Australian submarines: what are the risks of nuclear proliferation?
The sale of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, which has caused an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between the United States and France, raises many questions about the risk of nuclear proliferation in the region and beyond, analysts say.
- The uranium problem -
Australia initially ordered so-called "conventional" submarines from France, which must surface after a few days to recharge their batteries. American and British nuclear submarines are powered by a nuclear reactor that allows them to recharge their batteries indefinitely. Their autonomy is therefore limited to the subsistence of the crew, which rarely exceeds three months.
Paris has nuclear technology, which equips the Charles-de-Gaulle and all its submarines, but France uses low-enriched uranium (LEU) at less than 20%, a level similar to that used in nuclear power plants for electricity generation. LEU has to be renewed every 10 years, a delicate and dangerous process, but it cannot be diverted to military use.
American and British submarines use highly enriched uranium (HEU), which is more than 93%. It has a shelf life of 30 years, but precisely because it is enriched, it can be used to make a bomb.
"The US Navy's reactors currently use the HEU equivalent of 100 nuclear bombs, more than all the world's nuclear power plants combined," said Alan Kuperman of the University of Texas, in an op-ed written just before the announcement of the US-UK-Australia security pact, known as AUKUS.
Congress, which is currently negotiating the 2022 military budget, should make funds available for the US Navy's transition to the much safer LEU technology, the nuclear proliferation expert recommended in the trade journal Breaking Defense.
- Legal vacuum" -
For James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the sale of nuclear submarines to Australia therefore represents a "considerable proliferation risk", accentuated by a legal vacuum in international regulations.
Because the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) does not prohibit non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear submarines, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "allows them to remove nuclear combustible from any surveillance for 'unprohibited military activities'", he explained on Twitter.
"I'm not worried about Australia acquiring nuclear weapons. My concern is that other states will use this precedent to exploit a potentially serious loophole in the global non-proliferation regime," he added.
This "could well open a Pandora's box of proliferation," said Tariq Rauf, a former IAEA expert and now a fellow at the Toda Peace Institute.
"Non-nuclear weapon states like Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea will move to nuclear submarines and keep nuclear combustible" away from the IAEA, he added.
- Snowball effect -
Russia "could increase its technology exchanges with India, China could provide its naval reactor technology to Pakistan and others, and Brazil could more easily find outlets for its troubled submarine reactor project," adds Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS).
Washington has reaffirmed its commitment to the NPT in recent days, with White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki saying on Monday that Australia is "an exceptional case, not a precedent-setter.
But for Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association think tank, "it's one thing to have a defence cooperation agreement with a close ally, it's quite another to do so while compromising your own principles and those of the international community.
"When the US, which claims to be at the forefront of non-proliferation, continues to bend the rules and principles of non-proliferation to help its allies, it has a corrosive effect on the international order that this administration claims to defend," he told AFP.
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