Richard Butler

Richard Butler AC Former Ambassador to the United Nations, Executive Chairman of UN Special Commission to Disarm Iraq, Professor of International Affairs.

Richard's recent articles

Richard Butler. Nuclear Security Summit: Washington Finale?

Seven years ago, President Obama spoke in Prague Square and undertook to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. He cautioned that this outcome would be immensely difficult to achieve and may not be reached in his own lifetime, but his speech was heard and widely taken as signaling an enhanced US commitment to the elimination of nuclear weapons. A year later he called the first meeting of a Nuclear Security Summit, to be attended by Heads of State/Government. It was held in 2010 and then followed, in 2012, 2014, and last week, the 2016...

Richard Butler. An act of faith and a blind eye.

The Defence White Paper 2016 has now been published. An engaging, critical, analysis of it has been offered by Professor Hugh White, ANU, (Pearls and Irritations March 10th ). Rightly, the purpose of the White Paper is to outline how Australias security can be assured in the current and expected environment. A central assertion of the paper, with respect to that assurance, can be found at page 121, in paragraph 5.20. Only the nuclear and conventional military capabilities of the United States can offer effective deterrence against the possibility of nuclear threats against Australia. The presence of United...

Richard Butler. Nuclear North Korea: Profound and Dangerous Hypocrisy

During the last 10 years, North Korea has resigned its membership of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and conducted four nuclear test explosions. It claimed that the latest of these, detected four days ago, was of a hydrogen (fission-fusion) bomb. It made no such claim for the earlier three tests; said to be merely atomic (fission) bombs. Argument about the veracity of the current claim is underway. There was seismic evidence of a test, but there is good reason to doubt that it was of a hydrogen bomb. We might have a clearer reading on that soon. The...

Richard Butler. Bombing Syria: Wheres our Debate?

On December 2nd, the UK House of Commons debated for 10 hours, a motion moved by the Government, that it should authorise bombing of DAESH targets in Syria by UK airforces. (Prime Minister Cameron announced early in his statement that, henceforth, ISIL should be referred to as DAESH: the acronym of its name in Arabic). Some 150 members of the House took part in the debate. The motion was approved by a vote of 397 for, 223 against. Leader of the Opposition, Jeremy Corbyn had approved a free vote for members of his party. 66 Labour members exercised that...

Richard Butler. After Paris

The attacks in Paris were textbook in terms of the philosophy of terrorism: hit publicly, indiscriminately, affecting as large a group of innocent people as possible, attract maximum publicity, generate widespread fear. They also represented a continuation of terrorist actions within metropolitan Europe: Madrid 2004, 191 dead; London 2005, 56 dead; Paris January 2015, 17 dead; and now November 2015 128 dead and still counting. Naturally, statements characterizing this latest outrage have been flowing. It has been described as Frances September 11, and according to President Hollande, as constituting a declaration of war on France. IS has claimed responsibility for...

Richard Butler. Russia and Syria: The continuation of politics by other means.

In their addresses to the UN General assembly, last week, Presidents Obama and Putin focused on the civil war in Syria. Both emphasized the need for the war, now in its 5th year, to be brought to an end. They both said that a political solution needed to be found, but they differed on a central issue: the role of Syrian President Bashir Al Assad. The US position widely supported by western and key regional states and, of course, Syrian groups fighting the regime, was that Assad and his government must go. The Russian position was that Assads government...

Richard Butler. RAAF to bomb Syria: another Captain's pick?

Within the next ten days, the National Security Committee of Cabinet will discuss the US request to Australia to deploy RAAF assets in bombing IS targets in Syria. Presumably, senior defense, foreign affairs, intelligence and government policy staff will be preparing assessments of such military action for Committee consideration. It would be normal for such assessments to include: the nature, aims and duration of possible military actions, including target selection, their command and control, risk assessment, actions needed in the event of downing of RAAF aircraft, relationship to Australias national security and the impact of such action on its international...

Richard Butler. The Cost of Having no Independent Foreign Policy

How is it possible that the Australian people: citizens, elected representatives, media staff, academics, to name just some relevant categories, allow the Abbott government to spend $1 billion this year on Australian participation in war in the Middle East, and accept that there is no need for this to be discussed? * Prime Minister Abbott considered it enough to announce the commitment of 1000 ADF personnel and 8 military aircraft, immediately before they departed, saying that they were going to take part in the US defined and led fight against ISIS. The full majesty of his understanding of the...

Richard Butler. The Iran Nuclear Agreement: Safe if Implemented.

The Joint Cooperative Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed with Iran by the UN Security Councils five Permanent members, plus Germany and the EU, (Vienna, July 14th), is unprecedented. No comparable arms control plan has been as detailed or thorough. Above all, it is vastly preferable to any of the proposed alternative approaches, the main one of which has been war. If the negotiation of this agreement had failed, there would have been further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, in addition to whatever Iranian capability may have emerged. Israel already has them and Saudi Arabia has been...

Richard Butler. Foreign Policy. An Independent Australian Foreign Policy

Fairness, Opportunity and Security Policy series edited by Michael Keating and John Menadue. Summary: For fifty years, since Australia entered the war in Vietnam in 1965, Australian foreign policy has been made increasingly subservient to a specific concept of Australias relationship with the United States. That concept, first enunciated by Prime Minister Menzies in 1955, was that for its survival, Australia needed a great and powerful friend. All of our key decisions in foreign policy since then have been shaped by our own construct of what loyalty to the United States and the Alliance demanded. That construct has...

Richard Butler. Australia No Longer Interested in Nuclear Disarmament?

The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is universally described as the cornerstone of nuclear arms control and disarmament. All but four members of the United Nations subscribe to it. Those four; India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, have developed nuclear weapons. Five countries, party to the Treaty, are recognized in it as the Nuclear Weapon States, the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council; China, France, Russia, UK, US. So, in such an uneven, messy set of circumstances, how is it that NPT is seen as the cornerstone? Its because it has three elemental provisions: those...

Ukraine: Watch This Space

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced his decision to send a contingent of 75 trainers to Ukraine as a demonstration of support for Kiev in its fight against Russian supported rebels in South Eastern Ukraine. The deployment will provide instruction in command procedures, tactical intelligence, battlefield first aid and logistics.

Richard Butler. Russia.

Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have been playing loosely in our relations with Russia even thought those relations are quite modest, at least as far as the Russians are concerned. Threatening to 'shirt-front' President Putin is not a dignified way to behave with a major nuclear power. Our recent behaviour towards Russia underlines that prejudices and rhetoric should be put aside. We should focus on evidence, principles and interest. Major European powers being close to Russia and with far deeper experience of Russian behaviour do not afford themselves the luxury of playing politics the way we...

Richard Butler. Obama transformed?

The jingoistic pressures applied to the media, commentators, academics, policy advisors in order to contain their commentary on the US illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, have been in evidence again following President Obamas decision to commence war on ISIL. This time, however those pressures have been significantly smaller. Then it took almost three years before it was considered acceptable to question the operation. It has now taken only some three weeks for doubts and serious questions to be voiced and, published in mainstream media. Why, whats happened? A decline in US patriotism, or belief in seeking military...

Richard Butler. ISIL. Ask the right questions.

Any assessment of what, if anything, countries outside the region should do about the seizure by ISIL of substantial portions of Syria and Iraq, should be based on the answers to three basic questions: what is the significance of this event; whose fight is it; what can be done about it, effectively. On the principle that you will only get the right answer if you ask the right questions. It is important that these three questions be the right ones. They appear to be. In arriving at the decision to, immediately join the US organized coalition to ...

Richard Butler. Ukraine, not Sarajevo

In recent months, theres been no shortage of suggestions, indeed warnings, that Russias absorption of Crimea and now its pressure on eastern Ukraine, is the equivalent of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, in Sarajevo almost exactly 100 years ago: the shot heard around the world, which saw the beginning of the First World War just 37 days later. This comparison is beguiling, neat, and I suspect it appeals particularly to those, such as Prime Minister Abbott, who have a very definite view that the world is simple. It includes bad people, all of whom are our...

Richard Butler. US: What Leadership?

There is continuous debate, within the US, about President Obamas handling of international affairs. To some, he has responded to their wish to see the US less entangled, everywhere; to others, hes a feckless weakling and should be impeached. The only thing that seems clear about this debate is that it is agitated, apparently, interminable and operates on a low factual base. The role of the Washington Post, in print and on line, in this discourse in the US and beyond, is believed to be significant. This makes the thoughts and decisions of Fred Hiatt very important. He is...

Richard Butler. The Dissolution of Iraq?

On June 10th, some 1,500 fighters from the Jihadist group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria) seized Iraqs second largest city, Mosul. Half a million citizens fled to the Kurdish areas. ISIS then moved further south, towards Baghdad, and took the cities of Tikrit and Samarra, a sacred Shia site. On June 13th, the leading Shia cleric in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, called on all Iraqi Shia to fight the invaders, who are Sunni. Internationally, Iran sent para- military forces to assist the Baghdad government, which like Iran is almost exclusively Shia. Also on...

Richard Butler. The Invasion of Iraq,the decision and its consequences

It was reported on May 29th, that Sir John Chilcot, the head of the UK inquiry into the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, had reached a breakthrough on the issue of how much of the official records of the decision to invade can be published. The publication of the Chilcot report is some two years late. It is now thought that it may be published before the end of 2014. Chilcot stated that the contents of the key documents at issue, mainly relating to communications between Prime Minister Blair and President George W Bush (some 25 of Blairs...

Richard Butler. American Greed trumps the American Dream: With help from the referee.

During the last two weeks a Professor from the Paris School of Economics, Thomas Piketty, has been touring the US speaking about his book; Capital in the Twenty-First Century. His audiences have been overflowing. Public television described the reception he has received as reminiscent of that given the Beatles, in their first visit to the US, fifty years ago. The book was briefly sold out on Amazon. Capital is not an argument, a Manifesto. It is a proof based on research conducted over ten years, analyzing data from twenty countries, in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. It shows...

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