Since it was risking a disruption of the breaking news thread for Ukraine, I’ll pop this up here:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/28/europe/lukashenko-nuclear-weapons-belarus-russia-intl-hnk/index.html
During the interview, Lukashenko said, “no one minds Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation.”
“It’s very simple,” he added. “Join the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all: there will be nuclear weapons for everyone.”
Now, we’ve actually TALKED about this upthread, semi-jokingly, about offering a small number of nuclear weapons to our various non-nuclear allies, possibly including Ukraine. And I still think it’s a bad idea. But if Russia/Putin does move ahead on nuclear proliferation, the principles of MAD do lend itself to a similar situation where I could see the US gifting a small number of tactical weapons (almost certainly with a degree of technical security for arming of such) to it’s allies.
I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the Ukraine hadn’t already asked for an equivalent ‘gift’ from NATO, and… well, yeah, I need a drink now. Granted, I don’t trust Lukashenko’s confirmation that he’s received the weapons, but if India and China don’t condemn this in the strongest manner in concrete terms, then I figure proliferation will be the de facto effect.