Alice a pawn in 'nuclear signalling'

By ERWIN CHLANDA

Pine Gap is enjoying one of its occasional moments in the limelight because of Israel’s genocide in Palestine and the assumption, widely held, that the US military base is involved.

Pine Gap, less than 20km from Alice Springs, has been expanded in its 55 years, and was long regarded as the most important American spy facility outside the USA.

But now it is replaceable – at least in part.

“The early warning missile detection satellites certainly demonstrate that the geographical requirements for linking through Pine Gap are now technically redundant,” says Prof Richard Tanter (pictured), one of Australia’s best informed nuclear war experts. He is a former president of the Australian board of the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017.

He told the Alice Springs News: “Early warning satellites can now operate by direct downlink from the satellites to US combatant commands, or by relays through US communications satellites and then on to mission control systems in the US. The Pine Gap connection for these satellites is no longer essential."

Prof Tanter says Pine Gap’s original and still primary role is space-based and ground-based signals intelligence collection, along with "overhead persistent infrared early warning missile detection. All three of these surveillance systems are of enduring and generally increasing importance to the US military.

“But essentially, these are basically the equivalents of the telephone system to deliver the news. The real role of PG is to collect the news in the first place – through the three systems of surveillance.”

From the beginning the base has been regarded as a prime nuclear target. What has changed is the interpretation of that “role” which, as pawns in escalating global tensions, could lead to the annihilation of the town’s population.

NEWS: I recall Des Ball analysed, warned against and critiqued a limited nuclear escalation logic: "We’ll hit a target lightly to force talks.” He was skeptical of any plan that depends on nuclear use to coerce the other side without risking full-scale nuclear war. But he clearly acknowledged that such a limited escalation logic does exist.

TANTER: What you are referring to is called in the nasty language of nuclear planners “nuclear signalling”. Given the impediments to mutual understanding in time of war, the idea is that a “small” or very “limited” nuclear attack could be used to communicate intent to the other side: “You should now understand our resolve to resist with massive force if you go further.”

That sort of thinking is still very much alive, especially in US and Russian circles. You may recall discussion of Putin’s possible consideration of a “small” attack on a less populated part of Ukraine as a signal to Washington.

NEWS: Absurdly, anti base protesters maybe playing into the hands of would-be nuclear warriors, ascribing an importance to Pine Gap that it may no longer have.

TANTER: No, I don’t think this is the case. The base is expanding both in physical and qualitative terms, and is acquiring new roles and capacities. The most important is the data centre built on the north east side last year, critical for the combination of AI and cyber activities.

NEWS: Is the Australian governments’ – plural – submissiveness towards the USA, offering up Alice Springs as a potential sacrifice in a nuclear conflict, while the American homeland remains safe?

TANTER: Throughout Pine Gap’s history Australian government planners have known of and sometime spoken publicly about its vulnerability of being a target for a nuclear signal attack by the Soviet Union/Russia and maybe China.

In technical terms it’s a pretty plausible suggestion – especially these days.

Though the base is more important than ever, the fact that it is no longer technically a standalone facility, but a node integrated into global systems of surveillance.

However, serious Pentagon nuclear war games show that such "limited nuclear war" escalation almost always ends badly – for everyone.

The new film House of Dynamite directed by Kathryn Bigelow on Netflix is a deeply troubling "what if" reflection on such thinking, with relevance to the base.

Pine Gap is no longer “a single point of failure”, at least to the degree it was 25 years ago. An attack on it would be extremely damaging to the US, but would not wholly destroy the relevant US capabilities. However, that quality could also make Pine Gap more attractive to an enemy intent on using nuclear attack as a diplomatic signal: “Look, see we have not destroyed something absolutely irreplaceable.”

PHOTO at top: Lockheed Martin image of the next generation early warning satellite. The first will be launched next year, and will link to new radomes on the western edge of the Pine Gap Relay Ground Station. Photo Space News.