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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
“US intelligence also helped us to assess the risk of Soviet nuclear strikes on Australia in the event of global nuclear war. We were able to identify the locations in Australia that were targeted by Moscow and assess likely casualties. We judged, for example, that the SS-11 ICBM site at Svobodny in Siberia was capable of inflicting one million instant deaths and 750,000 radiation deaths on Sydney. And you would not have wanted to live in Alice Springs, Woomera or Exmouth – or even Adelaide.”
1 America has always kept us in the loop, Paul Dibb, The Australian, 10 September 2005.
2 Many analysts refer to the provider of assurances of extended deterrence (whether nuclear or conventional) as the “defender”, the antagonist state as the “challenger”, and the recipient of the assurance as the “protégé”.
3 Note that there are, as of 2009, 28 member countries in NATO, including the United States, provider of the assurance of extended nuclear deterrence, and the two European NATO nuclear weapons states, France and the United Kingdom, neither of which are recipients of US END assurances.
4 Kathleen C. Bailey et al, White Paper On The Necessity of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent, 30 July 2007, p. 6.
5 Jeffrey Larsen, Nuclear Baseline: Post-Cold War US Nuclear Policy, appendix to Lewis Dunn, Gregory Giles, Jeffrey Larsen, and Thomas Skypek, Foreign Perspectives on U.S Nuclear Policy and Posture: Insights, Issues and Implications, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 12 December 2006.
6 Report of the Secretary of Defense Task Force on DoD Nuclear Weapons Management, Phase II: Review of the DoD Nuclear Mission, December 2008.
7 “The Minot Investigations: From Fixing Problems to Nuclear Advocacy”, FAS Strategic Security Blog, 14 January 2009. Link.
8 See footnote 42 below.
9 Politics around US tactical nuclear weapons in European host states, Claudine Lamond and Paul Ingram, BASIC Getting to Zero Papers, No. 1, 23 January 2009; and Hans M. Kristensen, U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe, Natural Resources Defense Council, 2005. For a savage but tendentious critique of perceived German “nuclear conscientious objection” regarding nuclear sharing, see Rühle, op.cit.
10 NATO's Nuclear Policy: A View from NATO HQ, Guy B. Roberts, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for WMD Policy, NATO HQ, April 2006. Link. Roberts lists required participatory elements in this model as including “not obstructing” preparation and planning; actively advocating planning for operations, “providing permission for basing, overflight, logistic support or mission planning”, and “active participation in operations”. Rühle, op.cit. expands on one version of the obligations derived from this structure again tendentiously but in a way that needs a strong counter-argument.
11 See the remarks by Lukasz Kulesa in Are the Requirements for Extended Deterrence Changing? Panel discussion at the 2009 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference: The Nuclear Order—Build or Break, 6 April 2009. Link.
12 Greece withdrew from such bilateral nuclear cooperation with the United States in 2001, and Canada in 1984. For the 2009 German shift see “Analysis of the Coalition Agreement: How Merkel's New Government Intends to Govern”, Björn Hengst, Roland Nelles and Severin Weiland, Spiegel International Online, 26 October 2009; and Martin Butcher, “It's Official - German Coalition Wants US Nukes Out”, The NATO Monitor, 25 October 2009. Link.
13 Egypt has recently moved to signing contracts for its first commercial nuclear power station. Notably, Egypt has not ratified the IAEA Additional Protocol. “Egypt set to join N-club with help from Australia”, The World Today, ABC Radio, 19 June 2009. Link.
14 William G. Eldridge, The Credibility of America's Extended Nuclear Deterrent: the Case of the Republic of Turkey, Air University, AU/AFF/NNN/2009-XX, April 2009.
15 Amongst many other studies, see, on the history, Peter Hayes, “American Nuclear Hegemony in the Pacific,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 25, No. 4, December 1988; Peter Hayes, Lyuba Zarsky, and Walden Bello, American Lake, Nuclear Peril in the Pacific, Penguin, 1987; Peter Hayes, Pacific Powderkeg: American Nuclear Dilemmas in Korea, Lexington Books, 1990. On contemporary issues see, James L. Schof, Realigning Priorities: The U.S.-Japan Alliance & the Future of Extended Deterrence, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, March 2009; Peter Hayes, “Extended Nuclear Deterrence, Global Abolition, and Korea”, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, and Nautilus Institute, November 2009; Peter Hayes and Michael Hamel-Green, The path not taken, the way still open: Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, and Nautilus Institute, November 2009.
16 Paul Dibb, former Deputy Secretary of Defence, presentation to Seminar on the ANZUS alliance, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Parliament of Australia, 11 August 1997. Note that links to this and many other Australian references in this paper are available at the documentation site Extended nuclear deterrence – Australia, Nautilus Institute [updated regularly].
17 Defending Australia: Defence White Paper 1994, Department of Defence, 1994.
18 Australia's Strategic Policy, Department of Defence, 1997.
19 White Paper: Defence 2000 - Our Future Defence Force, Department of Defence, 2000, p. 36.
20 Founded In History, Forging Ahead, Department of Defence, 8 September 2006, p.7
21 Defending Australia in the Asia-Pacific Century: Force 2020. Defence White Paper 2009, Department of Defence, 2009.
22 Kim Beazley, “Whither the San Francisco alliance system?” Australian Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 325-338, July 2003, p. 329.
23 Kim Beazley, presentation to Seminar on the ANZUS alliance, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Parliament of Australia, 11 August 1997.
24 It is inherently difficult to prove a negative, but the negative results of my own searches of publicly available or open sources have been confirmed by both former Deputy Secretary of Defence Hugh White and United States Ambassador Linton Brooks. (Personal communications, 23 February 2009, and 6 April 2009 respectively.) I am grateful to both, though of course, neither is responsible for my interpretations. See also John P. Caves, Jr. and M. Creighton Hottinger, briefing on “Project on U.S. Declaratory Policy toward WMD Threats:
Phase 1 Findings“, National Defense University, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Washington DC, 9 April 2008 version.
25 Hugh White, Testimony before the Australian Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on the issue of U.S. – Australian defence relations, 26 March 2004. White concluded on the import of the American promise: “That will make people think pretty seriously. I think that will work in the majority of cases.”
26 Pers. comm., 23 February 2009.
27 There may well be secret agreements from an earlier period of which White was unaware, or was unable to reveal as a matter of law. The ongoing revelations about the secret agreements between Japanese and American for four decades about conditions under which US nuclear weapons continued to be brought into Japan contrary to that country's parliamentary resolution concerning the three Non-Nuclear Principles is reminder enough here.
28 Lyon, op.cit. p.43, notes that ANZUS has no Nuclear Planning Committee.
29 Rod Lyon, “Australia”, in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.), The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia, (Stanford U.P., 2008), p. 437.
30 It is possible, and even likely, that in the 1950s and possibly through the early 1960s there was a parallel development of a comparable understanding with British authorities – something approaching a British assurance of extended nuclear deterrence – at least until the cancellation of the Blue Streak missile project, and the symbolic collapse of British military capacity “east of Suez”. Given the close coordination (if not cooption) of the Australian military with British nuclear authorities in the Monte Bello Island and Maralinga nuclear test programmes, it is likely that such understandings were at least mooted in that context.
31 Tanter, “Anxious Nation: Japanese Perspectives on National Strategy”, Part 1 of Richard Tanter and Honda Masaru, “Does Japan Have a National Strategy?” The Asia-Pacific Journal 4 May 2006.
32 Frühling, op.cit. The other important detailed discussion is Richard Macmillan, AEGIS TMD: Implications for Australia, Australian Defence College Monograph Series, No. 1., 2003.
33 Frühling, op.cit., pp.32-33. See also Raoul E. Heinrichs, “Australia's Nuclear Dilemma: Dependence, Deterrence or Denial?”, Security Challenges, Volume 4, Number 1, 2008, pp. 55-67.
34 Paul K Davis, “A Provocative Premise: Special Challenges in Extending Deterrence in the New Era”, Appendix G.1 in Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence, Naval Studies Board, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C. 1997, p. 133. I am grateful to Allan Behm for referring me to Davis, although he would distinctly not agree with my interpretation.
35 Lyon, op.cit., p. 438.
36 Ibid, p. 448.
37 “The final aspect of our deterrent theory was that nuclear weapons must deter not only nuclear attack on the United States but also conventional attack on our allies, particularly NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia.”, Ambassador Linton F. Brooks, “America's Nuclear Posture”, Michael May (ed.) Rebuilding the NPT Consensus, Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, October 16-17, 2007, p. 69.
38 George Perkovich, Extended deterrence on the way to a nuclear-free world, Research Paper, International Commission on Nuclear. Non-proliferation and Disarmament, May 2009; and his comments in the Panel on Are the Requirements for Extended Deterrence Changing? Panel discussion at the 2009 Carnegie International Nonproliferation Conference: The Nuclear Order—Build or Break, 6 April 2009.
39 Hayes, “American nuclear hegemony”, op.cit.
40 A.L.Burns, “Australia and the Nuclear Balance”, in H.G.Gelber (ed.) Problems of Australian Defence, (Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 144-165. The anachronistic quality especially inheres in the treatment of China, and the parallels with discussions of contemporary “states of nuclear concern”.
41 For a partial exception, see Frühling, op.cit.
42 “In view of their cold war nuclear doctrines, the major NWS refused to have binding security guarantees put into the treaty text, but carried through the UN Security Council a resolution promising immediate assistance to any NPT party that was threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons. This positive security assurance became UNSCR 255 (1968). Following this, in 1978 and then 1982, the NWS gave unilateral negative security assurances to NNWS, with exemptions or conditions (for some) relating to states in nuclear alliances. In the month leading up to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, the five NWS again provided unilateral security assurances, unconditional only in the case of China. These were then noted in a further UNSC resolution 985 (adopted April 11, 1995). Both the 1995 and 2000 Review Conferences affirmed the role of the NPT with regard to security assurances, but didn't manage to get much further.”, Rebecca Johnson, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: 2008 NPT PrepCom: Decisions taken, Security Assurances debated, Acronym Institute, May 6, 2008. Link.
43 Michael Pugh's account in The ANZUS Crisis, Nuclear Visiting and Deterrence, Cambridge U.P., 1989, is now supplemented by the excellent study by Malcolm Templeton, Standing Upright Here: New Zealand in the Nuclear Age 1945-1990, Victoria U.P., 2007.
44 Kim Beazley, presentation to Seminar on the ANZUS alliance, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Parliament of Australia, 11 August 1997.
45 “America has always kept us in the loop”, Paul Dibb, The Australian, 10 September 2005.
46 The most explicit and developed statements by Ball and Dibb are: Testimony of Professor Desmond Ball to the Joint Standing Committee On Treaties, Reference: Pine Gap, Official Committee Hansard, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 9 August 1999, pp 1-16; and Testimony of Professor Paul Dibb to the Joint Standing Committee On Treaties, Reference: Pine Gap, Official Committee Hansard, 9 August 1999, pp 17-28. A comprehensive bibliography of materials relating to Pine Gap is at Joint Australian-US intelligence facility - Pine Gap, Nautilus Institute [updated regularly].
47 See, for example, the argument concerning C3I in Peter Hayes, Lyuba Zarsky and Walden Bello, American Lake, Nuclear Peril in the Pacific, Viking/Penguin, 1987, pp. 189-238.
48 For a sketch of an argument about the role of the Joint Defence Facility - Pine Gap in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, see Richard Tanter, Pine Gap and the coalition wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Nautilus Institute. Link.
49 Kim Beazley, presentation to Seminar on the ANZUS alliance, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, Parliament of Australia, 11 August 1997.
50 See, for example, “Surprise Down Under: The Secret History of Australia's Nuclear Ambitions”, Nonproliferation Review, 5 (Fall 1997), pp 1-20. See also: Australia nuclear proliferation history, Re-framing Australia-Indonesia security relations, Nautilus Institute (updated).
51 “Exploring The Nuclear Option”, Pathfinder: Air Power Development Centre, issue 29, August 2005.
52 Tom Morton, “Australia and the nuclear renaissance”, Background Briefing, Radio National, ABC, 3 September 2006.
53 Though it should be noted that there has been a small flurry of interest by figures on the edge of the contemporary Australian security community. See, for example, Richard Tanter, “The Re-emergence of an Australian nuclear weapons option?”, Austral Policy Forum 07-20A, 29 October 2007; Martine Letts, “A reply to Richard Tanter, Austral Policy Forum 07-20B, 12 November 2007; and Australian nuclear proliferation – contemporary, Nautilus Institute [regularly updated].
54 See “Australia's Prime Minister Wanted ‘Nuclear Option‘”, 40th Anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, National Security Archive, 1 July 2008, and in particular, Document 16a: Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, U.S. Embassy Canberra cable 4842 to Department of State, 6 April 1968, Secret Nodis.
55 Daniel Flitton, “Disarmament: words don't match actions”, The Age, 4 September 2009.
56 Michael Rühle's robust advocacy of German “nuclear sharing” a foundation of contemporary extended nuclear deterrence is a partial exception. See Michael Rühle, Good and Bad Nuclear Weapons: Berlin's Part in Shaping Nuclear Reality, Körber Foundation for International Affairs, Körber Policy Paper No. 3, April 2009.
57 Ward Wilson, “The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence”, Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 15, No. 3, November 2008, p. 435. “Three practical arguments put the efficacy of nuclear deterrence into doubt: 1) the characteristic attack threatened in most nuclear deterrence scenarios - city attack – is not militarily effective or likely to be decisive; 2) the psychology of terror that is supposed to work in nuclear deterrence's favor actually creates the circumstances for unremitting resistance; and 3) even though the field is mostly conjectural, what little unambiguous evidence does exist contradicts the claim that nuclear deterrence works.” ibid, p.421.
58 Robert J. Lifton, The Broken Connection. Simon and Schuster, 1979. See also Joel Kovel, Against the State of Nuclear Terror, Free Association Books, 1984.
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