"So, the real tragedy in the way in which Ukraine's President Volodomyr Zelensky was mistreated by Trump/Vance today is that the United States, per the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, is contractually bound to defend...wait for it...Ukraine! That Memorandum was signed three years after the collapse of the former Soviet Union and at the time, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the WORLD behind the United States and Russia. To coerce Ukraine into transferring its arsenal to its former fellow Soviet state Russia (for further arms reductions), President Bill Clinton, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and Great Britain's Prime Minister John Major assured Ukraine of its sovereignty and defense in exchange for eliminating its nuclear capabilities. No one alive at the time would have imagined that within 30 years, Russia, under its Dictator Vladimir Putin, would break the treaty--twice--by invading Ukraine and that the U.S., led (in name) by a sick Putin sycophant named Donald Trump, would take sides with Russia by falsely blaming Ukraine for the latest war, and by demanding that Ukraine beg and bow for U.S. assistance that, per that old Budapest Memorandum, it "should" be providing anyway!
Trust, if Ukraine was still sitting on the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, Russia NEVER would have invaded and Trump wouldn't be trying to pimp the nation's vast mineral resources. But just like the U.S. has broken treaty after treaty with Indigenous American tribes over the past 200 plus years, I believe that Ukraine MUST turn to the European Union to supply all of its armament needs! Indeed, as a longtime student of world history, I also believe that several old U.S. allies like Taiwan, South Korea, Germany and Japan had better be prepared for anything because the U.S., at least while under MAGA control, is NOT to be trusted to uphold treaties that provide for mutual defense and stability."
- Chuck Hobbs (TheHobbservationPoint.com)
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to Ned Yeung • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal #USpol #GeoPol
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(1/n)
#ChuckHobbs used to be a trial lawyer, not an expert in international law.
I wish it were different, but the legal dimension regarding the #BudapestMemorandum is the subject of scholarly disagreement. 👉It is NOT unquestionably legally binding. 👈I wish it were different:
"...it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 reshared this.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(2/n)
...devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but 👉unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties👈.[2]
[51]According to #StephenMacFarlane, a 👉professor of international relations, "It gives signatories justification if they take action, but it does not force anyone to act in Ukraine."[50]👈
In...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal
#USpol #GeoPol
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(3/n)
...the #US, 👉neither the #GeorgeHWBush administration nor the #Clinton administration was prepared to give a military commitment to #Ukraine👈, and they did not believe the #US Senate would ratify an international treaty and so the memorandum was adopted in more limited terms.[51]
The memorandum...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal
#USpol #GeoPol
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(4/n)
...has a requirement of consultation among the parties "in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning the ... commitments" set out in the memorandum.[52]
Whether or not the memorandum sets out legal obligations, the difficulties that #Ukraine has encountered since early 2014 may cast doubt on the credibility of...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal
#USpol #GeoPol
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(5/n)
...future security assurances that are offered in exchange for nonproliferation commitments.[53]
Regardless, 👉the United States publicly maintains that "the Memorandum is not legally binding", calling it a "political commitment".[23]👈..." 1)
So,...
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#WarInUkraine #FediLaw #Legal
#USpol #GeoPol
#BudapestMemorandum
#SecurityAssurances are not #SecurityGuarantees, I assure you 😉
(6/6)
...👉no, #ChuckHobbs, a quick research would have shown you that your claim that the document were legally binding is incorrect.👈
This mere, disproven assumption, is, alas, wishful thinking.
//
1)
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budape…
international treaty of Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Zjeff
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 reshared this.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to Zjeff • • •@Zjeff
#USpol
(1/n)
I agree pretty much with your analysis, but that it does NOT matter. It does.
tRump might not be aware of the #BudapestMemorandum, but some his advisors will be.
JD Vance didn't only complete undergraduate studies in political sciences. The #Veep is also a lawyer and former editor of the #Yale Law Journal. As any lawyer will tell you, legal studies will transform the way you think. You might interpret things differently, but preparing a discourse, etc., you cannot @ned
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to Zjeff • • •#USpol
(1/n)
I agree pretty much with your analysis, but that it does NOT matter. It does.
#tRump might not be aware of the #BudapestMemorandum, but some his advisors will be.
JD Vance didn't only complete undergraduate studies in political sciences. The #Veep is also a lawyer and former editor of the #Yale Law Journal. As any lawyer will tell you, legal studies will transform the way you think. You might interpret things differently, but preparing a discourse, etc., you cannot @ned
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 reshared this.
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#USpol #BudapestMemorandum
(2/n)
...ignore evidence that might become relevant.
What might be even more important, however, is that the #MAGAT'ts are presently having the upper hand in all 3 branches of the federal government.
As #history has taught us time and again: political currents never run smoothly unidirectionality. The pendulum will swing back, eventually.
Presently the reincarnation of WWI's isolationist #AmericaFirst party dominates all three branches. However,...
@ned @Zjeff
HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴
in reply to HistoPol (#HP) 🏴 🇺🇸 🏴 • • •#USpol #BudapestMemorandum
(3/n)
...there still are the, often gerontrocrats, in #Congress and #SCOTUS that are #Transatlanticists. They still believe in all the international institutions like #NATO, the #UN, etc. that led the #USA to become the single remaining superpower after #WWII.
Their day will come.
Alas, they will, IMO, rely on the sound legalities of the Budapest Memorandum. Then, it will matter once again.
//
@ned @Zjeff