Escalation in Ukraine?

Alan Cai

October 18, 2024

Nuclear proliferation, North Korean involvement, and a volatile eastern front. Surprisingly, this reality never took place in the Cold War, but instead is occurring in 2024.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested earlier this week during a meeting with the European Union that Ukraine may explore the possibility of obtaining nuclear weapons if its demands of entering an international alliance were not met.

“Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will serve as protection, or it must be part of some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know of such an effective alliance,” the embattled Ukrainian leader said.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. Despite the limited ability to harness the arsenal’s full potential, the threat of the weapons alone was enough to bring the world’s leading powers— the United States, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom— to sign the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. This agreement asked Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from all three countries including from economic coercion.

Joining NATO would be a difficult task for Ukraine and require the approval of all 32 member states. Even though the 2023 Vilnius summit (32nd formal meeting of NATO member countries, held in Lithuania) permitted the Ukraine candidacy to bypass the official Membership Action Plan, opposition from Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and a potential Trump presidency in the United States themselves could both unilaterally derail any chance of dialogues coming to favorable conclusions for Kyiv. Most other NATO member states are not incredibly willing to accept Ukraine either due to the likely possibility of being dragged into Kyiv’s conflict with Moscow under the mutually defensive Article 5 of the NATO charter.

Thus, with NATO membership unlikely, Ukraine seeking nuclear weapons, if it hasn’t already started preliminary research, may be much more likely than previously thought.

Ukraine is not the only side toying with nuclear weapons. Zelenskyy’s musings come as a response to what appears to be a growing willingness from Russian President Vladimir Putin to flex his atomic options. Earlier this year, he lowered the threshold for Russia to deploy the weapons and he recently announced the production of intermediate-range missiles which have not been produced since a 1987 Soviet-era ban.

Earlier this week, Zelenskyy further claimed North Korea was preparing to send troops to assist Russia in their war efforts. Russia’s manpower and supplies have vastly diminished since the early days of the war and requiring outside assistance is expected. However, North Korea engaging directly with boots on the ground would signal a turning point in the conflict, which would evolve from a regional dispute to a global war.

The Russo-Ukrainian War could be on track to becoming a larger global conflict. Were it to become nuclear, millions of lives would be lost. Global leaders must take steps to search for a peaceful solution to the conflict and look for ways to minimize nuclear proliferation worldwide.