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In 1994, Ukraine, Russia, the UK and the US signed the Budapest Memorandum. The short version is that Ukraine destroyed its Soviet nukes, and in return, the signatories pledged to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine and support actions in the Security Council if it should ever be threatened by nukes.
In 1994, this seemed like a good deal. The cold war was over, Ukraine likely did have more urgent spending priorities than a nuclear weapon program and the rest of the world, both the nuclear powers and the others were glad to keep the number of nuclear powers limited. Wars of conquest seemed a thing of the past. While the US engaged in some regime change operations (most of which turned out rather terrible, tbh), in the 1990s the idea to expand your territory through war seemed basically dead.
The rule-based world order was a higher, better equilibrium, just like most people would prefer to live in a country where weapons of war are controlled only by a small group of mostly decent people to living in some failed state where many people carry an assault weapon for the simple reason that many other people carry an assault weapon.
Putin's invasion made some serious cracks in that vision of a rule-based world order (which was always perceived to be strong in Europe), but Trump II basically broke it. Under Trump, the US can not be relied to punish defectors from the rule based system, and might not even relied to provide nuclear retaliation for nuclear attacks on NATO members.
The best time for Ukraine to restart their nuclear weapons program would have been when Russia defected from the Budapest Memorandum by annexing Crimea in 2014, before Russia was ready for a full scale invasion. I think it would have been technically feasible. An experienced Soviet nuclear weapons engineer who was 40 in 1990 would have been 64 in 2014. Ukraine also runs a lot of civilian nuclear reactor and has its own Uranium deposits (which would come in handy once they quit the NPT, because this might make acquiring fuel on the world market difficult). WP claims they even have enrichment plants.
In general, figuring out how to make nuclear weapons is something which took a good fraction of the world's geniuses in the 1940s, but has become much simpler since then. Getting an implosion device to work just right is something which would likely be helped a lot by high speed cameras and microelectronics, and a few decades of Moore's law likely makes a hell of a difference for simulations. Delivery systems might be a bit harder, but at the end of the day you don't need 100% reliability for deterrence to work. Even if your enemy is 50% confident that they can intercept the delivery, that still leaves the expected outcome of a nuclear exchange highly negative for them. Attacking a launch site -- conventionally or otherwise -- is forcing your enemy to either use or lose his nukes, and few think it wise to do so.
On a more personal note, I really hate nuclear weapons, and very much prefer the rule-based world order. I very much preferred the 2010s when Putin was mostly known for riding topless, as well as the odd murder of a journalist or dissident, the US was fine playing world police (which included some ill-advised military adventures, but also providing nuclear deterrence for NATO) and I was comfortably regarding nukes, NATO and large scale wars with the same distant horror I might have for medieval healthcare.
Even besides Ukraine, in the future Europe can not rely on the US for defense, and the UK and France arsenals might not be judged sufficient for deterrence, and some EU nuke might be called for. I am not sure how it would work. Classical EU commission manner, where 27 member states have to push the launch button and Orban can veto if he feels like it? Or give Mrs van-der-Leyen launch authority? Or simply have a common weapon program and distribute the spoils to 27 members?
Ukraine is not a member of NATO and is not entitled to the protection of the US nor is Europe entitled to dollars to do so. If an actual ally is attacked, article 5 it. If Europe wants to defend Ukraine and poke the most nuclear armed bear in the world, have at it. If Russia uses tactical nukes or glasses Kiev, let’s not pretend that at France or Germany would respond in kind, either. It would be suicide.
This is the most important point. You can't appeal to a "Rules-based order" by handwaving the rules, which explicitly do not guarantee Ukraine's territory against Russian perfidy.
To be fair, when people say "Rules Based International Order", they usually don't mean military alliances, but rather the idea that it's forbidden to change borders through war unless you get the UN's permission first.
Of course we have seen that this doesn't seem to apply to the US, so it's ultimately just finger wagging by the Western Bloc, but you can't really go for "it's legal for me to invade this country because you didn't formally ally with it" since within the framework you're not supposed to invade people in the first place.
When did the US ever try to change borders through war? The US engaged in a lot of regime change, but it wasn't the only one doing so (look at Russian interventions in Georgia and elsewhere).
Yugoslavia, clearly. Where the borders were changed so much that the country doesn't exist anymore and were imposed by a regional military alliance in the name of ideological principles. Claims that "human rights" override national sovereignty and international law don't seem to work when Russia makes them despite similar claims of trying to stop sectarian violence.
But there's been so many unsanctioned US offensive wars you can take your pick. I find Lybia to be one of the most egregious, but Irak is probably the most famous example of the US bucking the "rules based order" and going instead with the "coalition of the willing".
I am however going to point out that your argument here amounts to "it's okay when we do it".
Well yes, it is, because you got the bigger stick. And for no other reason.
Yugoslavia was an example of an intervention in a civil war, the ground troops involved were those of not-yet-a-NATO-member Croatia and Yugoslavia was already breaking up.
No word of this doesn't apply to Ukraine.
You can maybe squint and see Russia's Crimea adventure in 2014 as being somewhat similar to Yugoslavia, with having a simmering civil war and all. But their 2022 invasion was in no way similar since they went after the entire country, not just the parts that were in a civil conflict.
Plus there's the big difference that Russia was seeking to annex the land directly to itself in both cases. This might seem like goalpost-moving from my previous response, but it was more an issue of me not properly articulating in the first place.
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When people talk about changing borders through war they are almost always talking about a country expanding its territory through war. Yugoslavia is not that. The rest of your examples don't even involve border changes of any kind.
That is not what international law defines it as. Which is what we're talking about here. I invoked the phrase in a particular context.
I'm quite ready to talk about the real world and its spheres of influence. But that requires giving up the idea of a "rules based international order".
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