“Acceptance” of US END, 1968–1973

Abstract

Canberra’s gradual “acceptance” of US extended nuclear deterrence (END) in the period 1968–1973 had little to do with specific US guarantees of conventional and nuclear military support. Instead, it was geopolitical changes in Australia’s strategic environment, coinciding with a change in government headed by a prime minister uninterested in nuclear weaponry, that resulted in Australia abandoning the atomic race. The sum of publicly available documents on the exchanges between officials from Canberra and Washington around the time of the negotiation of the NPT suggests Canberra was beginning to believe Australia benefited from the US nuclear umbrella, albeit in a vague, indirect, and unspecified manner. This, however, came after a period of transition. Many senior policy-makers were still uncertain of how long the strategic environment in Asia would remain stable. Continued attempts to develop the bomb and ensure a certain amount of lead time vis-à-vis other countries in Southeast Asia were part of the efforts to hedge against a possible deterioration in Australia’s strategic environment, as well as the possibility of the United States suddenly withdrawing from the region. However, a change in the geopolitical situation coincided with a change in government—the new Labor leadership did not support the idea of Australia possessing nuclear weapons. At the same time Australia was lagging in the technology and infrastructure necessary for sufficient uranium enrichment, which was going to be a costly program that did not make economic sense at the time. In the 1970s, it was estimated that the