Australia's role in nuclear disarmament

As we enter another year, two countries are poised to declare war in Asia.

This may not be terribly surprising in the big picture of international affairs, except that these countries each have nuclear weapons.

India and Pakistan developed a capacity for nuclear weapons and successfully tested them within weeks of one another four years ago.

Successful testing led to predictable international outrage, with even Australia strongly condemning India and Pakistan’s actions and imposing sanctions. These have since been lifted partly because of both countries’ strong stance against the terrorist attacks on the United States last September.

But regardless of the apparent cause for this latest outbreak of hostility and potential for war, the fact that both India and Pakistan are so open in pointing their weapons of mass destruction at one another is horrifying.

It opens, yet again, the endless debate about nuclear weapons and how countries can be stopped from developing nuclear weapons programs.

It is a debate Australia must and can play a role in. We did in the past. We have an obligation to do so again.

Distinguished former Australian diplomat, now diplomat-in-residence with the Council of Foreign Relations based in New York; Richard Butler, has continued a life-long commitment to ridding the world of its most hideous weaponry.

Butler has written a book, Fatal Choice: Nuclear weapons and the illusion of missile defence, published just weeks ago.

This book is commendable because it avoids technical jargon and, in Butler’s words, "…can be understood by plain people in plain language". It is aimed squarely at the general public.

After reading ‘Fatal Choice’ it is impossible not to understand the importance of reducing and eliminating weapons of mass destruction.

Many people throughout the world are either resigned to the existence of weapons that can destroy civilisation or are blinded by the apparent simplicity of political arguments for their retention.

‘Fatal Choice’ forces readers to challenge these views through compelling facts and reasoned argument, all in a slim-looking 178-pages.

Richard Butler has a reputation for straight talking and displays it from page one to the very end. Given the deadly subject to which he has devoted more than 30 years of work, it is not surprising to understand why. I doubt Australia has ever seen a tougher diplomat.

The world, 33-years ago, reached agreement and signed a treaty compelling each country to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) obliged non-nuclear states like Australia to never develop the capacity for nuclear weaponry. Significantly the NPT also obliged the nuclear powers, primarily the US, Russia, China, France and UK, to reduce and eliminate their stock of weapons.

Very few countries remain outside the ‘non-proliferation family’. But the NPT now, is perhaps under more threat than at any other time in its history.

So-called ‘rogue’ states – Iran, Iraq and North Korea – cheat from within their treaty obligations. They develop weapons programs and seek to perfect delivery systems that threaten the security of the Middle East, Asia and in the end the world.

People and countries could easily dismiss the activities of these states. After all, with leaders like Saddam Hussein, what better can be expected?

Butler concludes, however, that:

The challenge to safeguard the non-proliferation regime comes also from the crass hypocrisy of the major nuclear powers.

They have consistently failed to undertake obligations to reduce their stock of nuclear weapons postponing, perhaps forever, the time when they will be eliminated from the world.

Instead, the US, Russia, France, China and UK turn a convenient blind eye to the activities of ‘rogue’ states, using their activities only when convenient to highlight a threat to their own national security.

Butler is particularly critical of the United States for failing to show international leadership on the nuclear issue. He suggests that a "new paradigm" is being asserted in the US in the context of the proposed national missile defence system:

The proposal to develop a missile defence system will be extraordinarily expensive and ineffective. Most of the technical tests conducted so far have failed miserably. More so, it condemns the world to start another nuclear arms race, this time in a new theatre of conflict: space.

The Washington Post has reported that the Bush Administration is proposing to resume underground nuclear weapons testing, which has been suspended since 1992 – an order signed by President Bush’s father and continued under the Clinton Administration.

This move will further threaten the non-proliferation regime by directly undermining the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The Bush Administration is using the September terrorist attack to justify moving away from any international leadership role on nuclear issues. It started this policy move of ‘pick and choose’ multilateralism early in President Bush’s term by refusing to sign the Statute for the International Criminal Court and scuttling the negotiations on Kyoto.

US allies must convince the administration and Congress that this foreign policy approach is misguided. In the medium to long term, this policy will prove highly damaging. No superpower is invulnerable.

Australia has a commendable record on non-proliferation issues. The Keating Government established the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in November 1995.

The Commission, with Richard Butler as Chairman, reported in August 1996. Some of the central features of ‘Fatal Choice’ are directly from that report.

Instead of taking the opportunity and challenge of once again leading the world in the nuclear debate, the Howard Government simply lodged the report with the United Nations.

Lest it be presumed that the nuclear issue is far too big for Australia, we should remember that Australian foreign policy has successfully tackled other issues in the field of weapons of mass destruction.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions are testimony to Australia’s middle-power foreign policy efforts.

Australians, like all citizens of the world, have an intimate interest is promoting and safeguarding non-proliferation agreements.

Nuclear weapons are a scientific development designed by people. How to control, reduce and, ultimately, eliminate them is our decision.

What is plainly absent, at this point, is a determined choice.