paradigm_shift Summer 2017-18 Summer Edition 02 Edition nuclear A publication produced by produced A publication asia the Pacific & of Asia ANU College paradigm_shift Summer 2017-18 Summer Edition 02 Edition nuclear A publication produced by produced A publication asia the Pacific & of Asia ANU College ANU College of Asia & the Pacific HC Coombs Building #9 The Australian National University Canberra ACT 2601 Australia T 1800 620 032 E [email protected] W asiapacific.anu.edu.au ANUasiapacific ANUasiapacific anu_asiapacific ANU College of Asia & the Pacific CRICOS Provider #00120C 01 Professor Michael Wesley 10 Dr Stephan Frühling A new arms race in Asia Missiles and missile defence 02 Professor Ramesh Thakur 11 Associate Professor Matthew Sussex Asia in the second nuclear age Russia and nuclear instability in Asia 03 Adjunct Associate Professor Ron Huisken 12 Distinguished Professor Amin Saikal China and nuclear proliferation: the case of North Korea Iran and Saudi Arabia: proliferation pressures 04 Dr Brendan Taylor and Dr H. D. P. Envall 13 Dr Tanya Ogilvie-White A nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia? Responding to the nuclear crisis in Northeast Asia: the dangers of nuclear fatalism 05 Dr Michael Clarke Multipolar Asia, strategic 14 John Tilemann stability and nuclear deterrence: toward life in the Institutional tools for curbing ‘grey zone’? nuclear threats in Asia Pacific 06 Associate Professor O. Fiona Yap 15 Professor Ramesh Thakur Domestic drivers of proliferation The UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty 07 Dr Benjamin Zala 16 Dr Richard Brabin-Smith Nuclear balances and the challenge of advanced Nuclear risk in Asia: conventional weapons in Asia how Australia should respond 08 Dr Leonid Petrov 17 Professor Gareth Evans North Korean nuclear program Nuclear disarmament: and the continuing Korean War the global challenge 09 Professor Rory Medcalf Submerged risk - the undersea dimension of Asia’s nuclear contest The Australian National University does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented here are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University, its staff, or its trustees. 01 Summer 2017/18 Professor Michael Wesley Professor Michael Wesley is Professor of Thirty years ago, the American and Soviet International Affairs and Dean of ANU College of presidents signed the Intermediate-Range Asia & the Pacific. He has published on foreign Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty; the first bilateral policy, international relations and state-building nuclear disarmament agreement between the interventions. Previously, Professor Wesley two superpowers since the start of the Cold War. A new arms race in Asia was Director of the Coral Bell School of Asia The treaty would commit them to scrap an entire Pacific Affairs within the College. Prior to this, class of nuclear weapons from their arsenals. It he led the Lowy Institute for International was a moment when much of the world breathed Policy as Executive Director from 2009–2012. a sigh of relief at the prospect of a possible end to the “delicate balance of terror” that had existed since the 1950s. Each superpower possessed more than enough nuclear warheads to destroy all life on the planet, and had for decades lived under a regime of mutually- assured destruction (MAD), acknowledging that its only defence against its opponent’s nuclear weapons was the ability to threaten complete destruction in retaliation if attacked. It had been a world seemingly a heartbeat away from ending due to either sudden escalation or error. Continues on next page Professor Michael Wesley Michael Professor For the past decade, the world has looked to the Asia Pacific as the new centre of dynamism in the global economy. This collection shows this optimistic view of the region needs to be tempered with sustained attention to more sobering trends associated with increasingly destructive rivalries in Asia and the Pacific. A new arms race in Asia 02 01 paradigm_shift — Edition 02 Summer 2017-18 The decades that followed the INF Treaty provocations have concentrated attention on seemingly continued the positive trend. The several developments that have been unfolding 1990s began with the end of the Cold War and over the past decades which, taken together, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and continued place the world closer to a possible nuclear with the denuclearisation of South Africa, the exchange than at any time since the end of the negotiation of new treaties banning nuclear Cold War. In their essays, Leonid Petrov and testing, chemical weapons, trade in fissile Ron Huisken provide vital insights into North material, and the extension of the nuclear Korea’s motivations, demonstrating clearly why Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). More sobering we should not have been surprised by its flurry counter-trends were the breakthrough to nuclear of nuclear and missile tests in recent months. status of India and Pakistan and tensions over While the Cold War was a global stand-off nuclear programs in Iraq and North Korea. The between two superpowers located on separate following decade saw attention shift towards continents, the new nuclear dynamics are terrorism, despite confrontations over Iran and driven by six established and new nuclear North Korea’s nuclear enrichment and missile powers and are predominantly concentrated development programs. Nothing seemed in the Asian region. As essays by Michael more unlikely than a nuclear exchange during Clarke and Brendan Taylor and H. D. P. Envall America’s “unipolar moment”. In 2009, a new in this collection note, this makes the current American President, Barack Obama, committed situation arguably much more unpredictable to seeking a world free of nuclear weapons. and dangerous. Geographic proximity, hyper- Nuclear war steadily receded as a threat in the sonic speeds and new detection capabilities consciousness of most people as the twenty-first all have the effect of collapsing reaction times, century moved into its second decade. Terrorism substantially raising the risks of miscalculation remained a preoccupation, while climate change and over-reaction. And while our attention is caused mounting anxiety. Tensions again rose rightfully on two sub-regions–Northeast Asia over Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs, and South Asia–we should not be blind to but arguably both countries were seen more proliferation pressures in Central and West Asia. as rogue states than genuine disturbances Taken together, there are several trends that to the nuclear order. By mid-2017, the United have been apparent over many years that should Nations General Assembly had voted for a Wesley Michael Professor place the dangers of new nuclear rivalry in Asia Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Treaty (NWPT). at the very forefront of policy deliberation and Against this background, North Korea’s public discussion. Most obviously, the numbers seemingly sudden and certainly determined and quality of nuclear weapons are increasing sprint towards gaining nuclear-tipped, as established and new nuclear weapons states intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2016 and modernise and upgrade existing nuclear 2017 has come as a sudden shock. Like a flash stockpiles, build more nuclear warheads, and of lightening on a dark night, Pyongyang’s develop more sophisticated missiles and missile The Cold War was a global stand-off between two superpowers located on separate continents, the new nuclear dynamics are driven by six established and new nuclear powers and are predominantly concentrated in the Asian region. 03 ANU College of Asia & the Pacific A new arms race in Asia 04 01 paradigm_shift — Edition 02 Summer 2017-18 defence systems. A separate but related trend Surveying the landscape of Asia’s “second This collection of essays draws on the is that the number of nuclear weapons states nuclear age”, Ramesh Thakur focuses on is steadily growing, all the while increasing dangerously eroding boundaries between collective expertise and experience of scholars the incentives for other states in Asia to nuclear and conventional weapons, tactical develop their own nuclear capabilities. As and strategic nuclear weapons, and the in the Australian National University’s College essays by Benjamin Zala, Rory Medcalf and nuclear, cyber and space domains. As the US, Stephan Frühling in this collection show, rapid Russia, China and now newer nuclear states of Asia & the Pacific. This institution and its technological developments in non-nuclear discard their political commitment to mutual predecessors have produced, over decades, weapons systems have also introduced new deterrence, acquiring new means to target sources of rivalry and destabilisation into the each other’s nuclear systems, the temptations some of the most respected analyses of mix, raising further incentives to increase to consider pre-emptive strikes are rising. the number, quality and variety of nuclear nuclear strategy and arms control, and today Tanya Ogilvie-White argues in her essay that weapons at hand. As many of the essays point an equally worrying trend is the spread of out, technological change has slipped the bonds the College boasts a breadth and depth of what she calls “nuclear fatalism”–the belief of either arms control regimes or deterrent that arms control is increasingly quixotic and knowledge and insight that few institutions in doctrines and is rapidly outpacing both. that only deterrent responses are adequate in Consequently, nuclear, conventional and the current climate of rising rivalry. Richard the world can rival. unconventional weapons technologies are Brabin-Smith shows that Australia is both both the results and the drivers of increasingly deeply implicated in and profoundly affected complex rivalries in Asia. As Clarke and by the new nuclear and missile dynamics Taylor and Envall demonstrate, it is no longer unfolding to its north. Clearly these dynamics possible to think in terms of bilateral stand- must become central to Australian defence and forefront of public or policy consciousness. We should not forget that nuclear weapons offs between nuclear-armed opponents. The foreign policy planning.