‘To the Brink of Manufacture’: Nuclear Weapons, the Anglo-American Alliance and Australia’s Approach to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

Abstract

Australia has been a strong adherent of nuclear disarmament. A future option to manufacture nuclear weapons was an equally long-standing tenet of Australian defence and diplomatic thinking. Yet the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Australia signed in 1970, allowed development of weapons know-how to the ‘brink of manufacture’. Despite reservations from key Australian policy-makers, US pressure and the option to leverage, the ANZUS alliance tipped the balance to signing. This concession satisfied US negotiators that Australia would look to ANZUS and the US ‘extended deterrent’ for the immediate future, but also allowed Australian defence planners a ‘hedging option’. The United Nations and alliance systems might fail and it would be important to have short lead times to field nuclear weapons in the event of a future emergency. This article contends that Australian diplomacy aimed to ensure that signature of the NPT did not preclude an option to develop nuclear weapons in the shortest possible time.