The United States and the United Kingdom, two nations that do not want others to have nuclear weapons, are helping Australia get just that.
Sure, Canberra is acquiring nuclear-powered submarines, not nuclear bombs, but still the lethality of the stuff is no different. Oblivious to the hypocrisy of their move, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison beamed the news in a joint-televised message to the world on Thursday.
The trilateral military alliance dubbed AUKUS, named after the initials of the three countries, will have some dangerous consequences for the already volatile Indo-Pacific region. We see at least two.
Firstly, AUKUS has made war with China even more likely. Secondly, AUKUS may be the final nail in the coffin of the non-proliferation treaty (NPT).
Start with China. Beijing has already fired the first salvo, though none of the three leaders named China in their statements. But no one would have missed Biden's "free and open Indo-Pacific" being aimed at China's military moves in the South China Sea. Whatever the message of Biden, Johnson or Morrison, Beijing sees AUKUS as being unmistakably aimed at China. Nothing else matters.
Biden, who was reported to have called President Xi Jinping recently, to express his worry that China or the US may stumble into a war, may founder into one. If The Guardian is right, China has told the US, the UK and Australia to abandon their "cold war" mentality or risk hurting their own interests. What exactly Beijing means by "hurting their own interests" is anybody's guess, but it surely will start with a trade war before it becomes a real one.
Besides, the first of the eight nuclear-powered submarines may not be ready — the plan is to build them in Adelaide — for another 10 years. Unless, as Biden fears, the US and China stumble into a war much earlier. Accidental wars aren't impossible. World War 1 was one.
AUKUS may have also made the NPT burial-ready. The NPT — whose ultimate aim is nuclear disarmament — has had a troubled history. The US, the first and only rogue-state to drop atomic bombs, and Russia — the two initiators of the NPT — couldn't see eye-to-eye after World War 2. The US wanted to keep its nukes while denying the same to others whereas Russia wanted both to disarm.
The position hasn't changed much except that the list of countries with nuclear weapons has grown with great help from the US and Russia. Today, nine countries — the US, Russia, the UK, China, France, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea — between them have more than 13,000 nuclear warheads. Yet the United Nations duplicitously declares only five nations to possess nuclear weapons.
Is it any wonder why Iran and North Korea don't trust the UN's nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)? How is it that the IAEA isn't asking Israel to disarm as vehemently as it is asking Iran to do so? Let us be blunt. Those who can't be just shouldn't be a watchdog.
Duplicity such as this and the hypocrisy of the nuclear-armed nations are a formula for war, not peace. Australia's international lawyers may have found a loophole in the NPT to sneak in eight nuclear-powered submarines into Adelaide.
So can Iran siddle a few into Bandar Abbas. If the goose can kill the NPT, so can the gander.