The Australian Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7:7)

 
Australia resists nuclear disarmament push because it relies on US deterrent

Exclusive: Diplomatic cables reveal prospects for nuclear disarmament are ‘bleak’ as Australia becomes increasingly lonely in opposing 116-nation push for ban

Ben Doherty

@bendohertycorro
Tuesday 15 September 2015 17.01 EDT

Prospects for nuclear disarmament are “bleak” under the current non-proliferation treaty, Australian diplomats have conceded in cables back to Canberra, but the country will resist growing global support for a new treaty banning nuclear weapons because of a dependence on the nuclear deterrent capability of the US.

A tranche of internal government emails from within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reveals Australia’s opposition to a 116-nation push to ban nuclear weapons is leaving it increasingly isolated globally, and especially among anti-nuclear neighbours.

The emails, released under freedom of information, reveal Australia is increasingly worried about an Austrian-led push for a treaty to ban all nuclear weapons.

“Like the US, Australia is worried about the Austrian pledge,” a Dfat note says.

Other cables to Canberra described the pledge as “a not-too-subtle attempt to build momentum for negotiations on a nuclear weapons ban treaty” but also reported that “the Austrian pledge is fast becoming a galvanising focus for those pushing the ban treaty option”.

Australia says it needs the protection of the deterrent effect of the US’s nuclear arsenal, the second largest in the world.

“As long as nuclear weapons exist, Australia will continue to rely on US nuclear forces to deter nuclear attack on Australia,” a Dfat briefing note says.

At a global conference in December last year, the so-called “humanitarian pledge”, proposed by Austria, called for an international treaty banning nuclear weapons, asking nations to cooperate “in efforts to stigmatise, prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons in light of their unacceptable humanitarian consequences”.

The Austrian pledge, which 116 countries – most of the world’s nations – have endorsed, proposes to “fill the legal gap of the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

The pledge has also attracted the support of pope Francis, who said the “immoral” weapons should be “banned once and for all”, and nine Nobel peace laureates who signed a declaration urging “all states to commence negotiations on a treaty to ban nuclear weapons at the earliest possible time”.

The mechanism for disarmament is chapter VI of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT), which obliges the five declared nuclear states to “pursue negotiations in good faith” towards “cessation of the nuclear arms race … and nuclear disarmament”.

But the disarmament “pillar” of the treaty is widely regarded as having failed. While the superpowers are slowly reducing their stockpiles, they are, at the same time, working to develop new weapons systems or upgrade existing ones.

India, Pakistan and North Korea have increased their nuclear stockpiles in recent years, and their weapons fall outside the treaty because they are not members. Nor is Israel, whose nuclear status is undeclared but is believed to have about 80 warheads.

North Korea nuclear reactor showing signs of ramp-up, says thinktank

In cables back to Canberra, Australian diplomats have highlighted the weaknesses in the non-proliferation treaty process. In a briefing prepared for the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, officials concede “prospects are bleak for meaningful progress in multilateral arms control”.

And they warn Bishop that the failure of the last round of treaty talks to reach consensus “will embolden those arguing that the current disarmament machinery is broken and that a nuclear weapons ban treaty must be negotiated outside the NPT”.

Australia has found it is particularly isolated in regional security meetings. At a meeting of Asia Pacific nations on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and prospects for a ban treaty, Australia was “the lone voice in the room on many issues”.

Briefing notes say Australia supports practical, realistic measures for nuclear disarmament, but dismisses “simplistic approaches which ignore the security dimensions”.

Suggested “talking points” for government ministers say “effective disarmament can only be achieved by engaging all the nuclear-armed states; simply banning nuclear weapons would not lead to their elimination”.

“As long as the threat of nuclear attack or coercion exists, and countries like the DPRK [North Korea] seek these weapons and threaten others, Australia and many other countries will continue to rely on US extended nuclear deterrence.”

Prof Ramesh Thakur, director of the centre for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament at the Australian National University, said Australian diplomats had underestimated support for the humanitarian pledge.

“What is really clear from these cables, but not explicitly stated, is that Australian officials have been very surprised, they have been taken aback, by the strength of support for the humanitarian consequences pledge, and they are scrambling to explain that.

“Support for the humanitarian consequences pledge is making Australia’s position more difficult; it is galvanising public and political opinion, and Australia finds itself running against the domestic and international tide.”

Thakur said Australia’s earlier leadership on nuclear disarmament had diminished over the past four years.

“We know what Australia is saying ‘no’ to. It is saying ‘no’ to the humanitarian consequences pledge. Well, what is it saying ‘yes’ to?”

“We all share the so-called realistic practical agenda they identify with respect to the fissile material cut-off treaty and comprehensive test ban treaty. But the reality is all such efforts have been stalemated and frustrated for years now, hence the interest in new ways to generate momentum towards real progress instead of more rhetoric.”

The FOI request that revealed the government correspondence was made by the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons (Ican), a coalition of NGOs from more than 95 countries, whose aim is a global ban on nuclear weapons.

Ican’s Asia-Pacific director, Tim Wright, told Guardian Australia the humanitarian pledge had developed an international momentum, and he was confident it would lead to new global negotiations towards outlawing nuclear weapons.

The Australian government’s argument that it required the protection of a foreign power’s nuclear weapons was “a long-held belief that has gone unchallenged”.

“Nuclear weapons undermine safety, they do not enhance it,” Wright said.

And a proposed ban treaty was not designed to replace the non-proliferation treaty.

“The NPT remains relevant, and will for the foreseeable future, as the only treaty with a legally binding commitment towards disarmament. But we see a ban treaty as something not to replace the NPT, but as something to complement and strengthen it, like the comprehensive test ban treaty did in the 1990s.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not respond to inquiries about the cables from Guardian Australia.

The Nuclear Horns Ignore The Vienna Peace Conference (Daniel 7:7)

U.S., UK face nuclear disarmament pressure at Vienna meeting

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA

Peace activists demanding nuclear disarmament demonstrate in front of the U.S. Embassy to Ankara April 8, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Umit Bektas

(Reuters) – The United States and Britain took part for the first time on Monday in an international conference on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and were expected to face pressure to do more to eliminate their atomic arsenals.

The three other officially recognized nuclear weapon states — Russia, France and China — shunned the Dec. 8-9 meeting. Many of the 157 states taking part are critical of what they see as too slow headway on nuclear disarmament.

The conference, the third in a series which began in 2013, comes amid talk of a new Cold War between the West and Russia over the Ukraine crisis, during which President Vladimir Putin has pointedly stressed Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.

Explaining its decision to come to Vienna, the United States said last month it had decided “there were real prospects for constructive engagement with conference participants”, but added it would not engage in disarmament negotiations at the meeting.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said the attendance of two of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members was a “first success” of the conference, adding: “It is high time to move from words to real action.”

Under the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the five recognized atomic bomb “haves” agreed to work towards eliminating their bombs, while the “have-nots” pledged not to pursue them. A treaty review conference is scheduled for 2015.

Critics say there has been more emphasis on meeting the non-proliferation goal than getting the five major powers to fulfill their part of the deal. The five argue that much progress has already been made, with stocks much lower than at any time in the past half century.

“STILL TOO MANY”

The U.S. atomic arsenal has been cut by 85 percent from its Cold War heights to 4,800 weapons, a U.S. official said last week. But, “that is still too many and we know it”, said Rose Gottemoeller, under-secretary of state for arms control.

U.N. disarmament chief Angela Kane said countries without nuclear bombs were “becoming increasingly exasperated” that disarmament negotiations were not happening. It seems the weapon states “don’t really see that the NPT is an obligation to disarm”, she told Reuters.

Pakistan and India, which both have nuclear weapons, have not signed the NPT. They attended the Vienna talks, as did Iran, which rejects Western accusations it too wants to build a bomb.

Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal and is also outside the NPT, did not attend.

(Editing by Gareth Jones)

Obama Inaction Will Lead To More Nukes

Obama inaction on Ukraine could impede nuclear disarmament

Washington Times

 

Obama’s Foreign Policy

The muted American response to Russia’s invasions of Ukraine could have consequences far beyond Eastern Europe, according to security analysts who fear the crisis may discourage countries in the future from swearing off nuclear weapons like Kiev did in a 1994 treaty.

Three years after the Soviet Union’s breakup, newly independent Ukraine was compelled by the three nuclear superpowers to enter into the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, a treaty that guaranteed its signatories would respect the “territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine” and “seek immediate U.N. Security Council action” if the country should face an “act of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”

Although the agreement only requires the signatories take immediate action if Ukraine is threatened with nuclear weapons, foreign policy and Russian experts say U.S. inaction risks signaling to countries like Iran, Pakistan and North Korea that their sovereignty could be at risk without a nuclear arsenal.

“Arms reduction should be a policy in consideration for all nations that have them. But I don’t think that’s the reason that Ukraine is experiencing the problems it is having,” said Brad Blakeman, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and former president of the national security group Freedom’s Watch. “The reason is a weak America and a Cold War relationship with Putin where there is neither respect nor fear of the United States.

“The U.S. has no credibility. Why would anyone enter into an agreement with us now?” he asked.

Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council who specializes in Russian affairs and international security, agreed.

“To countries like Iran and North Korea, this is one more example that giving up their nuclear weapons makes no sense, because no guarantee will stand,” he said.

Prior to the 1994 accord, Ukraine harbored the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In April Ukrainian parliament member Pavlo Rizanenko told USA Today that many of his colleagues were already discussing the possibility of rearmament.

“We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement,” he said. “Now there’s a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake.”

Then-acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov also wrote an op-ed for The New York Times warning that the apparent consequences of Ukraine’s disarmament “may lead to nuclear proliferation around the world.”

Ariel Cohen, director of the Center for Energy Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, said the situation “looks like a disaster for Ukraine, but more importantly, it looks like a disaster for the cause of nonproliferation.

“This is because the three principal nuclear powers guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty in exchange for its abandoning its nuclear weapons, and now the Russians are paying a relatively low price for violating the Budapest protocol.”

Mr. Cohen, who spoke to The Washington Times via telephone from Kiev, added, “This sends a strong signal to proliferators such as North Korea, Pakistan, Iran and others that any kind of security guarantees from the existing nuclear club are not worth the paper they are written on. Events in Ukraine have turned a nonproliferation regime on its head.”

The Budapest Memorandum also promised that its signatories would not place undue economic pressure on Ukraine so that it would not be compelled to surrender its power in exchange for financial aid; the current Moscow-Kiev conflict erupted in March after the Ukrainian Parliament ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych for accepting a $15 billion bailout from the Kremlin.

When the crisis began, the State Department issued a press release in March noting that President Obama had called then-acting Ukraine President Oleksandr Turchynov “to assure him of the strong support of the United States,” and also called Mr. Putin to tell him that Moscow was violating the 1994 treaty.

Nearly three weeks later, Russia annexed Crimea, and the Kremlin has also struck back with a public relations campaign aimed at the White House. New Russian military incursions into eastern Ukraine were also reported over the last week, raising talk that Moscow might try to create a Russian state in the region.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the U.S. and EU of “active connivance” in what it referred to as “the coup d’etat in Kiev, acting against the political independence and sovereignty of Ukraine in violation of their obligations under the Budapest Memorandum.”

Last Monday at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak defended the Kremlin to a small group of political science students arguing that the conflict is between Ukraine and its own people, not Russia and Ukraine.

“The biggest problem in Ukraine is that the government in Kiev, instead of talking to their own people, started bombing. And by bombing, they create more and more opposition to Kiev,” he said.

David Satter, a renowned Russian scholar who lived in the USSR from 1976-1982 and was expelled from Moscow last year by Mr. Putin’s government, says the Kremlin is resorting to Soviet-style propaganda.

“What they’re saying [is] not convincing to a world audience,” Mr. Satter said. “It’s not convincing people who have access to objective information, but it is convincing to a population that is relying for its information on state-controlled television, which is in the grip of chauvinistic euphoria right now. They can say anything they want to that kind of audience. The more threatened Putin feels he is, the more he will be tempted to resort to war to distract the Russian public from the truth. People who are swept in the war hysteria may believe a lot of it.”