Australia’s UN Ambition Meets the New Nuclear Reality

Albanese wants Australia to amplify the voices of Pacific Island countries. But from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific, the strategic environment is increasingly being shaped by nuclear deterrence—and Australia must confront what that means for the security of its own Pacific partners.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has launched Australia’s campaign for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for 2029–30 with an appealing proposition: Australia will help ensure that small and middle powers have a stronger voice in the international system.

The government says Australia will listen, “partner as equals” and amplify the views of small and mid-sized states. The campaign places considerable emphasis on the concerns of Australia’s Pacific neighbours, including conflict prevention, climate and ocean security and protecting the international rules-based system.

Those are legitimate objectives. Pacific Island countries should have meaningful influence over decisions affecting their security and prosperity.

But there is another strategic conversation occurring simultaneously—one Australia cannot afford to neglect.

Across Europe, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific, governments are reconsidering nuclear weapons, extended deterrence and collective defence. The central question is increasingly not whether nuclear weapons should ideally disappear, but how states prevent war in a world in which nuclear arsenals are expanding, nuclear coercion remains possible and confidence in traditional security guarantees is being tested.

For Australia, the uncomfortable reality is that its own security continues to depend partly upon US extended nuclear deterrence.

The nuclear environment is changing

The Indo-Pacific is becoming one of the centres of this transformation.

Six nuclear-armed states are either located in the broader Indo-Pacific or deploy forces affecting its strategic balance. China is rapidly expanding and modernising its nuclear arsenal. North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and increasingly sophisticated delivery systems. Russia remains a major nuclear power with substantial interests in the Pacific, while India and Pakistan continue to modernise their nuclear forces.

At the same time, the expiration of New START in February 2026 removed the treaty limits that had applied to deployed US and Russian strategic nuclear forces.

This is therefore a difficult moment to discuss international security without discussing deterrence.

The changes are not confined to Asia.

Europe is adapting its deterrence

France has taken a significant European step. President Emmanuel Macron has outlined what he calls “forward deterrence”, placing greater emphasis on the contribution France’s independent nuclear forces can make to European security.

France has not simply transferred its nuclear umbrella to Europe. Paris retains sovereign control over its nuclear arsenal, and the French approach should not be confused with the formal US extended-deterrence commitments operating through NATO.

Nevertheless, the strategic direction matters.

France and Britain are also strengthening coordination between their independent nuclear deterrents as European governments reconsider the relationship between conventional defence, American extended deterrence and sovereign European nuclear capabilities.

Britain is moving in a related direction.

The UK Strategic Defence Review recommended discussions with the United States and NATO about enhanced British participation in NATO’s nuclear mission. Britain is simultaneously investing heavily in its sovereign nuclear enterprise and replacement warhead.

This development should not, however, be confused with AUKUS.

SSN-AUKUS submarines will be nuclear-powered but conventionally armed. Britain’s movement towards a greater theatre nuclear role is occurring through NATO and potential participation in its nuclear mission rather than through placing nuclear weapons aboard SSN-AUKUS submarines.

For Australia, however, these developments remain relevant. They demonstrate how one of Australia’s closest security partners is reassessing the relationship between strategic nuclear deterrence, theatre deterrence and conventional military power.

A new deterrence debate in the Middle East

The Middle East is also changing.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye have developed a new collective-defence framework in which an attack against one participant is treated as an attack against all.

Pakistan’s status as a nuclear-armed state inevitably introduces a nuclear dimension into strategic calculations surrounding such arrangements, but the distinction between implication and formal commitment matters.

The publicly available commitments do not explicitly establish a Pakistani nuclear guarantee for Saudi Arabia or Türkiye.

Nevertheless, the political significance should not be dismissed. A nuclear-armed state is becoming more closely integrated into collective-defence relationships with two important regional powers.

That creates increasingly important questions about extended deterrence, escalation management and the future security architecture of the Middle East.

It also illustrates a wider trend: regional powers are searching for stronger mechanisms to deter aggression as confidence in the international security environment deteriorates.

Asia is having the same conversation

Similar debates are developing in the Indo-Pacific.

South Korea has experienced an increasingly prominent debate about the credibility of US extended deterrence, including discussion of tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear sharing and whether Seoul requires a greater role in nuclear consultation and planning.

Japan remains considerably more cautious because of its history, domestic politics and longstanding non-nuclear principles.

Yet even there, previously sensitive questions concerning nuclear sharing, extended deterrence and the credibility of American guarantees have become part of strategic debate.

Australia is different again.

Australia remains committed to nuclear non-proliferation and does not possess nuclear weapons. Yet it explicitly relies upon US extended nuclear deterrence.

Australian public discussion is also changing. Polling has shown a substantial minority of Australians willing to contemplate an Australian nuclear capability, even while a majority continues to oppose acquiring nuclear weapons.

The significance is not that Australia is about to build a nuclear arsenal. It is that questions once regarded as politically remote are increasingly entering mainstream strategic debate.

The more important policy question is therefore whether the institutional architecture supporting extended deterrence in the Indo-Pacific remains adequate for the strategic environment now emerging.

From bilateral guarantees to an Indo-Pacific deterrence architecture

The Indo-Pacific still relies heavily on a hub-and-spokes system of separate US alliances.

That differs significantly from NATO, where conventional defence, nuclear deterrence, political consultation and nuclear planning have been institutionalised across an alliance.

Recent Pacific Forum analysis has argued for deeper nuclear consultations between the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia, potentially including a quadrilateral mechanism with some similarities to NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group.

Such an arrangement would not necessarily mean creating an Asian NATO, stationing nuclear weapons in Australia or encouraging regional proliferation.

Indeed, one of the central purposes of credible extended deterrence should be precisely the opposite: reassuring allies sufficiently that they do not conclude they require independent nuclear arsenals.

Australia therefore faces a more sophisticated policy choice than a binary argument between nuclear disarmament and nuclear proliferation.

It must consider how conventional deterrence, US extended nuclear deterrence, AUKUS, long-range strike, missile defence, intelligence cooperation, resilient logistics and deeper alliance consultation fit together.

But there is another question Australia must confront.

Who deters threats against Australia’s Pacific partners?

If Australia intends to position itself as the Pacific’s preferred security partner, Canberra must explain what that means in an increasingly nuclear-armed Asia.

What deterrence can Australia credibly provide to close Pacific security partners such as Papua New Guinea and Fiji?

Australia has invested considerable diplomatic effort in the proposition that Pacific security should be provided through the Pacific family.

Its security relationship with Papua New Guinea has deepened substantially. Australia’s relationship with Fiji has also developed beyond development assistance towards deeper defence, policing and security cooperation.

Their security matters directly to Australia.

Papua New Guinea occupies a strategically important position immediately to Australia’s north, connecting the South Pacific with maritime approaches towards Southeast Asia. Fiji is a significant political and security actor in the South Pacific.

Yet Australia’s ultimate deterrence arrangements contain an important asymmetry.

Australia does not possess nuclear weapons.

It benefits from US extended nuclear deterrence, but Australia itself does not provide a nuclear guarantee to Papua New Guinea, Fiji or other Pacific Island countries. Nor can Canberra simply assume that the American nuclear guarantee protecting Australia automatically passes through Australia to every Australian security partner.

This creates a potentially significant gap between Australia’s regional security ambitions and its deterrence architecture.

Deterrence below the nuclear threshold

This does not mean Papua New Guinea or Fiji require nuclear weapons.

Nor does it mean Australia should encourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons into the South Pacific. Such an approach would conflict with Australia’s longstanding non-proliferation objectives and the regional nuclear-free framework established under the Treaty of Rarotonga.

The problem is more subtle.

What happens when coercion against a Pacific country occurs below the threshold of a direct attack on Australia or the United States?

Australia can provide considerable conventional deterrence.

Intelligence sharing, maritime domain awareness, cyber cooperation, policing, military training, joint exercises, logistics, infrastructure resilience and increasingly capable Australian long-range conventional forces can all increase the costs of coercion.

Australia’s broader alliance network adds another layer. AUKUS, the ANZUS alliance, Five Eyes intelligence cooperation and expanding security relationships with Japan, India and other regional partners provide Canberra with considerable strategic weight.

But behind these conventional capabilities sits an unresolved escalation question:

What happens when Australia attempts to deter a nuclear-armed major power on behalf of a Pacific partner?

A confrontation does not have to begin with nuclear weapons for nuclear deterrence to influence its outcome.

A nuclear-armed state could use its arsenal as a background shield while conducting conventional military pressure, maritime coercion, cyber operations or other actions below the threshold of major war.

Australia could therefore find itself defending the sovereignty of a Pacific partner while simultaneously relying upon an American extended nuclear guarantee designed primarily around the defence of Australia itself.

That is an uncomfortable strategic problem, but avoiding the discussion does not make it disappear.

Extended nuclear deterrence without proliferation

This is where Australia’s reliance on American extended nuclear deterrence intersects directly with its ambition to become the Pacific’s preferred security partner.

The challenge is not necessarily to extend explicit nuclear guarantees to Papua New Guinea or Fiji.

It is to determine how the stability created by extended deterrence can reach vulnerable regional partners without spreading nuclear weapons throughout the region.

That may eventually require a more sophisticated Indo-Pacific deterrence architecture connecting the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea while creating mechanisms through which other regional partners can benefit from greater strategic stability.

Australia could occupy an especially important position within such an architecture.

Its geography, intelligence relationships, AUKUS capabilities, conventional forces and alliance with the United States allow it potentially to act as a bridge between American extended deterrence and the security requirements of Pacific Island countries.

But that requires clarity about commitments.

Australia cannot indefinitely argue that Pacific security should be led by the Pacific family while leaving unanswered the question of who ultimately deters a major military power from coercing members of that family.

A voice matters.

But so does protecting the sovereignty that allows that voice to remain independent.

The missing conversation in Australia’s UN campaign

This is where Australia’s Security Council campaign confronts a difficult strategic reality.

Albanese is right that smaller countries deserve a stronger voice. Australia can legitimately use its diplomatic weight to ensure Pacific Island countries are heard in institutions traditionally dominated by larger powers.

But representation alone cannot provide security.

International institutions continue to operate within a system in which military power, alliances and deterrence influence whether governments calculate that aggression or coercion will succeed.

The challenge is therefore not to choose between diplomacy and deterrence.

Australia needs both.

A credible Australian international-security policy should be capable of discussing climate security and nuclear security; Pacific priorities and great-power competition; non-proliferation and extended deterrence.

Europe is reconsidering the relationship between British, French and American nuclear forces and collective security.

The Middle East is witnessing new collective-defence relationships involving nuclear-armed Pakistan.

South Korea is debating the future of extended nuclear deterrence.

Japan is cautiously reconsidering questions once considered politically untouchable.

And Australia itself must determine whether relying upon bilateral American extended deterrence remains sufficient in a region where its own security responsibilities are becoming increasingly networked.

The Indo-Pacific cannot assume that security arrangements designed for an earlier strategic era will automatically remain sufficient for the nuclear environment of the 2030s.

If Australia succeeds in winning a Security Council seat for 2029–30, it will arrive during precisely the period in which these questions are becoming harder to avoid.

Giving the Pacific a stronger voice should remain part of Australia’s ambition.

But Canberra must also answer a harder strategic question:

If Papua New Guinea, Fiji or another close Pacific partner faces coercion from a nuclear-armed power, what exactly is Australia prepared to deter, with what capabilities, alongside which allies and under what commitments?

Answering that question does not require Australia to abandon non-proliferation.

It requires Australia to develop something it increasingly needs: a credible theory of strategic deterrence for the Pacific.