Antinuclear

Critical scrutiny on Australia’s stance on nuclear weapons

If deterrence has failed and Australia is hit by the bomb, it would not profit Australia for the Earth to be destroyed with US retaliatory strikes on the attacker that trigger an all-out nuclear war. This would not be a rational strategy of defence but an irrational act of revenge initiating an all-consuming nuclear Armageddon.

The realistic agenda Australia favours, through practical steps in collaboration with those with the bomb, has fallen far behind the urgency and gravity of the very real threats posed by these most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented. The humanitarian pledge is a critical step to their elimination, not an exercise in futility. The growing global support for it reflects, not naïveté by its proponents, but frustration with the glacial efforts of the nuclear-armed states in containing, minimising, reducing and eliminating nuclear risks that pose intolerable threats to all of us

Confidential cables, Australia, and nuclear weapons, Asia and Pacific Policy Society Policy Forum, October 2015  What the Australian cables reveal Ramesh Thakur Australia may be saying the same thing in public as it is behind the scenes, but that doesn’t mean its stance on nuclear weapons can withstand critical scrutiny, Ramesh Thakur writes.

Using the Freedom of Information law, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has obtained a tranche of confidential cables between Canberra and various Australian diplomatic missions around the world, regarding the recent nuclear weapons’ humanitarian consequences movement. The cables contain no surprise and confirm what is broadly known about Australia’s approach. They underline some positive features of Australian foreign policy but also confirm the limitations inherent to bureaucracies in trying to find imaginative solutions to intractable problems.

The cables show Australia is a responsible state actor that takes international commitments seriously………

That said, neither of the two main grounds for Australia’s opposition withstand critical scrutiny. First, Australia relies on the threat of a retaliatory nuclear strike by the US to deter a nuclear attack on Australia. There are several problems with this, starting with two interesting and important truths. Romancing nuclear weapons ignores the complete lack of evidence to suggest that any nuclear-armed country had planned to attack another but was deterred from doing so because the target country had its own, or was defended by a protector’s, nuclear weapons. Nor is there a single example of a nuclear-armed country successfully threatening their use in order to change another’s behaviour. Indeed in the 1980s Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands knowing Britain had the bomb but fully confident it would not be used even in the face of a British defeat. The core claim by the humanitarian consequences movement is that it is in the interests of the very survival of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, under any circumstances. Canberra can subscribe to the first part but finds the final phrase – ‘under any circumstances’ – deeply problematic and inconsistent with its reliance on US extended nuclear deterrence. ……..

Without a prior nuclear attack, the reputational damage of first use of the bomb would vastly exceed any conceivable military gains. If deterrence has failed and Australia is hit by the bomb, it would not profit Australia for the Earth to be destroyed with US retaliatory strikes on the attacker that trigger an all-out nuclear war. This would not be a rational strategy of defence but an irrational act of revenge initiating an all-consuming nuclear Armageddon. In other words, beyond their sole (if questionable) utility in deterring attack, nuclear weapons cannot in fact be used – under any circumstances. Their very destructiveness robs them of any military or political utility, which is an important part of the explanation for why they have not been used again since August 1945.

Second, the humanitarian pledge is belittled for indulging in symbolic gimmicks at the cost of pursuing a realistic and practical agenda. This criticism too is fundamentally misconceived and attacks a self-constructed straw man. The Austrian Pledge of last December commits to filling the legal gap for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The key phrase is to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate them. Of course they can be eliminated only by those who have them. For states without the bomb to ban their possession by those with the bomb is also an empty gesture. Banning their use, however, is an attempt to deepen the stigma and add yet another significant normative barrier to any use of the bomb. And every additional stigma adds to the global pressure to reduce numbers, deployments and role on the path to elimination. The realistic agenda Australia favours, through practical steps in collaboration with those with the bomb, has fallen far behind the urgency and gravity of the very real threats posed by these most indiscriminately inhumane weapons ever invented. The humanitarian pledge is a critical step to their elimination, not an exercise in futility. The growing global support for it reflects, not naïveté by its proponents, but frustration with the glacial efforts of the nuclear-armed states in containing, minimising, reducing and eliminating nuclear risks that pose intolerable threats to all of us. – See more at:http://www.policyforum.net/confidential-cables-australia-and-nuclear-weapons/#sthash.RNSN5aqP.dpuf

October 7, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | General News