HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
PARLIAMENTARIANS FOR NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION AND DISARMAMENT AUSTRALIA (PNND)
NUCLEAR TESTING, 89 SECONDS TO ‘MIDNIGHT'.
TIME FOR THE ALBANESE GOVERNMENT TO ACT ON NUCLEAR RISKS
ATTN PENNY WONG, ANTONY ALBANESE, RICHARD MARLES
Dear Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and Defence Minister Richard Marles:
We are writing to you because in the last few weeks, the risk of nuclear war has, arguably, significantly worsened. The policy the Government is currently following seems to be one of trying to make the nuclear weapons issue disappear.
This will not happen.
It has never been more urgent for the Government to take action to diminish the risk of fiery oblivion. Keeping nuclear weapons policy invisible is reminiscent of the Netflix movie ‘Dont Look Up’, surely not a model the Government would wish to emulate.
It is the view, not just of PND/PNND/Human Survival Project, but of the nuclear disarmament movement more widely, that by doing nothing and arguing that the sheer direness of the situation is a reason not to upset the applecart, the Government significantly worsens the situation. It is like saying to someone experiencing a heart attack and who needs immediate emergency treatment that the best thing for him/her is to do nothing. On the contrary, they may require CPR, oxygen and an ambulance to an emergency department followed by radical surgery.
The risks of NOT taking action, far outweigh those of taking it.
Recent statements by President Donald Trump to the effect that the US might recommence nuclear testing, while clearly based on a view of what is happening in the world that is not reality-based, may nonetheless propel the US back into the nuclear explosive testing of the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. At the very least, reality-based or not, executed or not, they are likely to induce others who contra Trump are NOT currently testing, to test and thus become self- fulfilling.
Statements from others in the US administration to the effect that nuclear explosive testing is NOT what is meant, leave open the question of what then IS what is meant?
The US already conducts tests of delivery systems, and command and control exercises are frequent, as they are in both Russia and China. Delivery systems are tested regularly, as again they are in Russia and China. Subcritical nuclear testing is done from time to time.
These tests are regrettable, and in violation of the spirit and intent of the CTBT, to which Australia is signatory and which we had a significant role in bringing into being. But they are done, both by Russia and China (and France and the UK and India and Pakistan and the DPRK), and by the USA on a regular basis. It is difficult to see what other kind of testing could be meant.
President Trump agues that other Governments test and that the US does not, but it is hard if not impossible to pinpoint exactly what it is that other Governments (meaning once more, Russia and China) do that the US does not do, and to pinpoint what more the US Government could do other than explosive testing (which nobody else does - even the DPRK hasn't done it for some years) that would satisfy President Trump.
And the existing CTBT monitoring network would easily pick up even the smallest of nuclear explosive tests, even if conducted in very large underground cavities. Even the smallest explosive test is almost impossible to hide.
Both the Russian and the Chinese Governments have made it crystal clear that a recommencement of explosive testing by the US would lead to explosive testing by them. As the US has conducted over 1000 explosive tests, while Russia has done around 700 and China a mere 43 or so, a recommencement of nuclear explosive testing would clearly allow Russia and even more so China, to 'catch up' with the US, which would be not at all to US advantage. Be that as it may, it would also lead to – as many commentators have suggested – a recommenced nuclear arms race.
In a presentation (encl) to a panel just over a week ago in Senate Room 1S3, we argued that the risks of nuclear war arguably exceed those of the height of the cold war – that those risks are the greatest NOW that they have ever been, and that addressing those risks should be at the very top of the Governments – of any Governments – diplomatic agenda. It is a pity you were unable to send a staffer.
Surely, the Government must regard suggestions to recommence nuclear testing with absolute dismay.
Surely, the Government must be aware of the already dire situation of nuclear risk onto which the kerosene of nuclear weapons testing – explosive, non-explosive, delivery systems or whatever – is poured.
Surely, there must be discussions within DFAT and elsewhere, of what to do in constructive response to these developments other than sit on our hands.
In the light of the dismaying deterioration of the current geopolitical situation and the escalation of global nuclear risk beyond what has been thought possible, inaction or paralysis (seemingly the current Government policy) is simply not possible.
We urge the Australian Government to take decisive diplomatic action of some kind, whether it be the signature and ratification of the TPNW, action on nuclear risk reduction including pushing for No First Use, or diplomatic initiatives relating to the CTBT and the NPT that will at least bolster those treaties, as if nuclear testing does take place at a significantly higher level than now, its arguable that both CTBT and NPT will fall by the wayside, and if not become explicitly abandoned, at least become empty shells.
There are a fairly large number of possibilities for Australian Government diplomatic initiatives as outlined above. The Government should ideally act on ALL of these – ratification and signature of TPNW, initiatives on nuclear risk reduction, NFU, and initiatives to prevent the collapse or hollowing out of both the CTBT and the NPT itself, both of which are now at risk.
In our panel presentation in Senate Room 1S3, we asked which of two movies we might be in. One was House of Dynamite. The characters in House of Dynamite are at least people of competence and integrity who try to meet the challenge of an incoming warhead of unknown origin as best they can. They still risk a civilisation-destroying event sequence, and the movie leaves us in suspense.
The other was 'Don’t Look Up' in which an incoming asteroid is responded to with avoidance and denial, and which predictably ends in fiery oblivion.
Which movie we are in depends entirely on us. Do we wish to met the escalating nuclear risk with competent, conscious policies, or denial and avoidance?
It has never been more urgent for the Government to take action to diminish the global risk of fiery oblivion, and the ensuing freezing darkness.
Signed:
John Hallam, People for Nuclear Disarmament, Human Survival Project, PNND, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group
Luiz Bispo, WFM, PNND, PND.
Prof. Frank Hutchinson, Human Survival Project.