Thursday, March 6, 2014

Agreements to Protect -- Don't Protect

By Micah Halpern
Thursday March 6, 2014
I've Been Thinking:

Have any of you heard of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances? Here's a hint. It was signed in Budapest, in 1994.

My guess is, probably not.

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances was an agreement wherein the Ukraine agreed to dismantle all nuclear weapons in exchange for security and safety. It was signed in Budapest on December of 1994 and the signees were US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister John Major and Russian President Boris Yeltsin.

Here is the official summary: Russia, the UK and the USA undertake to respect Ukraine's borders in accordance with the principles of the 1975 CSCE Final Act, to abstain from the use or threat of force against Ukraine, to support Ukraine where an attempt is made to place pressure on it by economic coercion, and to bring any incident of aggression by a nuclear power before the UN Security Council.

In other words: the United States and Great Britain (forget about Russia) and the world promise to protect the Ukraine.

This agreement and others like it, really do not help much. This one is certainly not protecting the Ukraine.

Now imagine what Israel is thinking and what lessons Israelis are learning from this. How can Israel possibly assume that the United States will, should the time come, come to its defense?
Israel has learned that the best they can expect is an appeal to the UN Security Council. Not much consolation there.

Micah@MicahHalpern.com

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