Australia
Country Spotlight
Australia is a party to all major nonproliferation treaties and export control regimes. After developing a chemical warfare capability during World War II and collaborating with the UK on nuclear weapons testing, Australia no longer maintains offensive WMD programs. In 2021, Australia announced a deal to purchase American nuclear-powered submarines.
See Australia's performance in:
Region East Asia and the Pacific
33% World’s uranium resources
1985 Australia Group founded
12 British nuclear weapons tests hosted
Nuclear
- Has never possessed or developed nuclear weapons
- Has largest known quantity of uranium resources in the world
- Party to the Treaty of Rarotonga, which established a nuclear weapons-free zone in the South Pacific
- Set to acquire conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines via the AUKUS deal with the UK and U.S.
Biological
- Has never possessed a biological warfare capacity
- Conducts research on biological materials and biosecurity
- Ratified the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention (BWC) in 1977
- At the ninth Review Conference of the BTWC, Australia joined a five-year working group intent on strengthening the BTWC through creating modalities for verification and compliance mechanisms
Missile
- To improve its long-range strike capabilities, will develop and test hypersonic cruise missiles with the U.S., and will jointly produce the Precision Strike Missile with the U.S.
- Is a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and was involved in drafting the Hague Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC)
- Deploys AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles on its F/A-18A/B aircraft
- Acts as the Immediate Central Contact point for the International Code of Conduct Against Ballistic Missile Proliferation, also known as Hague Code of Conduct (HCOC)
Chemical
- Destroyed its chemical weapons stockpiles after World War II
- Chairs the Australia Group, which enhances cooperation on controlling the spread of materials related to chemical weapons development
- Ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1994
- Australia will begin a four year-term as a member of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in 2026
- Founding partner of the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons in 2018