Dr Sue Wareham OAM. President of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), and a former board member of ICAN Australia, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2 September, 2024.
Introduction
Nuclear weapons remain an existential threat to civilisation. Australia’s ongoing support for a role for these weapons in our “defence”, and our growing complicity with US preparations for nuclear war, undermine global efforts for elimination of these weapons. We could become part of the solution rather than continue being part of the problem.
Nuclear weapons must be abolished, for our own security and that of the planet. These worst of all weapons of mass destruction threaten catastrophic harm, undermine relationships between nations, and have brought us to the precipice of mass destruction on multiple occasions.
In 1945, just two nuclear weapons killed over 200,000 people, either instantly or slowly over a matter of months. In 2024, global stockpiles contain over 12,000 of these weapons, many of them being far more powerful than those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nine nations – Russia, the US, the UK, China, France, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea – continue to defy the global abhorrence and illegitimacy of the weapons by clinging onto and upgrading their arsenals. The US and Russia possess nearly 90% of the global total.
International humanitarian law prohibits the use of indiscriminate weapons, and the International Committee of the Red Cross urges the elimination of nuclear weapons on humanitarian, moral and legal grounds. International monitoring and verification are recognised as important elements of this process.
The risk of nuclear war, according to the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, is the highest that it has ever been, at 90 seconds to midnight. Wars involving nuclear armed states are raging, and a further one threatens in our own region between the US and China. There are no active nuclear arms control talks, and previous arms control agreements have been abandoned. Threats to use the weapons have re-emerged. A war using less than 1% of existing stocks of nuclear weapons would result in an estimated 27 million direct deaths. And studies of the climate impacts of even such a “small” nuclear war predict a prolonged nuclear winter leading to global famine.
Australia is not an innocent bystander to this problem. Our governments repeatedly perpetuate the myth that nuclear weapons “deter” conflict. Australia’s 2024 Defence Strategic Review released in April 2024 continued the dangerously flawed notion that we must rely on “US extended nuclear deterrence”.
Nuclear “deterrence” is merely a theory about how leaders might behave in a crisis. It assumes that they will always be wise, humane, restrained and flawless in their judgement, and that there will be no technical errors. Unfortunately, the real world is not like that. At some point our luck will run out unless we get rid of these weapons.
Australia is becoming more complicit in US nuclear weapons policies, particularly as a result of the proposed AUKUS nuclear powered submarines. In arguing against the submarines, Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute states that they will contribute to US naval plans for attacks on China, possibly assisting US submarines as they search for Chinese nuclear-armed submarines. This would greatly increase China’s sense of vulnerability and could be regarded by China as an existential threat, and thus become a seriously destabilising force in the Asia-Pacific region. In addition, the AUKUS nuclear submarines will exacerbate the risks of nuclear weapons proliferation, because they will be fuelled with highly-enriched uranium, which is nuclear bomb fuel.
The Pine Gap surveillance base near Alice Springs plays a critical role in US nuclear command, control and communications, including for tasks such as nuclear weapons targeting. It is being rapidly expanded, from 35 to 45 satellite dishes, as part of preparing for a possible nuclear war between the US and China. It would be a likely priority target for a Chinese missile strike in the event of a China-US war.
In addition, Tindal air force base in the NT is being expanded to host US B52 bombers, which are capable of carrying nuclear as well as conventional weapons. Whether they are in fact carrying nuclear weapons would not readily be known by an adversary such as China in times of crisis, thus adding to the instability that comes from uncertainties. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in its report “The Role of Umbrella States in the Global Nuclear Order” states that “Providing a permanent base to host [dual-capable] aircraft, as Australia is about to do, is a clear form of operational support, which, similarly to hosting nuclear weapons, makes the nuclear-allied state a likely counterforce target.”
In addition to perpetuating the threat of nuclear war, spending on nuclear weapons programs diverts attention and funding from our real security threats. ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, estimates that nuclear weapons spending globally in 2023 had risen to over US$91 billion. The US accounted for $51.5 billion of the total, more than all the other nuclear armed states combined. China was next in line with spending of $11.9 billion, and Russia spent $8.3 billion. This spending is an unconscionable distraction from climate action, environmental restoration, diplomacy, development and the many other measures needed to provide a sustainable future for all people.
Thus the nuclear weapons picture globally is bleak. But it is not hopeless. There is one thing that is going in the right direction. It is the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) which came into force in 2021. It prohibits every aspect of nuclear weapons development, testing, production, possession, transfer, financing, use and threat of use. Its purpose is to stigmatise and delegitimise the weapons, a purpose that is being fulfilled.
The Australian government, when in opposition, committed to signing the TPNW – a step that would be ground-breaking in its importance – but has not yet done so. Pleasingly, Australia’s position is now less hostile towards the TPNW, but there is a significant way to go still.
We must urgently take a new approach to peace and security. Rejecting any role for nuclear weapons in our “defence” is critical. The policy of “extended nuclear deterrence” must be abandoned. Australia could become part of the solution rather than remaining part of the problem.