Ramesh Thakur

Ramesh Thakur is emeritus professor at the Australian National University and a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General. Of Indian origin, he is a citizen of Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Ramesh's recent articles

All bets off on the Korea summit outcome.

CANBERRA The pieces of the jigsaw are falling into place on the Korean Peninsula. But the overall picture a denuclearized North Korea, a nuclear-weapon-free zone for all of Northeast Asia and/or a U.S. withdrawal from East Asia remains fuzzy. Reaction to the March 8 announcement of a summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un was mixed. Some thought Trumps threats of fire and fury had spooked Kim into a climbdown. Others argued a one-on-one meeting with the U.S. president will confer legitimacy on the North Korean leader as an equal.

The Skripal affair: curiouser and curiouser

On 4 March a former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who came from Moscow on 3 March to visit her father, were found slumped unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury. Both remain in critical condition in hospital. Prime Minister Theresa May said the two had been poisoned with Novichok and pointed the finger of criminality at Russia. Moscow dismissed and mocked the accusation as entirely without foundation. The two countries have since carried out tit-for-tat expulsions of 27 diplomats each.

The Nuclear Ban Treaty Embeds the Nuclear Taboo

The non-use of nuclear weapons since 1945 is largely explained by the strong moral taboo. There have been many occasions when they could have been used without fear of retaliation but were not, even at the price of defeat on the battlefield, as in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Norms, not deterrence, have anathematised the use of nuclear weapons as morally unacceptable. The force of the norm is buttressed by operational disutility: the very destructiveness of nuclear weapons robs them of military or political utility. Their lethal destructiveness constitutes an existential threat to all human beings, not just to the leaders, soldiers...

Could the Trump Kim summit succeed?

The KimTrump summit is an opportunity that will be difficult to seize and easy to squander. For example, if Trump decertifies the Iran nuclear deal on May 12, ahead of the summit, the move would almost certainly call into question Americas good faith and ability to honour negotiated international agreements.

Returning To The Edge Of The Nuclear Cliff

The two leaders most responsible for bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end were U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev. They also kick-started the dramatic reductions in nuclear arsenals with a mix of unilateral measures and bilateral agreements. The driving force behind this was acceptance of Reagans affirmation in his State of the Union address on Jan. 25, 1984, that A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. Now their successors, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, seem determined to resurrect the Cold War rivalry, restart a...

The rant in The Australian on the Department of Foreign and Trade

On 17 February, The Australian published an article by former Australian ambassador to the EU and former adviser to Tony Abbott Mark Higgie that was sharply critical of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Unfortunately, the initial takeaway from reading it was that it is more of a rant than a critical analysis of all that ails DFAT.

Australias curious neglect of citizens of Asian origin

Last year, I commented on the puzzling neglect of Asian-Australians in the countrys public life, in particular Parliament. Published in Pearls and Irritations on 3 October, the article seemed to resonate among many readers and generated more messages in response than usual with blog posts on this site. It also caught the attention of ABC Radio National and on 23 October, they broadcast a 30-minute interview by Geraldine Doogue with George Megalogenis and me on the interlinked themes of migration and the shift to a Eurasian nation, and on the missing Asian-Australians in our institutions. This produced even more messages.

The bomb for Australia? (Part 3)

After the Cold War ended, the existence of nuclear weapons on both sides wasnt enough to stop the US from expanding NATOs borders ever eastwards towards Russias borders, contrary to the terms on which Moscow thought Germanys reunification and the admission of a united Germany into NATO had been agreed. Several Western leaders at the highest levels had assured Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO wouldnt expand even one inch eastward. In 1999, Russia watched helplessly from the sidelines as its ally, Serbia, was dismembered by NATO warplanes that served as midwives to the birth of an independent Kosovo.

The bomb for Australia? (Part 2)

As we consider whether Australia should obtain nuclear weapons, we need to ask who might subject us to nuclear blackmail. In the authoritative statement of Chinas strategic vision in President Xi Jinpings address to the 19th Communist Party Congress on 18 October last year, the three core elements of Chinas vision of the new world order were parity in ChinaUS relations; growing Chinese influence in writing the underlying rules and in designing and controlling the governance institutions of the global order; and more assertive Chinese diplomacy in that new international system.

The bomb for Australia? (Part 1)

In this three-part series, I examine the counter-arguments that proponents of Australia obtaining nuclear weapons need to address before the nation contemplates such a move.

Time ticks closer to nuclear midnight

This weeks false ballistic missile warning gave the world its first glance of what the first 38 minutes of nuclear war might feel like as political tensions turned to real-life panic. As time ticks away, can catastrophe be averted?

Nuclear arms: Look ahead to 2018 in hope, not back at 2017 in anger

We begin 2018 with a surreal contest between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Koreas Kim Jong Un as to whose nuclear button is bigger. Against North Koreas anxiety-inducing rapid nuclear advances, the biggest positive story line of 2017 was a new United Nations nuclear ban treaty adopted on July 7 and opened for signature on Sept. 20.

2017 in review: The nuclear landscape.

The past 12 months were proof that the threat of nuclear weapons persists in the post Cold War world. However, when nuclear threats need not be broadcast over Red Square but merely typed over Twitter, it seems arms control procedures have failed to keep up.

Instead of congratulating ICAN on its Nobel Peace Prize, Australia is resisting efforts to ban the bomb

Last week in Oslo, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was officially given to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a global campaign that was launched in Melbourne in 2007.

RAMESH THAKUR. Australia charts a flawed foreign policy course

Australias 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper sketches the global geopolitical transition with remarkable precision and elegance and the document is exceptionally strong on principles, rules and norms as the foundation of world order. The word rules is used 70 times, norms 22 times, principles 15 times and international law 26 times.

A whitewash rather than a white paper on how we go to war

The organising principle of the 2017 foreign policy White Paper is the importance of and commitment to a rules-based order. At the heart of that order lies the United Nations and Australia is a principled and pragmatic member of the United Nations, contributing to its vital security, environmental and humanitarian endeavours (p. 81). In one important respect,how we go to war,it is a whitewash rather than a white paper.

RAMESH THAKUR. Australias gulag of shame

Manus Island detainees are back in the news. In this article published more than a year ago, in the Japan Times, Ramesh Thakur asks: Do Australian Cabinet ministers and departmental heads really value their jobs, and the power and perks that come with them, so much that they are prepared to be complicit by association in the torture of innocent children, facilitated by a policy of bribing and bullying Pacific neighbours? Has Australia really been reduced to this sorry state?

RAMESH THAKUR. Heading over the nuclear cliff.

The answer to growing regional uncertainty isnt to build up nuclear arsenals.

RAMESH THAKUR. Multiple risks and limited options on the Korean peninsula

By 2020, North Korea will either be a post-atomic wasteland; an active war zone; or a de facto nuclear-armed state with a fully developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, and grudgingly accepted as such. To paraphrase Churchills familiar bon mot on democracy, learning to live with that reality would be the worst outcome, except for all the alternatives.

RAMESH THAKUR. Gorbachev: A voice of sanity from a past that has become a foreign country

Ramesh Thakur would welcome the shock and awe of PM Turnbull and Foreign Minister Bishop backing Gorbachevs plea for a summit to restore USRussia relations to normalcy and lining up with Iran, the Europeans, China and Russia in recommitting to the Iran nuclear deal as a rare triumph of diplomacy over warmongering.

RAMESH THAKUR. Five Steps to Peace in Myanmar

The bloodshed in Myanmar has uprooted hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya, eroded the prestige of government leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and damaged the credibility of ASEAN and the United Nations. The crisis can be resolved, but not without international intervention.

RAMESH THAKUR. Incorrigible Optimist by Gareth Evans review-Part 2 of 2

At a time when the worlds political landscape seems starved of good policy-making, Gareth Evans political memoirs are a reflection on the pursuit of good leadership in Australia and the world, Ramesh Thakur writes.

RAMESH THAKUR. Incorrigible Optimist by Gareth Evans, a Political Memoir - A review-Part 1of 2

Gareth Evans memoir makes clear his vision of good international citizenship would have foreign ministers pursuing national self-interest within the ennobling vision of global moral purposes.

RAMESH THAKUR. Australia's engagement with Asia should start at home with engagement with Asian-Australians.

Do we want to defend ourselves from Asia-sourced threats, be smarter in doing business with Asia, or be part of Asia? The Coalition seems to be pursuing the first, Labor is promising the second, but neither seems interested in the third.

PAUL MEYER and RAMESH THAKUR. Canada's nuclear diplomacy is make-believe

The late U.S. senator and one-time ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, famously rebuked a political opponent: You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

RAMESH THAKUR. APLN Group Statement on Nuclear Threats

On Tuesday 26 September 2017, 55 AsiaPacific political, diplomatic, military and civil society leadership figures, who are members of the AsiaPacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), signed a statement urging that nuclear crises are best resolved diplomatically, not militarily; and that internationally negotiated deals to resolve nuclear crises should be respected by all parties.

RAMESH THAKUR. Mr President, the United Nations is not a New York sub-office of the State Department

On Tuesday, Hurricane Trump made landfall at UN Headquarters in Turtle Bay. What had been feared as a category 5 storm had weakened to category 3 which can still cause considerable destruction. Trump invoked Biblical language in justification for the harsh rhetoric against the scourge of our planet today: If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph.

RAMESH THAKUR. North Koreas nuclear progress isnt the only bad news

North Koreas rapid advances are a game-changer, but the quality of strategic analysis and decision-making in Washington is highly suspect. This portends troubling times ahead.

RAMESH THAKUR. In the Graveyard of Empires, the US Military Presence Is on Life Support

As a private citizen, Donald Trump advocated for full US withdrawal. As president, he has chosen to perpetuate, prolong and expand the war, at further cost to US treasure and lives.

RAMESH THAKUR. India and China provide rare glimmer of hope

A confrontation in the Himalayas could have turned violent, but mature diplomacy won the day.

RAMESH THAKUR. Debating the Burqa

Brandis was wrong to harangue Hanson. A debate on banning the burqa in Australia is required and should address three questions: its origins in religious edicts and cultural practices; the current practice in Western liberal democracies; and the practice in Islamic countries.

RAMESH THAKUR. China and the North Korean nuclear challenge

On a superficial reading, China is feeling the squeeze to take effective action to bring North Korea to heel over its rogue nuclear program. On a deeper reading, Chinas gains from the crisis exceed the costs. On a wider reading, Washington daily vindicates Pyongyangs nuclear choices.

RAMESH THAKUR. All the way with Donald J? No way Jose

Has the quality of Australias decision making on issues of life and death for the country and its people not to mention Planet Earth truly become reform proof? Going by the lack of any serious process before lining up dutifully behind the most strategically challenged president in American history and the most irresponsible suite of bellicose threats from his tweet-addicted thumbs, the answer to the question is anything but reassuring.

From the Nuclear Non-proliferation to the UN Prohibition Treaty

There are currently no negotiations or discussions on arms control being conducted at all between any of the countries that possess nuclear weapons (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, UK, USA)

It's high noon on the roof of the world

The territorial standoff in the Himalayas is a lose-lose proposition for both India and China.

The parliamentary eligibility law is an ass but it is the law.

Australias restrictive eligibility criterion for entering Parliament is out of touch with modern reality but, as long as it is the law of the land, it has to be enforced and be seen to be impartially enforced.

Trust is falling in Western democratic institutions

One clue to understanding the loss of trust in the professional integrity of the Western media is their unrelenting efforts to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Japan on the wrong side of nuclear weapons ban treaty

Many nations that previously championed their nuclear disarmament credentials have now been outed as part of the problem

Modis actions fail to live up to his words

Three years on, it's hard for even the most ardent Indophile to remain optimistic about the nation's future.

Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump: The godfathers of the UN treaty to ban the bomb

With a protector-in-chief like Donald Trump, who needs enemies like Kim Jong-un? Clearly, history does irony: the president with the least previous foreign policy interest and experience could end up having the biggest impact on global affairs in a century.

I told you so: realists need to get real on nuclear policy choices

The DPRK is developing a nuclearised ICBM capability as fast as it possibly can because it fears a US attack and forcible regime change. And the dear leader fears the same fate as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi. So the US threatens him even more as the answer to make Kim Jong Un desist from his chosen nuclear path.Go figure.

How a regional nuclear-free-weapon zone can benefit Japan

More the half the word's countries are parties to nuclear weapon-free zone treaties. A regional Northeast Asian nuclear weapon-free zone would quarantine the region from the real risks of nuclear war. It would delink regional tensions, disputes and conflicts from the geopolitical equations between the nuclear powers, and would aim to prevent any cross-contamination of regional and global quarrels.

Moral hazard in modern democratic politics

While all Western democracies accept the need for social safety nets, conservative governments point to moral hazard to justify less generous public provisions, while progressive parties prioritize more assistance to the needy over additional minor inconvenience to the better off

Nuclear-free New Zealand turns 30

The 1987 nuclear-free act was a milestone in New Zealand's development as a nation.

Strong anti-nuclear weapons advocacy by Asia-Pacific leaders.

Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to humanity and indeed to all forms of life on planet Earth. Serious threats persist from the use or misuse of weapons whether by design, accident or system malfunction by nuclear-armed states and terrorist actors, and from the misuse of the civil fuel cycle.

Manchester and terrorism. Part 3 of 3.

In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion.

Manchester and terrorism. Part 2 of 3.

In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion.

Manchester and terrorism, Part 1 of 3.

The swamp fights back In this three-part article, Ramesh Thakur argues that the scale of the terrorist threat to Western societies must be kept in perspective, that Western actions in the Middle East may have fomented more terrorism than they have defeated, and that an attitude of denial regarding the potential for problems of large-scale Muslim immigration feeds mutual paranoia and hostility and is not conducive to social cohesion.

The UN draft treaty to ban the bomb is an important milestone on the road to nuclear abolition

The recently published draft text of a convention to ban the bomb provides a good basis to complete negotiations of a treaty to prohibit the acquisition, development, production, manufacture, possession, transfer, testing, extra-territorial stationing and use of nuclear weapons as major steps on the road to abolition.

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