Institutions, informality, and influence: explaining nuclear cooperation in the Australia-US alliance

ABSTRACT

Nuclear cooperation has been a consistent feature of the Australia-US alliance. In the 1950s and 1960s, Canberra explored transferring US nuclear weapons to Australian forces operating in Southeast Asia. Since the 1960s, Australian governments have supported hosting joint facilities that contribute to America’s ability to execute global nuclear operations. And Australia has regularly invoked the nuclear umbrella as part of the alliance. We explain the key sources of nuclear cooperation in the alliance by leveraging realist and institutionalist theories of alliance cooperation. While realism explains limits to US nuclear commitments in the 1950s, institutional explanations are more relevant in pinpointing the sources of nuclear cooperation and in explaining why Australia has often achieved its policy preferences as the junior partner.

核合作是澳美联盟的一贯特征。1950、1960年代，坎贝拉曾探讨将美国的核武器移交给在东南亚执行任务的澳大利亚部队。1960年代以来，澳大利亚政府支持接受一些联合设施以便于美国在全球执行核任务。澳大利亚一向把核保护伞当做联盟的一部分。笔者借助现实主义和制度主义的联盟合作理论来分析澳美联盟中核合作的关键原因。现实主义解释了1950年代美国核承诺的一些局限，而制度主义则更能说明核合作的根源，更能理解何以澳大利亚作为联盟中的小伙伴政策上每能遂其所愿。

KEYWORDS:

• Australia-US alliance
• realism
• institutionalism
• nuclear weapons

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Stephan Frühling is Professor of Strategic Studies at the Australian National University.

Andrew O’Neil is Professor of Political Science at Griffith University.

Notes

1 For the definitive accounts of the Cold War functions of Pine Gap and Nurrungar, see Ball (1987) and Ball (1988). Nurrungar was decommissioned in 1999 and its existing functions were transferred to the Pine Gap facility. Northwest Cape became an Australian facility in 1993 and ‘in July 2008 a treaty was signed for US access to and use of the Australian facility for a period of 25 years’. Smith (2013, 7072). Also, see the latest statement by the Australian Government on full knowledge and concurrence in Pyne (2019).

2 In the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, the US Congress used very general terms to endorse Australia’s coverage under the nuclear umbrella in accordance with ‘US treaty obligations and assurances’ (US Congress 2019, Section 1255).

3 Interviews with US policy makers, Washington DC, September 2019.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Australian Research Council: [grant number DP140101478].