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Former foreign minister of Australia, Garth Evans, has urged Australia to lobby the U.S. to promise “no first use” of nuclear weapons. He warned that global arms control agreements “are now either dead or on life support”.
AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It was announced on September 15, 2021 for the Indo-Pacific region. The partnership will focus on military capability, distinguishing it from the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance that also includes New Zealand and Canada. Under the partnership, the US and the UK will assist Australia in acquiring nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. The partnership also includes cooperation on advanced cyber mechanisms, artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum technologies, undersea capabilities, hypersonic and counter-hypersonic, electronic warfare, innovation, and information sharing.
The creation of the partnership spelled the end of a French–Australian submarine deal. On 17 September 2021, France recalled its ambassadors from Australia and the US; French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the partnership a “stab in the back” following Australia’s cancellation of the deal worth 69 billion dollars without notice.
Some southeast Asian nations have expressed concern that the AUKUS deal may destabilize the international security situation in the eastern Pacific.
Evans said that following the signing of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal, the Albanese administration should give “some comfort to ALP members and voters that we are really serious about nuclear arms control”. He added that it was “sheer dumb luck” that the world had avoided a nuclear attack since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “It is utterly wishful thinking to believe that this luck can continue in perpetuity”.
The Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) is a network of over 110 political, military, and diplomatic leaders from countries across the Asia-Pacific tackling security and defense challenges with a particular focus on addressing and eliminating nuclear weapons risks. The APLN was founded in 2011 to bring together individuals who have held high executive or advisory positions around the Asia Pacific region, from South Asia and East Asia to Australasia; who share a common belief that nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to all nations and peoples; and who have resolved to work together to promote policies in our region and beyond to effectively contain, diminish and eliminate them, and to create a security environment conducive to those goals.
Evans joined arms control experts and former senior diplomats in a sending a letter from the APLN urging Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, to take “a leadership role in addressing the rising nuclear threats in our region”. Evans went on to say that “The most immediately useful step we could take would be to support the growing international movement for the universal adoption of No First Use doctrine by the nuclear-armed states.”
By making a public commitment not to use nuclear weapons first, a country can send a political message that its arsenal for deterrence.
Please read Part 2 next