The Canberra Commission: A “Realistic” Analysis?

This paper examines the proposals made in the Canberra Commission for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The Report is quickly summarised and the major arguments for the abolition of nuclear weapons are then examined in the following way. A classification, or "typology", of reasons why nuclear weapons should be abolished is given, and then the main and supporting arguments outlined in turn. It is concluded that these arguments are not persuasive and that the Report contains certain hidden presuppositions and assumptions.     

US Extended Nuclear Deterrence and Nuclear Order: An Australian Perspective

Abstract

This article addresses the question of how US extended nuclear deterrence might endure in a shifting Asia-Pacific where the traditional nuclear order underpinning the credibility of US security guarantees is deteriorating. The Australian case study demonstrates how periods of nuclear order and disorder can inform a state's attitudes toward the credibility of extended nuclear deterrence. Australia's interest in a nuclear weapons capability from 1956 to 1972 was symptomatic of a period of nuclear disorder. This interest declined from the early 1970s due to changes in both the global and regional environments where the proliferation and use of nuclear weapons was relatively contained. This emerging, recognizable nuclear order diminished the interest in an indigenous nuclear weapons capability and led Canberra to rely on US extended nuclear deterrence. This order has remained fairly robust for more than 30 years. However, beyond 2012, we may yet witness a breakdown in this order. This will generate a much greater interest by US allies in the operational aspects of US extended nuclear deterrence.     

POLICIES OF LAST RESORT FOR DEALING WITH NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMME

This paper analyzes the policy remedies for dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs. After six nuclear tests and three recent successful ICBM tests, North Korea is close to miniaturizing nuclear warheads and establishing a reliable delivery system, thus achieving a much-feared nuclear weapons capability. In defiance of the extraordinarily tough U.N. Security Council resolutions, Pyongyang persists in developing nuclear weapons. North Korea's nuclear weapons program already has exceeded the strategic patience, of the U.S.-ROK alliance. Harsher policy options to deal with the DPRK nuclear weapons are imperative. Several drastic options, including severe sanctions, preventive bombing, nuclear armament of South Korea, are evaluated in the final round of engagement policy on guaranteeing nonaggression and a peace agreement with Pyongyang.     

Perceptions toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons program: Findings from a public opinion survey

Due to the potential spread of nuclear weapons, North Korea’s nuclear weapons test represents a serious security threat to East Asia as well as a global risk. Many sources, including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, argue that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program poses a security threat to the United States because missiles fired from North Korea could reach Hawaii or Alaska. Against this backdrop, however, no empirical research analyzing how much the ordinary American feels threatened by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has been conducted. This paper examines American public opinion toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons program based on a regional survey conducted in Hawaii during the summer of 2005. The research compares and evaluates through various quantitative research methods, to what extent the respondents’ various demographic, political, and socioeconomic backgrounds seem to have divergently influenced the perception of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. In the evaluation of the majority of people in Hawaii, North Korea is pursuing the nuclear weapons program to enhance their national prestige and for self-defense purposes. Many respondents proposed multilateral negotiation as a desirable settlement method for managing North Korea’s nuclear program.     

A Conceptual Analysis of the Six-Party Talks: Building Peace through Security Assurances

Abstract

Dissuading proliferators from developing nuclear weapons entails application of the global nonproliferation norm. Insomuch as proliferators' motivations to develop nuclear weapons are embedded in regional security concerns, security assurances taken for nuclear disarmament would include measures addressing these regional security concerns. Such measures are compatible with the need not to motivate other proliferators to develop nuclear weapons. The September 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks incorporated a pledge to build a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, which demonstrated the link between the regional undertakings and North Korea's denuclearization process. North Korea's nuclear test is no doubt a deviation from the document and the international community must retain collective sanctions. However, building a peace regime remains an effective means for defusing the nuclear standoff.     

朴槿惠政府对朝政策解析

朝鲜试射导弹和第三次核试验后,朝鲜半岛和东北亚国际关系进入新的"朝鲜半岛拥核和核威胁"时代,朝核问题成为韩国新政府面临的首个重大课题。朝鲜半岛局势动荡相对削弱了韩国对朝的战略优势,为其对朝传统政策带来诸多挑战。朴槿惠政府被迫更新政策,采取包括提升对朝一揽子"抑制力"与实施人道主义援助并行的"均衡政策"战略,推动朝鲜半岛"信任政治"进程。目前,朴槿惠政府扩大对朝拥核的国际抑制力是迫于朝核危机形势而采取的权宜之计,不会偏离信任进程的基本框架。由于国内外各种因素制约,从维护朝鲜半岛和平、安全、繁荣和统一的长期目标来看,朴槿惠政府采取对朝新政及与国际社会一道构建与朝互信是明智而"有希望"的选择。     

Opposing positions in Japan’s security policy: Toward a new security dynamic

This paper examines the policy positions that relate to the U.S.-Japan security relationship. Three different positions are analyzed in this paper: the current position that is working to maintain the existing bilateral security relationship, and two others that see major problems with it. Of these two, one position supports ending or changing significantly the bilateral security alliance and would, for the most part, force Japan to rearm so that it could defend itself without assistance from the United States under normal circumstances. The other position, which supports the termination of the existing security arrangement, argues that Japan can play a leading role in the development of a global disarmament agenda by helping to build strong and viable international and regional security structures. This position documents that Japan's peace constitution and its strong desire to strengthen the United Nations and eliminate all nuclear weapons uniquely qualify it to make an international contribution that provides real security to all nations.     

Beyond de-nuclearization: debating deterrence and North Korea in Asia’s new nuclear age

ABSTRACT

Review of : Jeffrey Lewis, The 2020 Commission report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks against the United States: a speculative novel (Mariner: New York, 2018); Van Jackson, On the Brink, Trump, Kim and the Threat of Nuclear War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018); Sung Chull Kim and Michael D. Cohen, eds., Entering the new era of deterrence, North Korea and nuclear weapons (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017); and Victor D. Cha, and David C. Kang, Nuclear North Korea, a debate on engagement strategies, second edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).     

Australia's Quest to Enrich Uranium and the Whitlam Government's Loans Affair

The renewed debate about Australia enriching uranium raises issues associated with a previous attempt thirty‐five years ago. The Atomic Energy Commission hatched plans in the mid‐1960s to position Australia as a supplier of enriched fuel, especially to the Japanese market. This would be done using centrifuge technology, a cheaper and more efficient method than that used by the United States. That fact, along with concerns in Washington to restrict the proliferation of nuclear weapons, led to opposition to rival enrichment programs. Whitlam and Connor miscalculated here. Ratifying the Nuclear Non‐proliferation Treaty was not enough to stay opposition to raising a loan designed mainly to give Australia an enrichment program.     

International relations theory and Japanese pacifism: Why didn’t Tokyo go ballistic over North Korean nukes?

Seen from the perspectives of the various Western theories of international relations, Japan’s peculiar armed pacifism can appear very different. Prominent neorealists have predicted that Japan will inevitably develop nuclear weapons; prominent liberals have cited Japan as the model pacifist nation of the future. Over the last five years, it became clear to Japan that North Korea either possessed, or was on the brink of acquiring, nuclear weapons. How would the Japanese government respond to such a critical threat to its security? The case of North Korean nukes suggests that policymakers should be wary of the grim expectations of Western neorealists, at least in regard to Japan.     

Weapons of Mass Destruction: Major Wars,Regional Conflicts,and Terrorism

The twentieth century saw the creation and development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD): nuclear, chemical, and biological. In the following article, Ryukichi Imai, distinguished research fellow at the Institute for International Policy Studies and visiting professor at Kyorin University, Japan, describes the history of WMD and the international treaties that have been negotiated on their non-proliferation. He focuses on the history of the nuclear bomb from its first tests, to the nuclear arms race and the subsequent deterrence. He goes on to examine the issues surrounding the nuclear hot-spots of South Asia and North Korea, as well as the feasibility and effects of chemical and biological weapons. He argues that the suicide plane attacks on 11 September changed the very concept of WMD and that any future threat of a mass destruction is likely to come from terrorists beyond the reach of governments.     

A view of how the mining industry can support NEPAD

This article examines how British decision‐makers attempted to manage the Suez crisis and Falklands conflict. Of interest is the influence which the number of actors involved and the structure of their alliance relationships had on British calculations. The level of available military technology is also examined, in particular whether the absence of mutually recognised upper thresholds of mass destruction makes the Suez crisis and Falklands conflict akin to international disputes which occurred prior to the advent of nuclear weapons, despite the fact that both crises occurred in the ‘nuclear age’.     

Editors’ Introduction

Abstract

This article explains why the United States has not fought a preventive war against North Korea despite that country’s moves to arm itself with nuclear weapons. I argue that the absence of war is mainly attributable to military strategies that the US military has with regard to North Korea. With only attrition strategies available, the United States neither expects to lose a precious military opportunity nor anticipates grave future vulnerabilities vis-à-vis North Korea. The prospect of a costly attritional campaign deters both Washington and Pyongyang from resorting to military force. Straightforward attrition strategies also allow little chance for miscalculation, thereby making inadvertent escalation to war unlikely. The research finds sufficient evidence for my argument, whereas conventional explanations offered by international relations theory fall short when applied to this case.     

THE AMERICAN RESPONSE TO PAKISTANI AND IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: A STUDY IN PARADOX

This article explores the paradox in the reaction of the United States to the two different proliferation cases: Pakistan's proliferation and Iran's weaponization effort. The article tries to find answer to the following key question; why the United States, as one of the guardians of the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) which would prefer to see a region that is entirely free of weapons of mass destruction, ultimately has accepted Pakistan's proliferation, while imposed considerable amount of pressure to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The paper posits that number of factors explain such differences; first, and at the theoretical level, Pakistan was never considered an “irrational” and “messianic” state like Iran, but regarded as a country with a certain degree of cold-war type nuclear rationality. Second and at the applied level, while Pakistan was a US ally with not having a history of challenging the United States, Iran has been considered enemy and a threat toward the US interest.

Third, while Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was viewed as a defensive mean against overwhelming strength of India, Iran's possible nuclear arsenal considered to be for offensive uses against the United States and Israel. The fourth factor pertains to the consequences of proliferation, which is what happens when Iran's neighboring countries may feel threatened by Iranian nuclear weapon and proceed to develop their own arsenal. Fifth factor deals with the possible Iran's temptation to give some nuclear material to a terror group in which made the United States serious in preventing Iran's weaponization. Last but not least, Israel was not involved to pressure and agitate against Pakistan, while it was applied a tremendous pressure against Iran to prevent it from achieving nuclear weapons.     

India's quest for nuclear legitimacy

India first tested a nuclear device in 1974. It waited until May 1998, when it conducted a series of underground nuclear tests and declared itself a nuclear weapons state. The global response to both was widespread and hostile. Since then, successive Indian governments have worked hard to obtain a measure of nuclear legitimacy for the country's possession of nuclear weapons. Against heavy odds and opposition from many states, India is on the threshold of attaining a substantial measure of de facto legitimacy, even if a formal recognition of its status as a nuclear weapons state is unlikely to come about in the foreseeable future. This article examines the manner in which the search for nuclear legitimacy has been brought forward by India.     

Will Japan go nuclear? Myth and reality

Predominant international relations theory holds that a state will stop at nothing to protect itself and survive in a basically anarchic international environment. Matake Kamiya confronts recent speculation that Japan is unlikely to be an exception to this rule. To convince others, he states, Japan must show specifically why the choice to remain nonnuclear serves its national interests, despite its latent capability to develop nuclear weapons. Kamiya is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the National Defense Academy of Japan; recently, he also served as Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Strategic Studies in New Zealand.     

The politics of implementing China’s nuclear strategy,part I: 1949–1965

China’s nuclear weapons strategy has evolved under a consensus of the Chinese leadership that it must develop nuclear weapons of its own. However, on three occasions, in 1955, 1959, and 1965 the leadership’s decisions to pursue long-term economic, technological, and weapons development in lieu of short-term acquisition of nuclear weapons resulted in leadership purges. In each case external developments sparked the debate about China’s nuclear strategy, while internal economic and political considerations were the significant factors in resolving the disputes.     

The nuclear option in India's security policy

Notwithstanding its good international citizenship on arms control, its low defense expenditures, and its democratic institutions that are largely taken for granted by the West, India's ambiguous nuclear posture is a self‐inflicted wound that will not heal so long as it neither acquires nor renounces nuclear weapons, says Ramesh Thakur. He argues that India has four options: to become an overt NWS, to reject the NPT but sign the CTBT, to renounce the nuclear option, or to maintain its present threshold status while keeping open the nuclear option. Thakur was head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University and has been appointed as vice rector at the United Nations University, Tokyo.     

Do Nuclear Weapons Stabilize South Asian Militarized Crises? Evidence from the 1990 Case

Abstract

Scholars have claimed that nuclear weapons help to stabilize South Asia by preventing Indo-Pakistani militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war. This article argues that while nuclear weapons have had cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation also has played a role in fomenting some of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, nuclear deterrence was not always essential to preventing these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. The article illustrates its argument with evidence from the Indo-Pakistani militarized crisis of 1990.

Leading scholars and analysts have argued that nuclear weapons help to prevent South Asian militarized crises from escalating to the level of all-out conventional war. ¹ 1. See, e.g., Sumit Ganguly, Conflict Unending: India-Pakistan Tensions Since 1947 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 109–110; Devin Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation: Lessons from South Asia (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), pp. 133–170; Kenneth N. Waltz, “For Better,” in Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed (New York: Norton, 2003), pp. 109–124; K. Subrahmanyam, “India and the International Nuclear Order,” in D. R. SarDesai and G. C. Raju Thomas, eds., Nuclear India in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2002), pp. 63–84, at pp. 82–83; Raja Menon, A Nuclear Strategy for India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), pp. 197–198. A considerable literature exists regarding nuclear weapons’ general effects on the South Asian security environment. Scholars optimistic that nuclear weapons will help to pacify South Asia include Waltz, “For Better”; Hagerty, The Consequences of Nuclear Proliferation; John J. Mearsheimer, “Here We Go Again,” New York Times, May 17, 1998; Subrahmanyam, “India and the International Nuclear Order”; Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2002). Scholars pessimistic as to nuclear weapons’ likely effects on the regional security environment include Scott D. Sagan, “For the Worse: Till Death Do Us Part,” in Sagan and Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons; P. R. Chari, “Nuclear Restraint, Nuclear Risk Reduction, and the Security–Insecurity Paradox in South Asia,” in Michael Krepon and Chris Gagné, eds., The Stability–Instability Paradox: Nuclear Weapons and Brinksmanship in South Asia (Washington, DC: The Stimson Center, 2001), pp. 15–36; Kanti Bajpai, “The Fallacy of an Indian Deterrent,” in Amitabh Mattoo, ed., India’s Nuclear Deterrent: Pokhran II and Beyond (New Delhi: HarAnand, 1999); Samina Ahmed, “Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan,” Third World Quarterly Vol. 21, No. 5 (October 2000), pp. 781–793; S. R. Valluri, “Lest We Forget: The Futility and Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons for India,” in Raju G.C. Thomas and Amit Gupta, eds., India’s Nuclear Security (United States: Lynne Rienner, 2000), pp. 263–273. This claim has important implications for the regional security environment and beyond. Given the volatile nature of Indo-Pakistani relations, reducing the likelihood of crisis escalation would make the subcontinent significantly safer. The claim also suggests that nuclear weapons could lower the probability of war in crisis-prone conflict dyads elsewhere in the world.

This article takes a less sanguine view of nuclear weapons’ impact on South Asian militarized crises. It argues that while nuclear weapons have at times had important cautionary effects on Indian and Pakistani decision makers, proliferation has played a role in fomenting a number of the very crises that scholars credit nuclear weapons with defusing. Moreover, it is not clear that nuclear deterrence was essential to preventing some of these crises from escalating to the level of outright war. I illustrate my argument with evidence from the period when India and Pakistan were acquiring nascent nuclear weapons capabilities. I show that during the late 1980s, Pakistan’s emerging nuclear capacity emboldened Pakistani decision makers to provide extensive support to the emerging insurgency against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. In early 1990, India responded with large-scale force deployments along the Line of Control and International Border, in an attempt to stem militant infiltration into Indian territory, and potentially to intimidate Pakistan into abandoning its Kashmir policy. Pakistan countered with large deployments of its own, and the result was a major Indo-Pakistani militarized standoff. Although scholars have credited Pakistani nuclear weapons with deterring India from attacking Pakistan during this crisis, the preponderance of available evidence suggests that Indian leaders never seriously considered striking Pakistan, and therefore were not in fact deterred from launching a war in 1990. Thus nuclear weapons played an important role in fomenting a major Indo-Pakistani crisis during this period, but probably were not instrumental in preventing the crisis from escalating to the level of outright war.

Below, I briefly describe the emergence of the Kashmir insurgency. I then explain how Pakistan’s nuclear capacity encouraged it to support the uprising. Next, I show how conflict between Pakistan-supported guerillas and Indian security forces in Kashmir drove a spiral of tension between the two countries, which led to a stand-off between Indian and Pakistani armed forces in early 1990. Finally, I discuss the end of the 1990 crisis, and address the role that nuclear weapons played in its peaceful deescalation.     

Website documents

South Africa's status and prestige as a country that successfully and unilaterally disarmed its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme enabled it to engage with the Saddam government of Iraq in the months leading up to the US-led invasion of March 2003. Following intense international diplomatic efforts, Saddam Hussein had agreed to allow UN and International Atomic Energy Agency weapons inspectors to enter Iraq in November 2002. Acting outside the UN Security Council, the US and its coalition partners maintained that Iraq continued to maintain and produce WMD, a claim refuted by weapons inspectors, including a South African disarmament team that visited Iraq in February 2003. Employing three diplomatic strategies associated with niche diplomacy, South Africa contributed to attempts to avert the invasion by assisting with the orderly disarmament of Saddam-led Iraq and by practising multilateralism. These strategies, notwithstanding the US-led invasion signalling a failure of South Africa's niche diplomacy in this instance, provide valuable insight into the nuclear diplomacy of South Africa.