By Colonel Awadhesh Kumar, Veteran Special Forces
Australia is within range of China’s nuclear-capable Dongfeng missiles and this seems to be worrying a few Australians as seen from Australian newspaper reports. So going back nearly 50 years, they are trying to dig up and see what John Gorton was up to during his short Premiership tenure.
Located on the bushland of Jervis Bay on the New South Wales coast are the concrete footings of a nuclear power station that was never built.
This was Australia’s first tryst into nuclear power generation. The reactor would also have generated plutonium which, could have been used to manufacture nuclear weapons by Australia.
However due to abrupt change of Government, Australia continued to remain a non-nuclear player. Now with Uncle Sam announcing that Trump will pull the US from the Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, because Russians are expanding their nuclear arsenals, the fears that had affected Mr Gorton’s foreign policy are once again affecting the Australian psyche.
Today India has caught up with China by developing Agni V with capability of hitting any part of China. It has also deployed its nuclear submarines with nuclear tipped missiles.
Very soon India will have its land based ICBMs and sea based SLBM of over 14000 km range. In Asia Pakistan too is a nuclear nation,though not even worth a second glance by India.
Historically Australia has sought shelter under the US ‘nuclear umbrella’, but now there may be time for that to change. Many nations without nuclear weapons rely on a guarantee of support from the US and its nuclear arsenal.
There is no official status but others in this category include Japan, South Korea and the members of NATO. Originating during the Cold War, it was an alternative to many countries acquiring nuclear weapons themselves.
Now either Australia can approach India to provide a nuclear umbrella or exercise another option that is to have its own nuclear armed missiles.
It has been suggested that Australia’s a fortress with a huge oceanic moat around can go for and deploy tactical nuclear weapons all around that could be used against threatening maritime forces.
On the high seas, nukes can be employed without significant risk of collateral damage, just like conventional war heads.
For this a maritime exclusion zone could be declared in wartime, to prevent any country planning a major attack against the continent.
When the Australians had set out to build nuclear power plant at Jervis Bay in 1968, Cold War tensions were high, Britain was withdrawing from Asia, and Japan was beginning to take its place as a new economic power.
Once again a rapidly changing strategic environment is coming up rapidly. Both China and India are rising militarily and economically,while the US retreats and Britain has nearly vanished.
Also a series of flashpoints keep the world on edge. Dr Fruhling an Australian analyst believes Australia should only consider nuclear weapons if there is a direct, existential threat to the country.
As per him a serious study would be the key to assessing whether nuclear weapons could really be a solution to Australia’s prospective security problems or rather create fresh set of problems.
Even the Cost both financial and in international relationship will be very high. Why should countries opposing Iran’s entry into nuclear club not oppose Australia’s entry into the same club, will be the moot question.
Then why will India keep quiet, after all Australia had been one of the first countries to oppose India’s forced entry into the nuclear club.
The strategic benefits of any nuclear capability would have to be balanced against the possible implications of breaking out of the US nuclear umbrella.
Australia’s dependence on US intelligence, technology, and weapons systems will definitely suffer if it chose to implement a defence strategy that was less reliant on the US.
“Before investing in a nuclear program I think we would have to make a genuine attempt at trying to draw closer to the United States and its nuclear arsenal,” Dr Fruhling said.
Another major factor troubling Australian thinking is the rising Indonesia who are also equally friendly to both India and US. In case Indonesia decides to begin its own nuclear program, then implications of security guarantee from any country will actually become meaningless for Australia.
The reverse is also true. An Australian nuclear program could lead to Indonesia following suit. Indonesia too has regional leadership ambitions, and a strong sense of independence and is growing rapidly economically as well as in population terms. It is likely to overtake Australia soon both economically and militarily.
Therefore Australia going for nuclear weapons would give enough reasons to Indonesia to go for the same to maintain status as well as security parity. Thus Australia’s non-nuclear status is important in discouraging Indonesia and other regional players from going down the nuclear path.
During the Cold War Australia, prepared itself to play its role in the event of a nuclear war to side with USA and Britain. Australia supplied Britain with uranium and provided test facilities at Maralinga.
However after the Vietnam War, Australia dropped its nuclear ambitions as the great existential threat moved from an Asian communist invasion to a US–Soviet nuclear conflict.
Australia which had first refused to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, refusing to become a signatory when it was first presented to the UN in 1968, finally ratified the same in early 1970s.
Later Australia cemented its place under the US nuclear umbrella and centred its own defence strategy on a superior conventional capability at home.
The Federal Government’s 2016 Defence White paper reiterated that “Only the nuclear and conventional military capabilities of the United States can offer effective deterrence against the possibility of nuclear threats against Australia,” it read.
Last year more than 120 nations held talks to negotiate a treaty that would forbid states from developing or manufacturing nuclear weapons.
The Australian Government refused to take part in the treaty negotiations, claiming they didn’t consider the geopolitical realities the world was facing.
For anti-nuclear organisations like the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Nobel prize-winning coalition founded in Melbourne, Australia has disregarded its humanitarian duties.
