There is also an emerging, larger US policy issue here regarding nuclear proliferation.
Our retreat from our implied defense commitments in 1994 for Ukraine has dramatically reduced chances for success in nuclear proliferation diplomacy. throughout the world. Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear capability in exchange for an implied commitment, and we are not living up to our end of the deal.
In diplomacy's place, we and other powers are going to have to work through the next decade to devise another means of retarding proliferation. One possible outcome is that we will have to renounce regime change in general as a foreign policy objective, with a carve-out for regimes that try to develop a nuclear weapons capability. We will have to do that in concert with NATO, China and maybe even Russia. That is a difficult road to navigate.
Our retreat from our implied defense commitments in 1994 for Ukraine has dramatically reduced chances for success in nuclear proliferation diplomacy. throughout the world. Ukraine willingly gave up its nuclear capability in exchange for an implied commitment, and we are not living up to our end of the deal.
In diplomacy's place, we and other powers are going to have to work through the next decade to devise another means of retarding proliferation. One possible outcome is that we will have to renounce regime change in general as a foreign policy objective, with a carve-out for regimes that try to develop a nuclear weapons capability. We will have to do that in concert with NATO, China and maybe even Russia. That is a difficult road to navigate.