Remember The Budapest Memorandum:
In the first sentence of paragraph five of her POSTOPINION article( NEW YORK POST, Tuesday, February 27, 2024, page 29), “Why Ukraine Fights: and why we should keep helping” Kelly Jane Torrance writes: “President Biden and other Democrats have done a terrible job of making the case for more and better Ukraine aid to the American people.” This writer strongly agrees, and suggests that American public opinion remember the Budapest Memorandum, which has received scant coverage by the mass media.
In a nutshell, Ukraine which inherited from the collapsed Soviet Union the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal agreed to accede to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapons country and give the Soviet era nuclear weapons to the Russian Federation for decommissioning. In return for doing so, Ukraine received, on December 5, 1994 at the Budapest Conference of the Organization on Security and Co-Operation in Europe (OSCE), guarantees of her sovereignty and territorial integrity from the Russian Federation, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Ukraine surrendered her nukes, but she has not yet received sufficient protection of her sovereignty and territorial integrity from America.
On Monday, February 26, 2024 the Secretary General of the United Nations Organization (UNO), Antonio Guterres observed that the Security Council can no longer ensure collective security, its principal mission.
In the summer of 2023, the Russian Federation blocked the budget of the OSCE, thereby preventing that organization from ensuring collective security. It is clear that countries that use armed force to change internationally recognized borders, like the Russian Federation, should not be member countries of collective security organizations.
Congressional debates on the Washington Treaty of 1949, which established NATO, show that this treaty was ratified because it ensured collective security. By this time it was clear that Stalin’s Soviet Union as a permanent member of the UNO’s Security Council was an impediment to collective security. American public opinion and governmental opinion continues to remain wary of entangling alliances. President George Washington in his Farewell Address warned against such alliances. Rather than alliances, Americans in the past and present support collective security. This why we must honor our Budapest Memorandum commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Ukraine must win with America’s help so collective security will win. This is the road to a better and safer world.
