Nuclear arms race danger is increasing – Australia endorses it
Nuclear arms race risk grows, amid US and Russia tensions, Newcastle Herald , Damon Cronshaw , JANUARY 7 2019, The risk of a new nuclear arms race appears to have significantly increased through “fractured relations between the US and Russia”, a University of Newcastle academic says.
The Trump administration’s stated intention to develop a new generation of American nuclear weapons was “highly inflammatory”, said Associate Professor Amy Maguire, a senior lecturer in international law at the university.
She also considered the intention to be “disingenuous”.
“The US continually enhances its nuclear capability – it is not as though the US has had warehouses full of old bombs gathering dust for decades and now they are starting afresh,” she said.
Nevertheless, she said the global stockpile of nuclear weapons had been reduced significantly to 14,700. The Cold War arms race led to a stockpile of an estimated 70,000 weapons.
“However, arms control agreements that have been key to achieving this reduction are increasingly under pressure,” she said.
She said the US and Russia had repeatedly accused each other of violating various arms control treaties.
“In October this year, President Trump announced that the US will withdraw from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles [commonly known as the INF treaty].”
The US said Russia had violated the treaty by developing a new cruise missile. The US was also concerned about having no response to Chinese missiles. China is not part of the treaty.
“If Russia’s doing it and if China’s doing it and we’re adhering to the agreement, that’s unacceptable,” Mr Trump said in October.
Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev cited withdrawal from the INF treaty and the Iran nuclear deal as evidence that the US had declared a new nuclear arms race.
“This is of particular concern given the massive and growing rate of military spending globally,” Associate Professor Maguire said.
She said Australia’s refusal to endorse the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons “indicates how we see ourselves in relation to the world’s nuclear powers, none of which has endorsed the prohibition treaty”.
“Australia is one of 30 states that are regarded as nuclear weapons-endorsing states. This bloc of states rely on what they regard as the nuclear protection of allies.
“Australia’s government argues that a ‘building blocks’ approach to disarmament is preferable to the prohibition required by the treaty.”
But by refusing to participate in the drafting of the prohibition treaty, she said Australia “missed an opportunity to contribute positively to nuclear disarmament”. “The treaty is far from perfect, not least because it does not include the nine nuclear-armed states. Had countries like Australia participated in the drafting more productively, a different agreement could perhaps have been reached,” she said.
“Such an agreement might, for example, have allowed for a phase in which weapons stockpiles were reduced prior to full elimination and prohibition.”………. https://www.theherald.com.au/story/5833974/the-revived-menace-of-nuclear-arms-a-newcastle-researchers-take/?cs=12
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