Ukraine and Nuclear Proliferation -- Russia's invasion has made U.S. assurances seem meaningless -- Review & Outlook, The Wall Street Journal

The damage to world order from Vladimir Putin's invasion of Crimea will echo for years, but one of the biggest casualties deserves more attention: the cause of nuclear nonproliferation. One lesson to the world of Russia's cost-free carve-up of Ukraine is that nations that abandon their nuclear arsenals do so at their own peril.

This story goes back to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia's nuclear arsenal was spread among the former Soviet republics that had become independent nations. Ukraine had some 1,800 nuclear weapons, including short-range tactical weapons, air-launched cruise missiles and bombers. Only Russia and the U.S. had more at the time, and Ukraine's arsenal was both modern and highly survivable in the event of a first strike. 

The U.S. was rightly concerned that these warheads could end up in the wrong hands, and the Clinton Administration made controlling them a foreign-policy priority. The result was the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances in which Ukraine agreed to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and return its nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for security "assurances" by Russia, the U.S. and United Kingdom. Those included promises to respect Ukraine's independence and sovereignty within its existing borders, as well as refraining from threatening or using force against Ukraine. 

Officials in Kiev clearly had the potential for Russian aggression in mind when they sought those assurances, which is one reason they wanted other nations to co-sign as well. China and France later added somewhat weaker assurances in separate attachments to the Budapest Memo. 

Ukraine also wanted to take many years to turn over its weapons, but the U.S. wanted quicker action and by 1996 Ukraine had given up its entire nuclear arsenal. It was an important victory for nonproliferation—a success rooted in the world's post-Cold War confidence in American power and deterrence.

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