Policy Brief

June29,1, 2018
July
2019

Dr T hom a s S. W i l k i ns i scurrently a Senior Fellow at theJapan Institute for International

Does Australia have an “Indo Pacificstrategy”?

Affairs in Tokyo. He is normally

Dr Thomas S. Wilkins

based as a Senior Lecturer inInternational Security at the
University of Sydney, Australia.
He specializes in securit yissues in t he A sia Pa cif ic
region and has published on
this subject in journals such as
Review of International Studies,International Relations of the
Asia Pacific and the Australian
Journal of International Affairs,
among others.

Disclaimer :The views expressed in thispublication are those of the authorand do not necessarily reflect thepolicy or position of The Japan
Institute of International Affairs or
any other organization with which
the author is affiliated.

Introduction
The US Depar tment of Defense (DOD) released its longawaited Indo Pacific Strategy Repor t (IPSR) in tandem with the
IISS-Shangrila Dialogue in Singapore on 1 June 2019. This IPSR
appears to subsume or extend the earlier Free and Open Indo Pacific(FOIP) strategy (sometimes referred to now as a “vision”) into a
more comprehensive regional Indo Pacific Strategy (IPS), that isanchored in the earlier 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) and2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) documents. Australia has
yet to produce an analogous document dedicated to profiling its own“Indo Pacific Strategy”, but with the US iteration in view, it is possible
to construct an plausible image of such a strategy in the Australiancase by drawing upon various pertinent materials from a range ofgovernment sources. Indeed, the notion of an overarching IPs isgradually taking shape in Australian strategic thinking, as testified
to by a variety of official documents, including large portions of the2016 Defence White Paper, and especially 2017 Foreign Policy White
Paper, alongside other policy statements and initiatives, framed in
the context of analysis and debate undertaken by nationally-based
strategic commentators. A small case “s” in “Indo Pacific strategy”
is specifically employed in this paper to distinguish the author’s
conception from any formally mandated government “Strategy”.
An examination and assessment of a putative Australian IPs isimportant in light of the release of the US Report, which goes some
way to substituting for the discarded Pivot/Rebalance strategy ofthe previous Administration, in that it brings into relief the context
in which American allies like Australia must now operate. Indeed,whilst an Australia IPs will demonstrate convergences with the US
version (and Japanese FOIP strategy/vision), it is useful to examine
both how Canberra will contribute to the American IPS, as well as theparticular dilemmas it faces as a “middle power” state in the current
security environment. Since Wesley attests that “Australia will besignificantly affected by the presence and quality of American grand1July 25,
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strategy.”1 Not only this, but such a study is also
useful to illustrate to key allies and par tners
such as the US, Japan, India, and various South
East Asian states the current regional strategic
posture Australia is adopting.

of the Indo Pacific construct for determining
Australia’s strategic posture (set within a “global”
approach). Additionally, researchers, such as
Brewster, have pondered the possibility of a
sub-regional “Indian Ocean strategy” (IOs) andhow this would fit into the larger IP concept(discussed further below).

The bases of an Australian “Indo Pacificstrategy” (IPs)

Notwithstanding - such abstract debates andsemantics aside - the essence of any Australian
IPs revolves around a number of defining
principles tied to the worldview championed
by Canberra. 3 Australia’s “vision” of a future
Indo Pacific security order thus has threeessential elements that must be borne in mind
when considering the more specific policies
and initiatives enumerated below. First, thedetermination to uphold a so-called “Rules Based
Order” (RBO) based upon common adherence
to international law, rules, and norms, including
free and open markets, has long been a central
pillar of Australian foreign and defence policy,
and has now taken front stage in the projectionof its worldview (and now finds expression in
the US-Japanese FOIP concept; integral to its
IPs, as discussed below). Second, the desire
to see the US retain its (military) primacy, andlarge-scale engagement in the region largely
defines Australia’s overall approach to the Indo
Pacific (and broader Asia Pacific). As Wesleynotes “Australian strategic policymaking has
always been strongly invested in regional
unipolarity.”4 Ergo, the contents of the American
IPSR will greatly influence Canberra’s regional
approach, as will be evident from the following
discussion. Third, ever-increasing regional(Asian) engagement, through trade, security
ties, and multilateral institutions (which wasmost visibly profiled in the 2012 Australia in the

Scholars and analysts have debated whether
a medium-sized state with relatively limited
resource constraints can conceivably articulate
a “grand strategy”, with the inference that
this is the prerogative of great powers only.
Unfor tunately space precludes an in depth
discussion of “strategy”/ “grand strategy”
in this shor t Policy Brief (please refer tor efer ence below), but succinctly stated:“Grand strategy is the highest level of national
statecraft that establishes how states, or otherpolitical units, prioritize and mobilize which
militar y, diplomatic, political, economic, andother sources of power to ensure what they
perceive as their interests.”2 Indeed, given thevast geographical scope of the Indo Pacific(IP) region, and the particular concentrationthat Australia has traditionally assigned to“its region”, there may not be too much todistinguish any “grand strategy” from an “IndoPacific (regional) strategy” - at the ver y least
they will be deeply-interrelated. The closestthat Australia has come to the former, is the2013 “National Security Strategy” (NSS),
whilst both the 2016 Defence White Paper andespecially 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper
evinced a strong Indo Pacific regional focus.
It is from these two more recent documentsthat the contours of a specific IPs can be best
discerned since they emphasise the embrace

1 Michael Wesley, “Australia’s Grand Strategy and the 2016 Defence White Paper,” Security Challenges 12, no. 1(2016): 20.
2 Paul van Hooft, “Grand Strategy,” in Oxford Bibliographies (2017), 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0218.
3 Allan Gyngell, Fear of Abandonment : Australia in the World since 1942 (Carlton, Vic.: La Trobe University Press,
2017).
4 Wesley, 20.

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Asian Century White Paper).5 This will accountfor the strong “local” (sub-regional) role that
Australia plays in South East Asia and the South
Pacific as part of an IPs, alongside an increasing“India-centric” emphasis.

looks at three key sub-regional foci: (5) India;(6) South East Asia (SEA); and (7) The South
Pacific. This list of activities below is by nomeans exhaustive, but rather selected as
representative of an IPs.

Together, these three overarching principles
resonate throughout the following discussionof some of the key policies and initiatives that
Canberra has initiated towards realising its
regional vision and can be said to illustrate aputative IPs.

Part I: The pillars of an IPs

In order to implement its IPs, Australian
foreign and defence planners aim, likethe US and Japan, at a holistic approachthat incorporates security, economics andgovernance issues, and recognises the nexus
between them. Thus security, defence/military,economic, trade, and development/connectivity
policies form of tapestry of strategic interaction
with the IP region (thus giving it a flavour of thecore instruments of “grand strategy”). These
specific economic and security aspects havebeen thematically discussed by the author in‘The Role for Middle Powers in the Free andOpen Indo-Pacific: Looking at Opportunities for
Canada and Australia,’ JIIA Policy Brief, (withJonathan Berkshire Miller), and are therefore
not reiterated here verbatim.6(1) First off, Canberra has explicitly identified
the “Indo Pacific” as a suitable geopoliticalconstruct through which to frame its continued
region engagement. Influential Australian
figures have long advocated for a refocusing
on the Indo Pacific, aside from the extant “Asia
Pacific”, as recognition not only of India’s
rise to economic and strategic prominence,but as a better reflection of the actual region
Australia itself inhabits at the junction of these
two great Oceans. It was first introduced in
the Gillard Government’s 2013 Defence White
Paper (replacing the term “Asia Pacific” fromprevious iterations). “At its simplest”, according
to Medcalf, “the Indo-Pacific means recognisingthat the accelerating economic and security
connections between the Wester n Pacificand the Indian Ocean region are creating asingle strategic system.”7 It reflects a recastingof Australia’s strategic map to reflect thetremendous impor tance of the intersectionof the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans has
acquired based upon the intense and growing
trading, diplomatic and strategic flows between
them.

In Part 1, this Policy Brief now introduces
four key elements of an Australian IPs: (1)The “Indo Pacific” as a geopolitical construct;(2) instruments of national “hard power”; (3)the US-alliance and; (4) multilateral regionalorganisations. In Par t II it then specifically

In itself, the IP is a value-neutral concept,
which includes all the states in the region
around an indisputable “Asian core” (evenif precise geographical descriptors of whichstates it comprise remain fluid around theedges). Medcalf states that the “Indo-PacificOperationalising an Australian Indo
Pacific strategy:

5 Australian Government, White Paper: Australia in the Asian Century (Canberra: Australian Government, 2012).
6 Jonathan Berkshire Miller and Thomas Wilkins, “The Role for Middle Powers in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific:
Looking at Opportunities for Canada and Australia,” JIIA Policy Brief, Japan Institute for International Affairs, 25 June2019.
7 Rory Medcalf, “In Defence of the Indo-Pacific: Australia’s New Strategic Map,” Australian Journal of International
Affairs 68, no. 4 (2014): 471.

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is an objective description of Australia’s twoocean geography as well as the region in which
China is rising.”8 The term has been adopted
by Australian allies and partners, and continues
to gain currency among regional states. Sucha reframing of Australia’s regional posture - an
Indo Pacific “pivot”? - appears to capture thereal geographical and geopolitical locale that
Australia inhabits, as well as its chosen strategic
focus. Naturally, it has a strong maritimeemphasis due to the importance of trade andenergy routes passing through the region (SeaLines of Communication), with Australia’s
Western and Northern coasts overlooking an“Indo Pacific Arc”, increasingly identified byanalysts as the “primary strategic objective” forAustralian defence strategy.9 Thus, the following
sections show that the wholescale adoption of
the Indo Pacific label, reflects more than simply
a rhetorical shift on the part of Australian policy
makers.

security forums and is building a wide array ofcloser “strategic partnerships” with states in theregion.

(2) Second, to be ef fective any Australianstrategy must be backed by the instrumentsof hard power. This includes all elementsof state capacity - economic, diplomatic, andmilitar y. The Australian Foreign Policy White
Paper states that ‘Australia has a vital interestin the strength of the regional economy.’10 And
the Australian economy appears relatively wellpoised to tap into the opportunities raised byIndia’s continued rise, existing Chinese trade,and enhanced investment and connectivity
opportunities around the region. As a providerof raw materials and services it seeks to leverage
the benefits of increased interaction withemerging markets. Diplomatically, Canberra
takes an out-sized role in regional economic and(3) An Australian IPs is firmly anchored inits bilateral alliance relationship with theUS, and thus as an adjunct to Washington’s
IPS. Canberra has always been determined
to play a resolute role in the broader US “huband spokes” alliance system, and support theAmerican primacy that upholds the regional
RBO. In order to ensure the regional balance ofpower favours the US and its allies, Australia hassought to increase its defence budget (“burden
sharing”) and contributions to ANZUS, throughthe hosting of “rotational” US Marine and Air
deployments in its Northern Territories (Force
Posture Initiatives) to enhance joint integrationof training and force interoperability for multidomain operations. 12 How far Australia has

Lastly, as the security element of regional
interaction comes to the fore due to increased
military modernisation and rivalry, Australia has
worked to enhance its already potent militar yforces and attune its defence strategy to the twotheatres encompassing the “Indo Pacific Arc”
and “Melanesian Arcs”, vital to its own nation
defence, whilst retaining the ability to makemeaningful contributions to military coalitions
elsewhere most likely led by its US ally (apoint of major impor t in contributing to theAmerican IPS).11 “Soft power” instruments, suchas Australia’s values and reputation as “goodinternational citizen” also enter the picture,especially under the notions of RBO, and areseen in action through economic and security
activities in service of the FOIP.

8 Medcalf, 472.
9 Adam Lockyer, “The Future of Australian Defence Strategy,” United Service (Journal of The Royal United Services
Institute for Defence and Security Studies NSW) 68, no. 4 (2017): 15.
10 Australian Government, 43.
11 Rod Lyon, “Australia, Concentric Circles and Strategic Priorities,” The Strategist , Australian Strategic Policy
Institute, 10 May 2016.
12 Thomas Wilkins, “Re-Assessing Australia’s Intra-Alliance Bargaining Power in the Age of Trump,” Security
Challenges 15, no. 1 (2019): 9-32.

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Policy Briefthought about what it is willing and able to do
to support the US in any regional conflict (e.g.
Joint Concept for Access and Maneuver in the
Global Commons (JAM-GC)), or in suppor tof the RBO, is unclear however, yet bilateraland minilateral/multilateral exercises suchas Talisman Sabre and Kakadu give someindication of such contingency planning.

Summit (EAS) and ASEAN Defence Ministers
Meeting Plus (ADMM+) among others. Thisis part of an Australian desire to accord with
the notion of “ASEAN centrality” among its key
SEA partners (see below), and illustrated by
the Australia-ASEAN Comprehensive Strategic
Par tnership and the 2018 Australia-ASEAN
Special Summit. ASEAN recently released its
own response to the intensifying debates aroundthe IP construct entitled “ASEAN Outlook on
the Indo Pacific”, including a range of activities
which might loosely be termed a “strategy”, andsome of which complement Australian goals, at
its annual summit meeting in Bangkok in June
2019. It now adopts “A perspective of viewing
the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, notas contiguous territorial spaces but as a closely
integrated and interconnected region, with
ASEAN playing a central and strategic role.”16This accords well with Australian perspectives
apper taining to regional institutionalarchitecture.

It has also suppor ted US ef for ts to better
connect its security relationships in the region
through multiple partnerships and participationin minilateral security groupings such as the
Trilateral Strategic Dialogue (TSD), with Japan,and “Quad” (with the addition of India). It has
played its par t in “networking” the US allies
together (as emphasised as “networked security
architecture” and “intra-Asian relationships” in
the IPSR).13 Lastly, through Australia has notof ficially endorsed the FOIP label (referringinstead to an “open, inclusive and prosperous
Indo-Pacific” 14 ), it basically adheres to its
guiding principles as outlined explicitly by the
US and Japan. The principles of respect forsovereignty, peaceful dispute resolution, free,fair and reciprocal trade based upon open andtransparent arrangements, and the adhesion tointernational law, rules and norms (including
freedom of navigation and over flight) areall endorsed by the Australian government
throughout various documents and statements.15

Moreover, the extension of the Indo Pacificregion to encompass the Indian Ocean more
fully than the previous “Asia Pacific” focus
necessities greater attention toward the regionalarchitecture there. As such, the Indian Ocean
Rim Association (IORA) looms the large as
the only (almost) pan-regional organisation.
This is an avenue for engaging India (seebelow), but also through which to incubate
a greater regional consciousness among theIndian Ocean states. Canberra has invested
in tr ying to strengthen the grouping to build
its effectiveness in addressing pressing issues
such maritime security, the blue water economy,
and women’s empowerment, with a dedicatedAction Plan 2017-21 setting out a road map for(4) Also integral to Australian engagement with
the Indo Pacific is its participation in the fullrange of regional multinational institutions.
Canberra has continued to pursue its foreign
policy strategy through such organisations,especially those related to ASEAN, such as theASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and East Asian

13 The United States Department of Defense, “Introduction,” in Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness,
Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region (The United States Department of Defense, 2019).
14 Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper (Canberra:
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2017).
15 The United States Department of Defense, Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting
a Networked Region (The United States Department of Defense, 2019), p. 4.
16 Association of Southeast Asian Nations, “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific,” 23 June 2019, p. 2.

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July 25,
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Policy Brief(5) India thus assumes a prominent place inIndo Pacific strategizing for Canberra, whichseeks to reinvigorate its amicable but heretofore
under-developed bilateral relations with an
emerging great power with which its shares anarray of common valued and shared interests.
The Australia-India Strategic Par tnershipenunciated in 2009 was revitalised in 2014 by
Prime ministerial summits aimed at deepening
political, economic and security ties. Currently,
the two engage in a 2+2 Foreign and Defence
Secretaries’ Dialogue to coordinate their views
on regional issues, and have agreed to work
toward a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation
Agreement to boost underperforming bilateral
trade levels.19

future initiatives, including Maritime Domain
Awareness (MDA) and counter-ter rorism
cooperation as well.17
But, as Brewster points out, IORA’s capacities
are currently uneven and limited at present,with much work remaining to be done if it is toachieve its potential as an instrument throughto uphold international norms in the region.18
Likewise, improved interaction with the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation(SAARC) - in which Australia holds obser ver
status - the Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation(BIMSTEC), and the Indian Ocean Naval
Symposium (IONS), is aimed at boostingregional economic and security governance.

Additionally, the 2009 Joint Declaration on
Security Cooperation (JDSC) ser ves as the
backdrop for Annual Defence Policy Talks andan annual 1.5 Track Defence Strategic Dialogue,
which together superintend an expanding
network of defence and militar y-to-militar yties. The biannual AUSINDEX naval exercises
are another avenue for strengthening militarydefence ties. Australia shares with India a desire
to address pressing maritime security issues,
including MDA, and improve naval cooperation
against disruptive actions by other states. Lastly,
Canberra has been a keen advocate of drawing
India into the larger FOIP vision throughmeans of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(“Quad”), alongside the US and Japan, in order
to coordinate response to challenges to the
RBO in the Indo Pacific.20 As an ancillary to thisAustralia also has a trilateral dialogue with India
and Japan separately. For all these reasons,India occupies a central place in any conception

Part II: Sub-regional foci of Australia’s
IPs:
This second part shines a spotlight on three
specific sub-regions upon which Canberra
has more recently devoted priority attention.
Canberra remains naturally concerned withthe deteriorating security situation in Nor th
East Asia, especially the North Korean nuclear
challenge and maritime/territorial disputes, asar ticulated in the defence and foreign policy
white papers cited above. But India, SEA, andthe South Pacific have all drawn substantial
attention under a IPs-related agenda, as indictedby the shift towards a more expansive IP
concept itself, which extends the scope beyond
the traditional policy concerns of East Asia, andwhich undoubtedly retain great impor tanceamong strategic thinkers in Australia.

17 Gurpreet Khurana, “Maritime Security in the Indian Ocean: From Tentative Collaboration to Effective Architecture,”
Journal of Indian Ocean Rim Studies 1, no. 2 (2018): 9-25.
18 David Brewster, “Australia’s Second Sea: Facing Our Multipolar Future in the Indian Ocean,” Special Report ,Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 19 March 2019, pp. 48-50.
19 Peter N Varghese AO, An India Economic Strategy to 2035: Navigating from Potential to Delivery (Canberra:
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 2018).
20 Ryosuke Hanada, “The Role of U.S.-Japan-Australia-India Cooperation, or the ‘Quad’ in FOIP: A Policy Coordination
Mechanism for a Rules-Based Order,” CSIS Strategic Japan 2019 Working Papers.

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July 25,
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Policy Briefof a cohesive IPs. Yet Brewster argues that apotential “Indian Ocean strategy” as a sub-set of
an IPs, must not be limited to India exclusively
in order to seek opportunities with other states,with Sri Lanka presented a prime example
of what might be achieved through capacitybuilding assistance and maritime cooperation.21

serves as a “regional hub” through which to link
together key states into a local-regional maritime
security front. Notably, relations with Jakarta
have improved as the countr y has sought to
put forward its own vision as a “global maritime
fulcrum” in response to the FOIP.23 Australia
has also supplied capacity-building assistanceto SEA states that require it, including counterterrorism cooperation with the Philippines.
While the Royal Australian Navy (RAN)
per forms low-key FONOPS under Operation
Gateway, a flagship part of regional engagement
is the Indo Pacific Endeavour exercise
which aims at public diplomacy and building
interoperability as it cruises the Western Pacific(and Indian Ocean) to make port calls at several
SEA states (and Sri Lanka) in its 2019 iteration.24
SEA will remain central to both the economic
and security aspects of an IPs.

(6) Closer to home are the maritime andpeninsular states of SEA with which Australia
is a major trading par tner, as reflected by anumber of bilateral FTAs (Singapore, Thailand,
Malaysia) and progress toward an ASEANAustralia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement(AANZFTA), as well as participation in Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Moreover, SEA is crucial to Australian defence
strategy as the “Indo Pacific arc” that represents
the country’s northern approaches, and where
several SEA states are embroiled in the thorny
maritime territorial dispute with China in the
crucial water way of the South China Sea. As
the government identifies “Southeast Asia sits
at a nexus of strategic competition in the IndoPacific.”22 Space precludes a through discussionof the entire ASEAN region, but several
impor tant developments will be touched onhere.

(7) Finally, Canber ra has ramped-up its
policy-attention towards the Pacific Islands
Countries (PICS) - an area where challenges
to regional stability have multiplied. Within
the broader context of a FOIP-based regional
order, Canberra has become alert to inroads
made by the PRC through economic andinfrastructure development initiatives seeking
to acquire strategic purchase in Australia’s nearneighbourhood. Interestingly, former WhiteHouse strategist Steve Bannon credits Australia
as providing a “wake up call” for Chinese
infiltration into this region.25 This is alarming
to Canberra as any hostile presence in the vital“Melanesian arc” of national defence (such asa Chinese naval port access), would present a
serious threat to Australian interests.

Defence ties with Malaysia and Singapore
through the Five Power Defence Arrangement(FPDA) endure (and may be enhanced as the
UK seeks to play a stronger defence role in
the Indo Pacific). Additionally, Canberra hasjust announced a Strategic Par tnership with
Vietnam, and the Strategic Par tnership with
Singapore has been augmented in recent years,
alongside others. In this respect, Australia - as“southern anchor” of the US alliance system -But the objectives of the new “Pacific Step

21 Brewster, 21.
22 Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 43.
23 Leo Suryadinata, “Indonesia and Its Stance on the ‘Indo-Pacific’,” Perspective , Yusof Ishak Institute, no. 66 (2018):
1-7.
24 Australian Government Department of Defence, “Indo-Pacific Endeavour, 2019,” 3 May 2019,<https://sldinfo.com/2019/05/indo-pacific-endeavour-2019-2>.
25 Cameron Stewart, “Australia ‘alerted the US’ to China’s Pacific threat,” Weekend Australian , 1 June 2019, p. 9.

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Policy Briefup” policy toward this region are doublee d g e d . 26 O n t h e o n e h a n d , t h e y s e e k t oreasser t Australian influence in the South
Pacific as a counterpoint to China, alongside
FOIP partners such as the US, Japan and New
Zealand (which launched its own “Pacific Reset”
policy).27 This dovetails with the US intent of“revitalising its engagement with the Pacificislands to preserve a free and open Indo Pacificregion.”28 The supply of development aid andinfrastructure investment is designed to prevent
the PICS falling into dependence upon China(including “debt-trap diplomacy” style predatory
economics), whereas capacity-building such as
the provision of patrol boats and coast guard
training is aimed at protecting infringement totheir sovereign rights (such as illegal fishing/
resource extraction). The planned joint naval
facility with the US at Manus Island in Papua
New Guinea (PNG) is the sharpest evidence ofstrategic competition in this new arena.

one observes a clear nexus between economic
and security imperatives in the Australian local
strategy towards the South Pacific.
Conclusion/Assessment
Whether the IPs in anyway amounts to arepresentation of (or part of) a fully coherent
Australian “grand strategy” is debatable,
as often the boundaries between the use of
the concept are blurred, and frequently justsubstituted with various aspects of foreign andsecurity policy, more generally. And, as notedin the introduction, “Middle or smaller powers
are often implicitly or explicitly assumed to be
too constrained to pursue grand strategies.”30
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Canberra
is taking an active role in seeking to shape theIndo Pacific region (especially) in its national
strategic interests in an increasingly competitiveenvironment through the various inter-related
and interlocking initiatives documented above,and that it closely dovetails with the mainstays of
the US version enunciated in the IPSR. Indeed,
the US statement of intent will be likely wellreceived in Canberra, which has fretted over
the abandonment of the “pivot” and the lack ofstrategic direction in the region evident in thefirst two years of the Trump Administration. As
this Policy Brief has demonstrated, based upon
the enduring world view of Australia (RBO; USalliance; Asian engagement) the elements of amore directed IPs can be discerned throughout
the related policy initiatives and sub-regional
concentrations illustrated above. Australia
therefore clearly seeks to exert its own strategic
influence upon the IP region as far as its
resources will allow, augmenting them where

On the other hand, it is part of a long-standing
programme to improve their national resiliency
through Overseas Development Assistance(ODA) by addressing the development, security
and governance needs of these “fragile states”,
which could form a potential source of nontraditional security threats such as people
smuggling, dr ug traf ficking or ter rorism
injurious to Australian national security. Thishas compelled the government of Australia
to take the real concerns of the PICS about
the negative repercussions of climate change
and natural disasters into account, quite aside
from incipient internal or external politicalchallenges (as reflected in the Boe Declarationby the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)).29 Thus,

26 Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, “Stepping Up Australia’s Pacific Engagement,”<https://dfat.gov.au/geo/pacific/engagement> [Accessed 10 March 2019].
27 New Zealand Government Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Strategic Intentions (Wellington: Ministry ofForeign Affairs and Trade, 2018).
28 The United States Department of Defense, 40.
29 Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, “Boe Declaration on Regional Security,” <https://www.forumsec.org/boedeclaration-on-regional-security> [Accessed 15 July 2019].
30 Hooft.

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possible through cooperation with key allies andpartners such as the US, Japan, India and key
states in SEA and the South Pacific.

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