{"id":35468,"date":"2017-11-13T14:30:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T03:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=35468"},"modified":"2017-11-13T13:46:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T02:46:50","slug":"the-nuclear-ban-pledge-hows-it-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-nuclear-ban-pledge-hows-it-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"The nuclear ban \u2018pledge\u2019: how\u2019s it tracking?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Over recent months, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been attempting to sign up Australian parliamentarians to a pledge of support for Australia\u2019s signature and ratification of the nuclear ban treaty. And with the steady drumbeat of a possible showdown over a nuclear-armed North Korea playing in the background, it should have had no problems in finding more than a few true believers among the ranks of current politicians. So, just how well is ICAN doing in its pledge campaign?<\/p>\n

As of last Friday\u201410 November\u2014ICAN listed<\/a> 65 pledges from Australian parliamentarians. That total comprises 22 senators and 43 members of the lower house. But remember that (on a good day) there are 76 senators and 150 MPs. So 65 out of 226 actually equates to 29%. Not a bad start, perhaps, but so far not a winning coalition.<\/p>\n

Still, let\u2019s look more closely at the pledgers and tease out their party affiliations. Of the 65, the great bulk\u2014by far\u2014come from the Australian Labor Party and the Greens. In fact, 52 of the 65 are ALP parliamentarians, and another 8 are Greens. That accounts for 60 of the 65; two from the NXT (Skye Kakoschke-Moore and Stirling Griff), one from the Liberal Party (Warren Entsch), one from the Nationals (Ken O\u2019Dowd) and one independent (Andrew Wilkie) round out the full list.<\/p>\n

Those 52 ALP signatories are a worrying sign of troubled times ahead: there are only 69 Labor MPs and 26 Labor senators, so 52 out of a possible 95 supports ICAN\u2019s claim that it has secured pledges from a majority of Labor parliamentarians. And that suggests we might be about to witness a struggle for the nuclear soul of the Labor party somewhat akin to the one that unfolded in the 1980s.<\/p>\n

If so, those in favour of signing up Australia to the nuclear ban treaty still have some work to do. For one thing, they\u2019re under-represented on the current front bench. Among the shadow ministry<\/a>, only 8 of the 22 shadow ministers have signed. That\u2019s about 36%. The signatories are Tanya Plibersek, Katy Gallagher, Tony Burke, Jenny Macklin, Anthony Albanese, Joel Fitzgibbon, Catherine King and Julie Collins. There are some well-known names there, but none of them hold security-related portfolios. Penny Wong, Richard Marles, Amanda Rishworth, Mark Dreyfus and Shayne Neumann (respectively, shadow ministers for foreign affairs, defence, defence personnel, attorney-general, and border protection) haven\u2019t signed.<\/p>\n

If we broaden the definition of the shadow ministry to include the outer shadow ministry and parliamentary secretaries, the \u2018pledgers\u2019 do slightly better. Now 22 have signed out of a possible 47\u2014about 47%. Gai Brodtmann and Mike Kelly (respectively, shadow assistant ministers for cyber security and defence personnel, and for defence industry and support) haven\u2019t signed.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s any solace to found in ICAN\u2019s list of pledges, it comes not from the bare list itself but from the tempo of commitment, if I can call it that. Peak pledge has probably passed. Parliamentarians were signing up reasonably rapidly in August and September, but\u2014judging from ICAN\u2019s tweets\u2014the tempo seems to be slowing. In short, most of those amenable to ICAN\u2019s arguments have already signed.<\/p>\n

True, the ALP\u2019s probably still being buffeted by a wave of populist anti-nuclear forces similar to that besetting its British counterpart\u2014where Jeremy Corbyn has roused the party\u2019s anti-nuclear wing (stronger outside the parliament than inside it) to new levels of engagement. But Shorten\u2019s no Corbyn. And ALP party hardheads must know that any decision by a future Labor government to sign the nuclear ban treaty would have an immediate impact upon the US-provided extended nuclear assurance that Australia currently enjoys\u2014and, more broadly, upon both ANZUS and the wider bilateral relationship with Washington. Such a decision would also flow over into Australia\u2019s relations with other US allies, many of whom\u2014in Northeast Asia and Europe\u2014are working hard to strengthen such assurances, not to abandon them.<\/p>\n

Around the world, nuclear challenges to the West are increasing, not decreasing. There is\u2014probably\u2014a path to eventual nuclear disarmament. But, as Lewis Dunn has written<\/a>, \u2018the road to physical elimination runs inexorably through strategic elimination\u2019. Nuclear weapons were built for a strategic purpose\u2014to bring to an end the most destructive world war in history and reduce the prospects of further major-power war\u2014and they continue to fulfil that purpose today. So we\u2019re nowhere near strategic elimination at the moment. That means Australia\u2019s interests are best served by working to strengthen the current global nuclear ordering project, which is based on complementary systems of deterrence and abstinence. The ban treaty doesn\u2019t do that. Pledging support is a poor choice for our parliamentarians to make.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over recent months, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been attempting to sign up Australian parliamentarians to a pledge of support for Australia\u2019s signature and ratification of the nuclear ban treaty. And …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":35469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2015,2082,935],"class_list":["post-35468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-domestic-politics","tag-nuclear-ban-treaty","tag-nuclear-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe nuclear ban \u2018pledge\u2019: how\u2019s it tracking? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/the-nuclear-ban-pledge-hows-it-tracking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The nuclear ban \u2018pledge\u2019: how\u2019s it tracking? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over recent months, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has been attempting to sign up Australian parliamentarians to a pledge of support for Australia\u2019s signature and ratification of the nuclear ban treaty. 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