If you want to hang out, you've got to take her out, Ukraine.

Budapest memorandum? Trilateral agreement? Let's talk about why we not only should support Ukraine but are, in fact, obligated to support Ukraine.

Photo by Alex Fedorenko on Unsplash

This column is based on the transcript of a video on the same topic uploaded here about a year ago. This week struck me as a good time to revive this discussion. If you’d prefer to view the video instead of read the column, you’ll get essentially the same information concerning our treaty obligation to Ukraine minus my case against Trump on this issue. Preview of coming attractions: although the situation is complex, Trump is, for the most part, simply wrong on Ukraine. Should you choose to read the column and subsequently become offended because, despite my support of Trump on many issues, I’m not part of the MAGA hive mind (and you’re disappointed after auspicious beginnings), here’s the link to unsubscribe.

Like many, I was equal parts shocked and dismayed at last Friday’s Oval Office meeting between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy that went wildly off the rails. Such a distressingly awry meeting between heads of state should never take place, especially considering the circumstances and significant stakes involved. But make no mistake; though I’ve defended Trump against many attacks from across the political spectrum, that’s not going to happen here. On the issue of Ukraine, Trump is flat-out wrong. So are Vance, Rubio, Graham, and the rest of Trump’s defenders.

Is Zelenskyy without blame in this fiasco? No, he is not. Both he and Trump could learn a little about both diplomacy and meeting preparation. But the excuses concerning Zelenskyy being improperly dressed, not expressing sufficient gratitude, and being, himself, a dictator are ridiculous. Trump, as is his wont, has personalized this because he simply doesn’t like Zelenskyy or Ukraine and seems to have some weird fetish regarding Putin and Russia. Everything else is just noise.

No one says anything about Elon Musk’s Oval Office attire, and he’s not an elected leader defending his country against an invasion. The accusation about lack of gratitude is fundamentally ludicrous, given that all Ukrainians, including Zelenskyy, have consistently expressed their gratitude to the world at every given opportunity. And they’ve continued to do so even as Trump was blaming the Ukrainians, themselves, for the Russian invasion in recent talks in Saudi Arabia, held without Ukraine. If you actually believe that line and have further interest in victim-blaming, I have some real estate in Gaza that might interest you. Finally, elections cannot be held in Ukraine under martial law, which would be a bit difficult to suspend at the moment.

Zelenskyy has, if anything, graciously and with restraint, I think, not rubbed our noses in the fact that we are actually obligated to defend Ukraine. Geopolitical and moral arguments aside, we, along with other countries some 30 years ago, gave Ukraine assurances that we would provide economic aid and security assurances if they would surrender their stockpile of Soviet-era nuclear weapons. You may not like any of that, but it’s true no matter how inconvenient it happens to be.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, chaos was the order of the day in that region of the world. The former Soviet republics were all over the map trying to figure out what came next. Ukraine, one of the largest former Soviet states, held a new position as one of the world's largest nuclear powers, boasting approximately 2,000 nuclear warheads, 200 ICBMs, and 50 strategic bombers. It was quite a potent nuclear arsenal.

What to do with it was the question.

At the end of the Cold War, two schools of thought developed concerning the so-called peace dividend and disarmament (and in particular nuclear disarmament): the swords to plowshares school, and the as long as we have 'em, everyone will leave us alone school. The swords-to-plowshares school gained momentum due to the promise of a more cooperative international order. This paradigm was persuasive because it was widely thought that with the end of the Cold War, the world would be a more peaceful place. It was time to end the nuclear arms race.

There were treaties enacted to further this goal, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the START Treaty, and the idea was to get as many countries on board as possible. So the West set out to convince former Soviet nuclear states to sign on to these treaties. Ukraine was by far the most significant disarmament prize and was pressured to return nuclear weapons to Russia, where we would assist the Russians in disassembling them and finding peaceful uses for the nuclear materials.

This was considered a win, win, win. Ukraine disarms, Russia has an easy way to meet their treaty obligations, and everyone else benefits because there are fewer nukes in the world—most of those under the control of stable regimes.

Outside of Ukraine, this was quite popular. But inside of Ukraine, it was controversial and for good reason. Inside Ukraine, school of thought #2 was in full swing: We have these nuclear weapons, and nobody's going to mess with us while we do. It’s not a completely fallacious argument either. Other nations actually will think twice before confronting a nuclear-armed adversary. That’s exactly the argument that a lot of MAGA world is making right now about the U.S. and Russia.

But a nuclear arsenal isn’t free of cost. Nuclear weapons are expensive to develop and maintain. In this country, we have one entire national laboratory, Los Alamos, which exists to ensure that our nuclear arsenal will work should it ever be deployed. So there was a carrot and a stick for Ukraine in disarmament. The stick was a difficult and expensive to maintain nuclear arsenal that might not even work if push ever came to shove. The carrot was that Ukraine could surrender their arsenal, reap the full benefits of the peace dividend, and rely on our assurances of support for their security.

Soviet-era weapons relied on numbers and brute strength rather than sophistication to be effective. Ukraine was faced with the prospect of relying upon an arsenal that was potentially falling apart. How good, actually, were all of those bombers, ICBMs, and warheads? Nobody really knew. So we enticed Ukraine to walk away from their nuclear arsenal with promises of economic assistance and security assurances. Several accords along these lines were negotiated in the early 1990s.

But Ukraine was distrustful of Russia throughout this process, and not, as subsequent events have shown, without reason. They wanted concrete assurances. So in January 1994, a trilateral agreement was brokered among Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. If Ukraine returned their weapons to Russia for disassembly, then the United States and Russia would agree to better security assurances for Ukraine along with significant financial assistance from the United States.

Ukraine tentatively agreed, but wanted a bit more in terms of security assurances. A few months later, Great Britain joined the negotiations, and forged an accord known as the Budapest Agreement. This accord gave Ukraine enough confidence in their future security that they surrendered their nuclear weapons to Russia.

Here is another brief history of nuclear arms control and Ukraine for your edification.

Now let’s imagine an alternative timeline where Ukraine chose not to surrender their nukes. Just after the fall of the Soviet Union, there existed a robust black market for weapons. A lot of the former Soviet arsenal was unaccounted for, and the Russians had no idea where it had all gone. The stockpiles of entire military bases vanished seemingly into thin air. Nuclear weapons were more closely watched, but some fissile material went missing.

Under these circumstances, what might have happened in a Ukraine that did not surrender its nukes? Ukraine was in the thrall of a corrupt oligarchy (as was Russia). Corruption, in fact, was one of the principal things that soured NATO on Ukraine back then. There is, I think, a good chance that some of that material would have found its way onto the black market, very likely making its way to someplace like North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or Afghanistan.

I have almost no doubt that had Ukraine not surrendered their weapons, this alternative timeline might include a dirty bomb made from stolen materials having been detonated in a city somewhere around the world during the past three decades. Perhaps the attacks of 9/11 would have, in this timeline, been carried out with dirty bombs instead of airplanes.

Ukraine absolutely did the world a favor by surrendering their nukes. These weapons were disassembled, and the nuclear material was accounted for. We haven't seen a dirty bomb go off somewhere made from these materials. We haven't seen a nuke from Ukraine detonated by terrorists or a rogue regime. Perhaps none of this would have happened anyway, but I wouldn’t bet more than I could afford to lose on it. And all that cost us was some relatively meager financial assistance and security guarantees.

I know that 30 years worth of history is a lot for people who can’t cite the full content of a single amendment of the U.S. Constitution, discuss any of our foundational ideals in a manner that suggests comprehension, or name the three branches of government, but those are the facts. We gave our word to Ukraine. And Presidents Bush 43, Obama, Biden, and Trump have all, in various ways, failed to live up to our obligations.

You may argue, if you wish, that we should have never given such assurances to a country halfway around the world, but the fact is that we did, and we did so not just willingly, but enthusiastically. It was a real kumbaya time in history. So if you are now in favor of throwing Ukraine under the bus, or admire Trump, as many do, for sending what he claims is an ungrateful ruffian packing, please explain to me how you square this with our obligations in this matter. I’ve heard a lot of gack about all of this: Ukraine brought it on themselves; Zelenskyy is a dictatorial midget who’s too clueless to accept the great deal he’s being offered; yada, yada, yada. But I’ve heard nothing about the accords to which we willingly entered and derived benefit from that currently obligate us to assist Ukraine.

I thought that MAGA was all about a return to traditional American values, not things like, Nice little country you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if something happened to it. Is abandoning our commitments and not standing behind our ideals when it’s difficult our new normal? Is strong-arming nations in need part of the MAGA script? Because if it is, I’m not down with it.

Here’s the worst part. I don’t expect any average American from any of the past few generations, bereft of the instinct for inquiry instilled into those who received a classical education, to be aware of this. It’s simply a bridge too far to expect people who can’t fill out a 1040EZ without a coach to successfully grapple with the history and complexities of geopolitics. That’s why the political discussions on social media and among the commentariat are generally an encyclopedia of human ignorance. It’s sad, but true. When one’s reach does not even come close to exceeding their grasp, demagoguery is much easier than quantum mechanics, which is why there’s a lot more of the former than the latter.

What I do expect is a certain level of understanding from elected leaders, the media, and influential individuals. But how many of those people do you think take into account the Trilateral Agreement and the Budapest Memorandum before firing off missives about the current situation in Ukraine?

For what it’s worth, I don’t blame all of this exclusively on Trump. As I mentioned before, Presidents Bush 43, Obama, and Biden all failed to honor our obligation to defend Ukraine over the years. And guess what the reason was each time? You need to think twice about confronting a nuclear-armed adversary. How rich is that?

I’m also sympathetic to Trump’s argument that most of the people around the world living on the dole of the American taxpayer ought to go pound sand. He’s right that the situation in Ukraine is primarily a European problem, and that the Europeans (particularly the Germans) have not stepped up as they should. But none of that gets us off the hook.

To be clear, I’m for supporting Ukraine for moral reasons beyond simply honoring our commitments to them. America is one of the countries that benefits most from a free, stable, and prosperous world, which is why we’ve traditionally defended all of these values. Besides, we are enabling Ukraine to weaken what is purportedly the world's second most powerful military, which is under the control of a geopolitical adversary, at a significantly lower cost than a direct conflict, without sacrificing any American lives in the process. We help ourselves in this regard at a relatively low cost.

But based on our recent abdication of leadership in difficult circumstances, the next time we try to talk a country into something that we need done with some version of Stick with us, kid, and you'll be okay, we’re the ones likely to get told to go pound sand. I’m quite sure that Russia, China, and India are licking their chops over that prospect.

I can construct a better argument for abandoning Ukraine than anything I’ve heard from MAGA or the far left. Corruption in Ukraine played a role in the events that led them to where they are now. The unspoken idea at the end of the Cold War was that Ukraine would enter NATO at some point and would then no longer need security assurances from just us. The corruption in Ukraine was an impediment to joining NATO early on when the Russians were in no position to stop it. That ship sailed with the arrival of Vladimir Putin.

But that’s the best case that I can make for abandoning our obligations. And that doesn’t stack up against the fact that a robust Ukraine is a far better ally than Russia. Russia’s economy is not anywhere near the top worldwide (they are around 20th). They are a lousy trading partner. The Russian military has been exposed as not only not the second-best military on the planet but not even the second-best military in Ukraine when the Wagner Group is engaged. Name me another country that has won not one, but two major naval engagements against a very well-armed foe without possessing a navy. Ukraine turned the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet into a submarine. Their use of drones and asymmetric warfare has just been incredible. I think that Ukraine makes a far better battlefield ally than anyone else in the region.

Finally, some support for Zelenskyy. I think that Zelenskyy is a tremendous leader. He’s not perfect, but he’s pretty darned good. In many ways, he’s Ukraine’s Trump. The Ukrainian people were as sick of business as usual (including corruption), as were we both times Trump got elected. Zelenskyy wasn’t a politician; he was a TV comedian. He was elected specifically to usurp the status quo. Sound familiar?

Perhaps that’s why Trump displays such personal animus towards the guy. He hates the competition.

Associated Press and Idaho Press Club-winning columnist Martin Hackworth of Pocatello is a physicist, writer, and retired Idaho State University faculty member who now spends his time with family, riding bicycles and motorcycles, and arranging and playing music. Follow him on Twitter @MartinHackworth, on Facebook at facebook.com/martin.hackworth, and on Substack at martinhackworthsubstack.com