In reality, they pose a profound threat to us all, as well as to future generations. We are convinced that it is a fundamental error to believe that these weapons provide security. The treaty also gives voice to the majority of states that do not accept nuclear deterrence as a valid basis for security. It is they who must consider the sustainability of an approach to national security that imposes existential risks on their populations, as well as all other states and, indeed, the rest of humanity. The new treaty asks tough questions of those with nuclear decision-making authority. And it is based on evidence, both of the catastrophic consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, and of the risks associated with nuclear deterrence. Consistent with the NPT, it is a practical manifestation of our commitment to nuclear disarmament. The TPNW crystallises our total opposition to nuclear weapons. In July 2017, we were among more than 120 states to adopt the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). But we are far from powerless when it comes to encouraging constructive change, especially when we work together with like-minded partners. Sixty years after the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of catastrophe, we find ourselves again faced with the threat of nuclear escalation.Ĭountries the size of New Zealand and Austria cannot coerce others to heed our wishes.
But while proliferation risks have increased in recent decades, concrete progress has stalled. The NPT’s signatories acknowledged that nuclear disarmament is ultimately the most effective way to discourage proliferation. This dissonance is also evident in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force more than 50 years ago following a “grand bargain” between nuclear-armed China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and non-nuclear-armed states, including Austria and New Zealand. This threat, which we unequivocally condemn, has sparked a new global debate on the value of nuclear deterrence, highlighting a bleak dissonance between the avowed collective goal of achieving a world without nuclear weapons and nuclear-armed states’ ongoing reliance on them. Yet, the following month, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime threatened to unleash those same vastly destructive and indiscriminate weapons in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. In early January, the five nuclear powers on the United Nations Security Council reaffirmed the 1985 statement by US President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. We recently received a fresh wake-up call. The risks of nuclear escalation, miscalculation and accident are mounting, even though we have a better understanding than ever of the catastrophic consequences that would follow from the use of nuclear weapons.
Three decades on, nine nuclear-armed states possess some 13,000 nuclear warheads, and, far from phasing out their arsenals, these states are modernising and expanding them. But the trend toward disarmament stalled. While the threat of nuclear weapons never went away after the end of the Cold War, steep cuts to nuclear stockpiles in the early 1990s represented progress.
Particularly relevant today is our longstanding opposition to nuclear weapons and our shared concern about the lack of progress on nuclear disarmament. VIENNA/WELLINGTON - Austria and New Zealand may be far apart geographically, but we are connected by shared values and principles. By Alexander Schallenberg and Phil Twyford
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