The 1994 Budapest Memorandum and European Security Architecture: Ukraine’s Denuclearization and the Limits of ‘Security Guarantees’
The 1994 Budapest Memorandum and European Security Architecture: Ukraine’s Denuclearization and the Limits of ‘Security Guarantees’

Summary/Abstract: This article reassesses Ukraine’s denuclearization by treating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum as a non-justiciable assurance and evaluating its deterrent quality through a credible-commitment lens. It offers a chronological, source-grounded reconstruction (1990–2022) and advances three expectations: assurances without coercive clauses and mutual-defence guarantees underperform; denuclearization lowers near-term proliferation and accident risks but shifts strategic risk to the beneficiary absent robust capabilities or alliances; grey-zone instruments exploit political-assurance frameworks more readily than enforceable guarantees. Findings show Budapest met the U.S.–UK objective of rapid denuclearization yet failed to embed a deterrence-capable order, producing responses skewed to ex post compensation (aid, sanctions) rather than ex ante prevention. For the EU, the arrangement entrenched reliance on assurance tools (norms, sanctions, conditionality) alongside transatlantic deterrence while stopping short of NATO-type guarantees (pre-committed forces, automaticity). After 2014—and especially after 2022—EU strategic culture shifted toward resilience, defence-industrial ramp-up, and tighter EU–NATO complementarity, without retroactively making Budapest enforceable.

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