In September last year, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia released a joint statement announcing the creation of an “enhanced trilateral security partnership”. Nicknamed ‘AUKUS’, the initiative is designed to support cooperative measures by all three nations to address emerging security and defence challenges. Importantly, the AUKUS framework will be used to produce a new capability of nuclear-powered submarines for the Australian Navy.
There are several significant consequences attached to the AUKUS announcement. Firstly, it signifies the strategic importance that all three nations place on the security of the Indo-Pacific at this moment. Secondly, it serves to rebut any suggestion that western nations have lost faith in the United States as the leader of the international rules-based order following the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Most importantly, Australia’s acquisition of nuclear propulsion technology will make it the first non-nuclear nation to own and operate a nuclear-powered, conventionally armed naval submarine capability. The capability will use nuclear propulsion technology owned by the United States and only shared once before with the United Kingdom in 1958. The dissemination of this highly sensitive information from two nuclear nations with a non-nuclear power is a first of its kind.
In the wake of the AUKUS announcement, this particular factor stands out. Australia is a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the international instrument the prohibits the acquisition of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear states. Some argue that Australia is acting contrary to its international legal obligations under the NPT by acquiring nuclear propulsion technology, and that acquiring this capability weakens and undermines the non-proliferation regime. Nuclear propulsion technology itself is not specifically prohibited under the NPT. Australia has also said it does not want and does not seek to acquire nuclear weapons, that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is not in Australia’s interests and that the highest safeguards against non-proliferation will be upheld as Australia undertakes to develop nuclear propulsion technology.
In the submarine game nuclear propulsion technology is considered the superior power source. Only six nations worldwide have this nuclear powered capability. The submarines will be powered by mini nuclear reactors, built in to the core of the vessels. This provides the submarine with stealth, speed, survivability, greater manoeuvrability and most importantly, endurance.
In the post war years of the 1950s and 60s, nuclear technology was widely touted as a replacement for traditional power resources. There was also the period of a great nuclear arms race. By the late 1960’s, five countries were considered nuclear nations: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China. Each had manufactured and detonated at last one nuclear weapon prior to the NPT coming into effect. Simultaneously however, there was growing global concern over the potential for nuclear energy to be weaponised again, a clearly untenable situation for humankind.
In a telling response to the global unease, the United Nations successfully open the NPT for signature in 1968. Australia became a signatory in 1970, ratifying the treaty in domestic legislation in 1973. The introduction of the NPT was a landmark moment in international law. Under the objective of ending the nuclear arms race and thereby avoiding nuclear war, it banned non-nuclear nations from acquiring nuclear weapons while also prohibiting existing nuclear nations from assisting other states to obtain nuclear weapons. Importantly, the five nuclear nations became signatories to the NPT, promising thereafter to reduce their stockpiles of weapons. There are now 191 states signatories to the Treaty, the highest for any weapons disarmament agreement.
The significance of this treaty is underscored by the fact that during the Cold War, Australia officially sought to build nuclear power plants to support the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons. Many other nations shared similar policies. Significantly, in the five decades since the treaty came into effect, only four additional states have acquired nuclear weapons: India, Israel, Pakistan (three of the four non-signatory states to the NPT) and North Korea, who withdrew from the treaty in 2003. Iran, a fifth state, has the components to build nuclear weapons. Iran however is subject to the Iran Nuclear deal, which prohibits the use of those components to create nuclear weapons. It is not currently considered a nuclear nation.
Consequently, had there not been global consensus on the immediate need to halt the nuclear arms race and the corresponding spread of nuclear technology, the world today would likely look very different; certainly covert nuclear production would almost certainly have increased and there would likely be far more than nine nuclear nations.
Since signing the NPT, Australia has stressed the importance of upholding the non-proliferation regime. Australia has responsibly operated a nuclear reactor since the 1950’s, has an outstanding reputation for upholding its non-proliferation obligations and maintains a commitment to never acquire nuclear weapons.
Central to this commitment is the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the NPT’s safeguards system regulator. Like all other signatories to the NPT, Australia is accountable to IAEA. As the first non-nuclear nation to acquire nuclear propulsion technology, Australia will be required to demonstrate the mechanisms, processes and protections it will apply to the propulsion programme to prevent any potential diversion of nuclear material. Australia will be obligated to both demonstrate responsible use of the technology and show that using such technology will not be a facade for (or an alternative route to) the creation of nuclear weapons. That would of course be a breach of Australia’s international legal obligations under NPT.
Importantly however, acquiring nuclear propulsion technology is not the same as acquiring nuclear weapons. While nuclear power and nuclear weapons “harness the same property of nature – nuclear chain reaction – nuclear power plants and atomic bombs are separate technologies”, the two are not synonymous. Nuclear propulsion technology will be used solely to power the submarines, but the submarines will continue to be armed with conventional (non-nuclear) weapons. As such, while a submarine may be armed, it does not become a ‘nuclear weapon’ simply by this fact alone. The ‘nuclear’ attaches to the nature of the power source, not the nature of the onboard weapons systems.
Similarly, it is not the case that acquiring nuclear powered submarines will necessarily result in other nations seeking to do the same. Currently, very few nations have nuclear propulsion technology and even less are willing to share it. Australia’s actions are hardly likely to cause a regional arms race, as some have argued.
Importantly, the introduction of nuclear-powered submarines into Australia’s defence arsenal does not undermine the NPT nor breach Australia’s non-proliferation obligations. Indeed, Australia has been committed to upholding the non-proliferation regime for more than 50 years. Now with a new government in power, it is also possible that Australia will sign and ratify the United Nations 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, a move that will also strengthen Australia’s commitment to a nuclear weapons free world. The acquisition of nuclear propulsion technology will only result in a more secure regional environment, one better prepared for any potential threats that may approach Australia, its neighbours or any other regional partners and allies.