The Bush and Clinton Administrations and Ukraine’s Nuclear Dismantlement, 1991–1994

ABSTRACT The collapse of the Soviet Union posed the greatest non-proliferation problem since the beginning of the atomic age. Would Ukraine be willing to abandon the nuclear weapons on their territory and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state? Based on recently declassified archival sources, this article investigates how the Geoge H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations pursued Ukraine’s nuclear dismantlement through a mix of three types of policy action including trilateral diplomacy with Ukraine and Russia, United States financial and technical assistance in the denuclearisation process and a policy to address Ukraine’s broader security dilemma.