alt Hacker NewsI'll be as straightforward as possible. Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons ergo Ukraine didn't need its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons. And when even the "despotic regimes" like Russia are refusing to use a weapon, it no longer becomes a credible threat for the ostensibly good guys to threaten to use.
Weapons can only act as a deterrent if your opponent believes you're willing to use them and there are some weapons that no one is willing to use. And if no one is willing to use them, it's probably a waste to develop them in the first place.
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How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy. This was the point you started arguing against. Russia hasent nuked Ukraine so nobody needs defenses or arms?
> Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons
Ukraine giving up its Soviet nukes in the 1990s was, with the benefit of hindsight, a mistake that has cost over a hundred thousand Ukrainians their lives. Even if Ukraine just had the missiles in a basement, the possibility that it had cracked the control system–or shortened the runway to reprocessing the warheads for a domestic platform–would have likely deterred war.