Antinuclear

Australian leadership in Indo‑Pacific nuclear diplomacy

JOHN TILEMANN, The Interpreter, 3 Nov 23

With growing state capabilities in the region, “guardrails”
are more important than ever. Canberra can help.

Australia should again take a leadership role in nuclear diplomacy, working with regional neighbours, to reduce nuclear threats in the Indo-Pacific through confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures.

This was the call in an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese published this week by a cross-party and expert group of prominent Australians in the fields of public policy and nuclear security, urging the government to act to stem the rising tide of global nuclear threats – threats mostly generated today in the Indo-Pacific.

The seriousness of the danger has been acknowledged by regional leaders, including Australia’s prime minister. But it has yet to receive the high-level political attention it demands.

Eight of the world’s nine nuclear-armed states have strategic stakes in our region. Tensions among these nuclear players continue to rise, and the price of nuclear mistakes, or worse, intentional use of nuclear weapons, could be existential.

The numbers illustrate the danger…………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Long gone are the days of the relative simplicity of the bipolar world of two opposing blocs with a degree of stability arising from the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. The multi-polar nuclear world of the Indo-Pacific is an even more dangerous place.

And additional nuclear complexity arises from the expectations of states benefiting from “ironclad treaty alliances” that the United States extends to Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand.   

Both South Korea and Japan have expressed concern about the reliability of US strategic assurances, and both could build nuclear weapons quickly should they take that decision. Australia’s nuclear diplomacy must also address those proliferation pressures…………………………………………….

Global instruments to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and to cap nuclear weapon testing have been very successful – but there are big gaps in these regimes in the Indo-Pacific. 

Three of the four countries to reject the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, designed to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons, are in this region: India, Pakistan and North Korea. The formal entry into force of the global ban on nuclear weapon testing is blocked by eight countries in two areas of regional tension – the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.

Widely supported proposals for a global ban on the production of materials used to make nuclear weapons – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – are also resisted by those in our region still growing their nuclear arsenals.

While remaining hugely important, global mechanisms must be supplemented by regional mechanisms. Even basic tools for crisis management such as hotlines are either unevenly maintained or non-existent.

The ASEAN Regional Forum brings together all relevant Indo-Pacific players but has had limited success in moving beyond information exchange to confidence building measures – and preventive diplomacy remains a distant ambition. 

The East Asia Summit also engages all key Indo-Pacific strategic nuclear parties, but it has yet to become a mechanism for addressing security challenges, let alone reducing nuclear threats.    

Nevertheless, Australia has a solid record of institution building from APEC through to its strong engagement with the ASEAN-led arrangements that have done much to establish the habits of regional dialogue. ……………………………………………………… more https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/australian-leadership-indo-pacific-nuclear-diplomacy

November 4, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war