{"id":6536,"date":"2024-10-22T18:20:36","date_gmt":"2024-10-22T18:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/?p=6536"},"modified":"2024-10-22T18:20:36","modified_gmt":"2024-10-22T18:20:36","slug":"zelenskiy-we-need-nato-or-nukes-and-we-want-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/2024\/10\/22\/zelenskiy-we-need-nato-or-nukes-and-we-want-nato\/","title":{"rendered":"Zelenskiy: We need NATO or nukes \u2026 and we want NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Link to article : https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/nato-nukes-volodymyr-zelenskyy-war-ukraine-aid-russia\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 17th the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave a passionate speech at the annual NATO leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium. In this speech, he mentioned the denuclearization processes that Ukraine went through in the 90s post-Soviet era. Saying \u201cWho gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Ukraine. Who is fighting today? Ukraine,\u201d. He later calmed the nerves of National Leaders by saying Ukraine does not have a secret Nuclear weapons program, recorded as saying \u201cWe are not building nuclear weapons. What I meant is that today there is no stronger security guarantee for us besides NATO membership.\u201d. Throughout this speech, Zelenskiy repeatedly stressed his desire for Ukrainian admittance into NATO. He claims that Ukraine in NATO is the only guaranteed deterrence to Russian Aggression. This comes as the flip side of what he was saying earlier. In short, Zelenskiy has laid an ultimatum, Nuclear Weapons, or Nato Membership.
My analysis of this article and Zelenski’s speech is one of awe. This speech is a declaration that carries an immense amount of weight to it. Ukraine in NATO had long been a fear of Putin and was probably the whole reason why Putin invaded in the first place. This statement from Zelensky might pressure Russia to double down and keep fighting, to keep Ukraine out of NATO. Ukraine also mentions the possibility of Ukraine producing its nuclear weapons opens up a whole new can of worms. The possibility of Ukraine becoming a nuclear power would pressure the US into admitting them into NATO, to prevent those nukes from falling into Russian hands and to keep a possible atomic armed state on a short leash.
The biggest effect I believe this speech will do is to escalate the conflict. I believe that NATO should look to hasten the end of the war and support Ukraine’s entrance into NATO. The possibility of Ukraine becoming a nuclear power, in a place that is notoriously war-stricken and unstable. However at the same time, if Russia wants to win, they need to escalate on their side and end the war before Ukraine develops nuclear weapons, or joins NATO. However, I believe that this speech is just the final nail in the coffin for Russian interests in Ukraine. This speech demonstrates Ukraine’s determination to win and not give up.
The best comparison to what we are learning in class is the idea of Realist Theory. Realist Theory is the idea that nations on the world stage are the same as humans in the state of nature, ie. “Nasty, Brutish, and Short.”. Nations need to be strong otherwise they will be swallowed up and taken over by other states. Ukraine is seeking a strong deterrence against foreign powers. They want to attach themselves to a stronger power. This follows realist theory almost exactly and therefore is related to what we are doing in class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Link to article : https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/nato-nukes-volodymyr-zelenskyy-war-ukraine-aid-russia\/ On October 17th the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave a passionate speech at the annual NATO leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium. In this speech, he mentioned the denuclearization processes that Ukraine went through in the 90s post-Soviet era. Saying \u201cWho gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Ukraine. Who is fighting today? Ukraine,\u201d. He… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6536"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6562,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6536\/revisions\/6562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/europeandrussiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}