‘Asia is going to be more dangerous’: Australia MUST arm itself with nuclear weapons to prevent catastrophic attacks on home soil – and it can no longer rely on the US for protection, expert says
- Hugh White said Australia should change their stance on nuclear weapons
- He said the US, Australia’s ally, would become unreliable in the near future
- As America becomes unreliable, he claims Asia is becoming more dangerous
A defence expert says Australia needs to acquire nuclear weapons to defend the country from attacks, claiming the U.S. would be a less reliable ally in decades to come.
Professor Hugh White from the Australian National University told the Q&A audience on Monday night the country should change their stance on nuclear weapons as China’s power and wealth increases.
The author of How to Defend Australia argued America would eventually become ‘unable to protect’ Australia because of the ‘fundamental shift in the distribution of wealth and power’.
‘Asia is going to be more contested and more dangerous and America is going to be less reliable as an ally,’ Professor White said.
‘At the moment, we depend on the US nuclear weapons to deter any possible nuclear attack on Australia.
‘The less confident we are that we can rely on America to do that, the stronger the arguments for Australia to acquire [nuclear weapons],’ he said.
Professor White said the U.S. had been able to maintain its position as the world’s biggest military power through having the world’s biggest economy.
But China’s wealth continued to grow ‘challenging America’s capacity to sustain that position’.
Professor White said China’s sought to replace the United States as the world’s most powerful military and economic force.
The author of How to Defend Australia argued America would eventually become a less reliable ally in the future because of the ‘fundamental shift in the distribution of wealth and power’
‘The fact is America won’t remain the most powerful country in the world,’ Professor White said.
‘It won’t remain the primary power in Asia. It’s just wishful thinking for us to keep on thinking [that].’
Australia faces a ‘very serious threat’ and ‘can no longer rely on America to defend us’, Professor White added.
But Labor’s foreign affairs frontbencher Senator Penny Wong disagreed that ‘getting into an arms race with China was a sensible position’.
‘Australia faces a far more complex and wide range set of circumstances than simply focusing on potential attack on our territory,’ she said.
‘We do need as a nation to focus very clearly on what we want in our region and what can we do to achieve, sustaining the sort of region we want.’
China is Australia’s biggest trading partner while the U.S. is its most significant defence ally.
Professor Hugh White (pictured) from the Australian National University told audience at ABC’s Q&A the country should change their stance against nuclear weapons as China’s power and wealth increases