A lot of people want to eliminate nuclear weapons, but how many if them have looked at the consequences?<p>Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons, and as a result hundreds of thousands of people have died.<p>I am not aware of any significant casualties from the possession of nuclear weapons by any nation that has had operational nukes for more than 2 years.<p>It seems that if we want to reduce casualties, then we want everyone to keep their nukes.<p>Please tell me if I am wrong.
On the face of it, it sounds like an altruistic, benign operation: to safeguard Kazakhstan and prevent nuclear proliferation.<p>However, keep in mind the nature of the 'Big Five' permanent members of the UN Security Council: 'The permanent members were all Allies in World War II (and the victors of that war), and are the five states with the first and most nuclear weapons. All have the power of veto which enables any one of them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of its level of international support.' (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_United_Nations_Security_Council" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_members_of_the_Unite...</a>)<p>Highly enriched uranium = nuclear weapons = <i>POWER</i><p>Remember the ending of the movie Oppenheimer? Oppie, a scientist at the peak of his field, <i>willingly</i> handed over the most powerful weapon known to humanity to... a person with a less-than-stellar moral code: President Truman (<i>"Don't let that crybaby back in here."</i>)<p>That handover changed geopolitics forever, which was a major theme of the movie - and in real life too.<p>Remember also that Ukraine was comprehensively disarmed, by the Budapest Memorandum, and as part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_de...</a>). And now look what a mess resulted from that: a world war has already quietly started in Europe...<p>(There is not enough made of the fact that Russia has involved Iran, North Korea, China, and a number of other countries in its effort to invade Ukraine. Russia has violated several articles of the UN Charter, even while it maintains an contentious seat on the Security Council, thus shredding the credibility and founding principles of the United Nations.)<p>I'm writing this to add a better perspective of this operation. It was a <i>lot more</i> than simply "truck[ing] [the uranium] to the Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee to be blended down."