Security Cooperation in the Pacific Islands: Politics, Priorities, and Pathways of the Regional Security Patchwork

by Joanne Wallis (Editor), Henrietta McNeill (Editor), James Batley (Editor), Anna Powles (Editor)

Overview

Wallis, McNeill, Batley, Powles and the contributors examine the dynamics of Pacific Islands’ security cooperation, analysing how it helps address regional security challenges amid the broader strategic competition between China and the United States that is increasingly playing out in the region.

Pacific Island countries do not want to become pawns in this competition, but its impacts are inescapable and are creating additional security challenges. Compounding these effects are climate change and COVID-19, both of which have intersected with existing traditional and non-traditional security challenges facing the region. In response, Pacific Island leaders have vowed to pursue greater security cooperation amongst themselves and with partner states. This book addresses partner states’ interests in the region, how these interests and Pacific priorities align, and if not, what the possible consequences may be. It also analyses successful areas of security cooperation and tackles how challenges may be improved.

Incorporating a range of perspectives from key leaders, practitioners and scholars, this is an empirically grounded analysis of security cooperation within the Pacific Islands region and by the region’s major partners. A vital resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to better understand Pacific Islands’ security collaboration and the inherent challenges it faces.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781041011125
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/20/2025
Series:	Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Joanne Wallis is Professor of International Security and Research Director of the Stretton Institute ‘Security in the Pacific Islands’ program at the University of Adelaide, and Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Henrietta McNeill is Research Fellow in Pacific security in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.

James Batley is Distinguished Policy Fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.

Anna Powles is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at Massey University.

Table of Contents

Foreword

1. Introduction: Security cooperation in the Pacific Islands

Part 1: Regional Security Cooperation

2. The role of the Pacific Islands Forum in regional security cooperation

3. The Boe Declaration: More than reconceptualising security

4. International organisations and security cooperation in the Pacific Islands

5. The Pacific Islands and global security challenges

Part 2: Partner Perspectives on Security Cooperation

6. The Australian perspective on security cooperation in the Pacific Islands

7. Security stakeholder and security partner: Aotearoa New Zealand’s approach to security cooperation in the Pacific Islands

8. United States security cooperation among the Pacific Islands

9. The Japanese perspective on Pacific security cooperation: Japan’s re-emerging geopolitical turn

10. The French perspective on Pacific security cooperation

11. China’s security interest in the Pacific region: Chinese and Pacific perceptions

12. Security cooperation in Oceania: An Oceanic perspective

Part 3: Thematic Approaches to Security Cooperation

13. Human security in pandemic times: The case of regional cooperation and local responses

14. Health security cooperation in the Pacific Islands

15. Rifts in resilience: Pacific humanitarian response and security

16. Climate ‘securitising’ by the Pacific

17. Security cooperation and fisheries in the Pacific

18. Border security cooperation to combat transnational crime in the Pacific Islands

19. Security cooperation to combat corruption in the Pacific: A regional approach

20. Conclusion