{"id":34440,"date":"2017-09-27T14:33:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T04:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=34440"},"modified":"2017-09-27T14:33:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T04:33:00","slug":"do-australias-interests-match-its-influence-in-the-pacific-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/do-australias-interests-match-its-influence-in-the-pacific-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Australia\u2019s interests match its influence in the Pacific islands?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

As Julie Bishop recently stated<\/a> in a major speech on Australia\u2019s relations with the Pacific islands, the region is \u2018of great importance to Australia\u2019 as \u2018our nearest geographic neighbours\u2019.<\/p>\n

Reflecting the region\u2019s proximity, Australia has two primary strategic interests in the Pacific islands: first, to ensure \u2018security, stability and cohesion<\/a>\u2019 (PDF, p. 25) in the region; and second, to ensure that no power hostile to Western interests establishes a strategic foothold in the region from which it could launch attacks on Australia or threaten allied access or our maritime approaches. To achieve those aims, Australia seeks to be the region\u2019s \u2018principal security partner<\/a>\u2019 (PDF, p. 74). Australia also has significant economic interests in the region; thousands of Australians live there, and many more visit each year.<\/p>\n

Australia has long viewed itself\u2014and has been viewed by others, particularly its allies\u2014as having \u2018a substantial and special responsibility<\/a>\u2019 in \u2018our patch<\/a>\u2019. That has contributed to claims that Australia believes it has \u2018a natural right to lead<\/a>\u2019 (PDF) and to seek \u2018great influence reaching towards loose dominance<\/a>\u2019 in the Pacific islands.<\/p>\n

Australia has preponderant material power and provides considerable public goods to Pacific island states. This suggests that those states should be susceptible to Australian influence\u2014that is, to the effective exercise of Australia\u2019s power. Yet they\u2019ve often been able to resist or limit Australia\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n

This poses a puzzle: why is Australia at times unable to influence Pacific island states effectively in pursuit of its strategic interests?<\/p>\n

In my recent book, Pacific power? Australia\u2019s strategy in the Pacific islands<\/em><\/a>, I answer that question. I provide an account of how, and how effectively, Australia has sought to use its of levers of influence over Pacific island states in pursuit of its strategic interests since 1975, the year that Papua New Guinea gained independence.<\/p>\n

I analyse the full range of levers of Australian influence, which comprise its effective tools of coercion, inducement and persuasion. The primary lever Australia can use is military, including intervention and defence assistance. Non-military tools include state-building assistance (in governance and policing), economic assistance (aid, trade and investment) and diplomacy. I also consider the primary limits on Australia\u2019s influence: the geopolitical landscape in the region and the changing regional order.<\/p>\n

It should matter to Australia that its influence in the islands is at times limited, and now appears to be declining. Australia faces an increasingly uncertain, and potentially perilous, security situation in the Asia\u2013Pacific, and that\u2019s likely to reverberate in the Pacific islands.<\/p>\n

In addition, Australia has long relied on the security blanket of the US alliance, but the US is increasingly isolationist and is questioning the investments it makes in its alliances. Consequently, in the future Australia is likely to need to \u2018take a much more active part in its own security<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s ability to influence Pacific island states effectively in pursuit of its strategic interests has been limited by two factors, and is being increasingly limited by a third.<\/p>\n

First, Australia\u2019s material might doesn\u2019t necessarily translate into effective levers of influence. For example, although Australia dedicated considerable military, police and civilian resources to the Regional Assistance Mission in Solomon Islands (RAMSI), it was frequently opposed by members of the Solomon Islands government, and after 14 years has been unable<\/a> to entrench enduring security, stability or cohesion in the state.<\/p>\n

Second, Australia\u2019s willingness to exercise its influence is often proportional to its level of strategic interest in the region; at times when Australia has had a high level of strategic interest, it has been able to exercise its power to achieve more effective influence because it has devoted more attention and resources to the region. For example, in 2003, in the context of the \u2018war on terror\u2019, when Australia determined that it had a significant strategic interest<\/a> in intervening to attempt to restore security, stability and cohesion in Solomon Islands, it was able to obtain legitimation for its intervention from the Pacific Islands Forum, as well as the participation of a number of Pacific island states.<\/p>\n

In contrast, during the first eight years of the Bougainville crisis, Australia concluded that its strategic interest in being PNG\u2019s principal security partner outweighed its interest in intervening to settle the crisis. It was only after the 1997 Sandline incident, when Canberra became concerned about foreign mercenaries operating in PNG, that it decided its strategic interest in settling the Bougainville crisis was sufficient to warrant exercising its influence over PNG.<\/p>\n

Third, Pacific island states are pursuing increasingly independent foreign policies, aided by the region\u2019s geopolitical landscape<\/a>, changing regional order and, in the case of PNG, economic growth.<\/p>\n

Although Australia\u2019s ability to influence Pacific island states in pursuit of its strategic interests is at times limited, Australia remains the region\u2019s \u2018indispensable power<\/a>\u2019. The region will look first to Australia to respond to future crises, be they artificially created or natural disasters.<\/p>\n

However, as Australia\u2019s ability to exercise influence appears to be declining, Australia could find that its ability to respond to such crises is constrained, perhaps by an inability to generate a regional consensus (such as approval for another RAMSI-style intervention), or by the need to operate alongside external powers that might not want to cooperate with it. It might then realise that its level of interest outstrips its level of influence in what many think of as \u2018our patch\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As Julie Bishop recently stated in a major speech on Australia\u2019s relations with the Pacific islands, the region is \u2018of great importance to Australia\u2019 as \u2018our nearest geographic neighbours\u2019. Reflecting the region\u2019s proximity, Australia has …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":34449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,77,227,549],"class_list":["post-34440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-australia","tag-pacific","tag-ramsi","tag-strategic-policy"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDo Australia\u2019s interests match its influence in the Pacific islands? | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/do-australias-interests-match-its-influence-in-the-pacific-islands\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Australia\u2019s interests match its influence in the Pacific islands? | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As Julie Bishop recently stated in a major speech on Australia\u2019s relations with the Pacific islands, the region is \u2018of great importance to Australia\u2019 as \u2018our nearest geographic neighbours\u2019. 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