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1994 Budapest Memorandum
Sep. 14th, 2025 08:40 amThere are a lot of people that say that US and UK reneged on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and did not defend Ukraine after 2014. Let me point out why that memorandum was never worth more than the paper it was printed on (despite the flashy signatures):
1. The US President can sign treaties (or any type of foreign-related acts) but they are worthless unless the US Senate countersigns them (which of course never happened and AFAIK was not even brought up for debate/vote). It might also matter to some that in Dec 1994 when Clinton signed that memorandum, the Nov 1994 US Senate elections have already flipped the chamber to the GOP, party which was already on a crusade to block everything Clinton tried to do, going as far as to impeach him. Yes, the Dems could have invoked a Senate lame duck session before the Jan 1995 actual seat changes and tried to ram through a ratification of the memorandum, but that would have been highly unlikely to succeed given the filibuster rule and even less likely on such a non-issue from the POV of American politics. So, the US/Clinton assurance was effectively DOA.
2. I suspect that the UK prime minister has a similar arrangement given that the UK Parliament votes on everything consequential, especially something as important as starting a war with Russia.
3. The Ukrainian counter signatories of that memorandum were either stupid, duplicitous or both. To not know the above and dick around with Russia on Crimea/Sevastopol and their transit gas pipelines and contracts, is and has proved nearly suicidal.
1. The US President can sign treaties (or any type of foreign-related acts) but they are worthless unless the US Senate countersigns them (which of course never happened and AFAIK was not even brought up for debate/vote). It might also matter to some that in Dec 1994 when Clinton signed that memorandum, the Nov 1994 US Senate elections have already flipped the chamber to the GOP, party which was already on a crusade to block everything Clinton tried to do, going as far as to impeach him. Yes, the Dems could have invoked a Senate lame duck session before the Jan 1995 actual seat changes and tried to ram through a ratification of the memorandum, but that would have been highly unlikely to succeed given the filibuster rule and even less likely on such a non-issue from the POV of American politics. So, the US/Clinton assurance was effectively DOA.
2. I suspect that the UK prime minister has a similar arrangement given that the UK Parliament votes on everything consequential, especially something as important as starting a war with Russia.
3. The Ukrainian counter signatories of that memorandum were either stupid, duplicitous or both. To not know the above and dick around with Russia on Crimea/Sevastopol and their transit gas pipelines and contracts, is and has proved nearly suicidal.
