North Korea is not a global military power, its not an important economic power, it doesn't hold considerable reserves of important resources, it's not a big player in world trade, it doesn't have a seat in important intergovernmental political forums, it's not currently involved in a large-scale armed conflict and is not a member of the UN Security Council.
North Korea dangerous because it has a (comparatively, tiny) nuclear stockpile, but in the grand scheme of things, it's rather irrelevant.
Russia is all those things above that North Korea isn't. Neither Russia nor the USA have performed nuclear tests in the 21st century and that was a huge step that took insurmountable diplomatic work to achieve. Starting nuclear tests again would not only be a huge step back diplomatically, but also open a whole other can of worms that thankfully still remains closed. As things currently are, it's a smart move geopolitically to not be the country that takes that step back, or that opens that can of worms.
> Russia is honoring its treaty commitments not to test nuclear weapons.
Your assumption that Russia cares about following the treaties it signs upto is admirable but not reality. Russia never follows treaties when it doesn’t want to, so either they don’t want to test a nuke or can’t.
aylmao|2 years ago
North Korea dangerous because it has a (comparatively, tiny) nuclear stockpile, but in the grand scheme of things, it's rather irrelevant.
Russia is all those things above that North Korea isn't. Neither Russia nor the USA have performed nuclear tests in the 21st century and that was a huge step that took insurmountable diplomatic work to achieve. Starting nuclear tests again would not only be a huge step back diplomatically, but also open a whole other can of worms that thankfully still remains closed. As things currently are, it's a smart move geopolitically to not be the country that takes that step back, or that opens that can of worms.
xaduha|2 years ago
That's sounds a bit too rational, not MAD enough, you know? Putin clearly wasn't thinking rationally, otherwise there wouldn't be a war to begin with.
If you're going to threaten with nuclear weapons, then saying that you gonna do it and then repeating it a few times isn't it.
metalspot|2 years ago
Russia is honoring its treaty commitments not to test nuclear weapons.
_kbh_|2 years ago
Your assumption that Russia cares about following the treaties it signs upto is admirable but not reality. Russia never follows treaties when it doesn’t want to, so either they don’t want to test a nuke or can’t.