Defence department officials told senators there was \u201cno impediment\u201d to submarines armed with nuclear weapons visiting Australia, insisting that any such visit would not breach Australian or international law.<\/p>\n
The US maintains a policy of \u201cstrategic ambiguity<\/a>\u201d around its nuclear deployment and it refuses to confirm or deny whether aircraft or seagoing vessels capable of carrying nuclear weapons are, in fact, carrying a nuclear warhead.<\/p>\n That ambiguity would apply to US submarines that might dock at Australian ports, as it now does to nuclear-capable B-52 bomber aircraft landing at RAAF Base Tindal in the Northern Territory, which is being upgraded to be able to accommodate more US bombers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe respect the United States position of neither confirming nor denying,\u201d the Australian defence department secretary, Greg Moriarty, told the Senate.<\/p>\n But anti-nuclear campaigners and some senators argue that the evidence to the Senate undermines Australia\u2019s non-proliferation commitments and risks making the country \u201ca launchpad for nuclear war\u201d.<\/p>\n They also say the acquiescence to US ambiguity over its nuclear weapons contradicts the foreign affairs minister\u2019s assurance in a 2023 speech that only conventionally armed submarines would visit Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe US has confirmed that the nuclear-powered submarines visiting Australia on rotation will be conventionally armed,\u201d Penny Wong told the National Press Club<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n US Virginia-class submarines are to begin rotating through Australian ports \u2013 part of pillar one of the Aukus<\/a> agreement \u2013 from 2027, before Australia buys then builds its own nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines.<\/p>\n The US Congress approved funding in 2024 for a new submarine- and ship-launched nuclear missile \u2013 the first new US nuclear weapon since the end of the cold war. The SLCM-N weapon is slated to be operational within a decade and Vice-Admiral Johnny Wolfe has told Congress that the weapons program is \u201cfocused on the integration of SLCM-N into the Virginia-class submarine<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n The South Pacific nuclear free zone treaty \u2013 known as the Treaty of Rarotonga and to which Australia is a party \u2013 prohibits the \u201cstationing\u201d of nuclear weapons in Australia (and the broader South Pacific zone). But Australia maintains that a US submarine, potentially armed with nuclear weapons, is not prohibited from visiting an Australian port.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Bernard Philip, assistant secretary of international policy at the Department of Defence told the Senate Australia would comply with its treaty obligations, which were also understood by the US.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States does not station nuclear weapons in Australia,\u201d he said. \u201cStationing nuclear weapons in Australia is prohibited by the South Pacific nuclear free zone treaty, to which Australia remains committed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no impediment under the Treaty of Rarotonga and the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons to the visit of dual-capable foreign platforms to Australia\u2019s territory or transiting Australia\u2019s airspace or waters.\u201d<\/p>\n Dual-capable platforms are those able to carry both conventional and nuclear weapons. Defence officials said nuclear missiles deployable on Virginia-class submarines were still in development, labelling the scenario \u201chypothetical\u201d.<\/p>\n The Australian director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Gem Romuld, said the foreign minister\u2019s commitment that nuclear weapons would not be rotating through Australia was now \u201cdead in the water\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s taken just two years for expectations of an Aukus partner to shift, so what will come next?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Aukus is \u2018not about nuclear weapons\u2019, then Australia\u2019s numerous assurances must be backed up with legal commitments. The best way to draw the line on nuclear weapons is to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n Labor has formally committed in its party platform<\/a> to signing and ratifying the weapons ban treaty \u201cin government\u201d but it has not yet signed done so<\/a>. Seventy-four countries are now party to the treaty: none of the nine nuclear-armed states have signed it.<\/p>\n The Greens senator David Shoebridge asked in Senate estimates: \u201cSo we\u2019re going to permit them to be sitting, floating off Fremantle in US-Virginia class submarines, and is it still the position that the Australian government won\u2019t ask the US whether or not they\u2019re nuclear-armed submarines, just like we don\u2019t ask about the nuclear-armed B-52s?<\/p>\n \u201cIs that still the position? Don\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell?\u201d<\/p>\n The secretary of the defence department said: \u201cWe respect the United States\u2019 position of neither confirming nor denying.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US submarines carrying nuclear weapons could dock at Australian bases, defence officials have told the Senate, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-613142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115665234548352688","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=613142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Is](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1920.jpg\")
Is Aukus a $368bn fix for Australia’s problems, or will it create more headaches? \u2013 video<\/p>\n