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Australia must enter into deeper conversations about nuclear weaponry deterrence, according to US policy experts speaking at a conference in Sydney today.
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US policy experts met to discuss the expected approach of the incoming US administration, headed by Donald Trump, during the Sydney International Strategy Forum hosted by the United States Studies Centre on 20 November.
The forum featured topics regarding the future of American leadership and a contested Asian region.
Peter Dean, United States Studies Centre director of foreign policy and defence, speaking at the conference, said there was now an urgent need to have a conversation about nuclear weaponry and nuclear deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
“[Operating in the Indo-Pacific] is getting harder, it’s becoming much more challenging,” he said.
“It’s become so difficult that we cannot live in the conventional deterrence world any longer.
“[I’d say] we have to have a serious discussion in this [nuclear deterrence] space with the United States and Japan.”
Former Japanese assistant chief cabinet secretary Nobukatsu Kanehara, also speaking at the conference, confirmed the sentiment.
In three years, the People’s Republic of China could grow from 500 nuclear warheads to a projected 1500, he said.
“Can we deter China as an upcoming nuclear power? That idea is only on paper, it’s an abstract theory in the Indo-Pacific.”
There was now a need for the USA to restore nuclear weaponry that it had previously withdrawn from the region, according to Kanehara.
