have been the Phoenicians, then Carthage, that started as pacific merchants, but they were forced into war by the Romans.

But we cannot be blind to the reality that there are people who only behave because of coercion.

This is true until suddenly it isn’t…

That's know as MAD: Mutual Assured Destruction

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

That's know as MAD and only works when your enemy's button pusher is a sane individual. There is less and less confidence that Putin sane.

RealLifeLore has a great video on why Russia is initiating these attacks. Worth a watch: https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE

It works best if both are insane but fear death.

A reasonable actor wouldn't counter attack a first strike because annihilation of mankind is not an option.

Not entirely factious: why not? Life would go on. Not human life sure, but it’s not like we’re the ultimate shepherds of the planet and it would be a valueless rock without us.

If the options are: yield the planet over to some nuclear hardened species to chill out and recover for a few hundred thousand years while other novel (radiation hardened) lifeforms develop, or yield the planet over to the people who have demonstrated willingness to absolutely obliterate their enemies and will likely continue initiating mass extinction events far into the future… I certainly don’t think one option is 100% off the table.

Interestingly, those radiation hardened life forms might actually be better suited to be earth-seed than us — space is an unfriendly environment for human kind, making us ill suited to be the planet’s intergalactic ambassadors.

(Now I want to read some sci fi book where it turns out all the intergalactic species come from planets where the original intelligent inhabitants blew themselves to smithereens and created a nuclear winter, causing the next intelligence to develop a deep rooted desire for world peace and scientific exploration…)

We're all going to die someday so I would certainly be fine with shooting back.

If you are christian you believe mankind lives on in a happy afterlife event, nobody really dies. So no biggie if you shoot back.

If you are atheist, it's not clear why you should care about the continued existence of a species evil enough to murder your friends and family. Seeking justice for them makes more sense. At any rate it's not reasonable for an atheist to believe our species would live forever. We were going to eventually die anyway.

The afterlife is meaningless if the decision makers are damned with the murder of billions.

And justice is meaningless if no one is left.

Religious people don't tend to be against war, historically. One general famously said "Kill them all and let God sort it out." The idea that God has knowable opinions against MAD policy seems a bit of a stretch.

People find meaning when they are alive. The person firing the missle- being alive- has as much as anyone else.