Regional security in the Pacific Islands is in flux, with change fuelled by a trio of dominant drivers. As global economic powerhouses China and the US renew their interest in the region, monitoring the important drivers offers key insights into the future of the Pacific.
The first driver involves rethinking how security is defined. Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders committed in 2018 to cooperate more on regional security in the Boe Declaration on Regional Security. The Declaration defines security broadly, covering human security, environmental and resource security, transnational crime, and cyber security. But the breadth of issues that fall within this definition of security makes it difficult to translate into concrete policy. Underpinning it all is climate change, “the single greatest threat … to the peoples of the Pacific”.
PIF officials are grappling with the question of how human rights, health, and prosperity can fit into existing regional security efforts; whether connections can (or should) be drawn between issues that would typically be classified as relating to ‘security’ or ‘development’; and what this means in practical terms for efforts to advance security in the region.
