I wouldn’t trust the Americans if I were Taiwan. Scepticism about their reliability is reasonable. They guaranteed Ukraine’s integrity in return for denuclearization; we have enough data to make educated guesses about their behaviour and level of courage.
That’s basically what they are doing now. Fun fact, TSMC the company that manufacturers the most advanced chips in the world actually rigs their machinery to explode if they where to ever be invaded by China. Just to be clear, this is a real thing and not a joke.
I wouldn’t trust the US either, although having economic leverage helps. But are you referring to the Budapest memorandum with
They guaranteed Ukraine’s integrity in return for denuclearization
If yes I don’t understand how this misunderstanding still has to be corrected. Read it for yourself here (swapped link to something working, pdf warning)
At no point does it promise defense against foreign third-party attacks except in case nuclear weapons get involved. Every security assurance only covers the nation themselves. Something Russia has obviously broken (but there are no penalties stipulated), whereas the UK and USA have held up their part of the deal. Unless they have invaded Ukraine themselves without my knowledge.___
I am aware of the limitations of the wording in the Budapest memorandum. Note the exact words that I used.
Even if the wording was more explicit, do you honestly think Obama and the Americans wouldn’t chicken out in 2014 and would be willing to fight to kick out the Russians from Crimea?
Even if the wording was more explicit, do you honestly think Obama and the Americans wouldn’t chicken out in 2014 and would be willing to fight to kick out the Russians from Crimea?
That’s a difficult one to answer, but yeah it wouldn’t have been a certain thing. However i don’t think we’d have ever arrived in the same circumstances like 2014, had the US given explicit security guarantees.
They didn’t give those, because they didn’t have to and Ukraine wasn’t in a position to force the issue (similar maybe to how there wasn’t any formal pact regarding Russia and NATO’s expansion). But had they signed any explicit form of mutual defense arrangement i’d imagine that this would have lead them to build some form of permanent military presence in Ukraine. And that would almost certainly have changed everything. Would Russia ever dare to invade, if there was a US military base in Ukraine? And in that scenario i would answer your question with “yes, Obama/the Americans would likely not have chickened out and fought back”.
Agreed. If there were American bases in Crimea/Donbas, I don’t think the russians would have invaded in the first place.
I was refering more to a hypothetical scenario with a mutual defense treaty without bases. A situation where they would have to land in Crimea and start sinking the russian black feet and bombing Moscow.
I have my doubts they would act even with a treaty that used explicit wording around a russian invasion in context of mutual defense obligations. I think Obama would chicken out and cite some technicality.
In general, the impression I get is that US leadership in the last ~40 years has been subpar both in the foreign policy arena and in domestic matters.
Dont take this an an Anti-American rant. Our leadership was incompetent and corrupt. Poroshenko had a chance after the Revolution of Dignity, but he messed it up. Zelebakyy is probably the first leader of modern Ukraine that has been competent and has shown some level of achievement.
I wouldn’t trust the Americans if I were Taiwan. Scepticism about their reliability is reasonable. They guaranteed Ukraine’s integrity in return for denuclearization; we have enough data to make educated guesses about their behaviour and level of courage.
If I were Taiwan, I’d say “give us protection or no chips for you”.
That’s basically what they are doing now. Fun fact, TSMC the company that manufacturers the most advanced chips in the world actually rigs their machinery to explode if they where to ever be invaded by China. Just to be clear, this is a real thing and not a joke.
Drastic understatement.
The US has fucked Ukraine royally on multiple fronts.
I wouldn’t trust the US either, although having economic leverage helps. But are you referring to the Budapest memorandum with
If yes I don’t understand how this misunderstanding still has to be corrected. Read it for yourself here (swapped link to something working, pdf warning)
At no point does it promise defense against foreign third-party attacks except in case nuclear weapons get involved. Every security assurance only covers the nation themselves. Something Russia has obviously broken (but there are no penalties stipulated), whereas the UK and USA have held up their part of the deal. Unless they have invaded Ukraine themselves without my knowledge.___
I am aware of the limitations of the wording in the Budapest memorandum. Note the exact words that I used.
Even if the wording was more explicit, do you honestly think Obama and the Americans wouldn’t chicken out in 2014 and would be willing to fight to kick out the Russians from Crimea?
Sorry, if i missinterpreted your post.
That’s a difficult one to answer, but yeah it wouldn’t have been a certain thing. However i don’t think we’d have ever arrived in the same circumstances like 2014, had the US given explicit security guarantees.
They didn’t give those, because they didn’t have to and Ukraine wasn’t in a position to force the issue (similar maybe to how there wasn’t any formal pact regarding Russia and NATO’s expansion). But had they signed any explicit form of mutual defense arrangement i’d imagine that this would have lead them to build some form of permanent military presence in Ukraine. And that would almost certainly have changed everything. Would Russia ever dare to invade, if there was a US military base in Ukraine? And in that scenario i would answer your question with “yes, Obama/the Americans would likely not have chickened out and fought back”.
Agreed. If there were American bases in Crimea/Donbas, I don’t think the russians would have invaded in the first place.
I was refering more to a hypothetical scenario with a mutual defense treaty without bases. A situation where they would have to land in Crimea and start sinking the russian black feet and bombing Moscow.
I have my doubts they would act even with a treaty that used explicit wording around a russian invasion in context of mutual defense obligations. I think Obama would chicken out and cite some technicality.
In general, the impression I get is that US leadership in the last ~40 years has been subpar both in the foreign policy arena and in domestic matters.
Dont take this an an Anti-American rant. Our leadership was incompetent and corrupt. Poroshenko had a chance after the Revolution of Dignity, but he messed it up. Zelebakyy is probably the first leader of modern Ukraine that has been competent and has shown some level of achievement.
Sorry about that, i think the brackets in the wikipedia-link somehow messed up the formating. I swapped out the link to another one from the UN.
Golli is right regarding the wording of the Budapest memorandum, it isn’t explicit at all.
I would even agree that perhaps technically “the UK and USA have held up their part of the deal”.
Nothing in my OP denies this, I am talking about a more general evaluation of the reliability of the US.
I don’t have an opinion either way, I haven’t read it. I’m just pointing out that the link they added doesn’t seem to lead anywhere.
Yes, the link didn’t work.
I am from Ukraine, so I didn’t need the link. :)