Pacific Maritime Security Coordination: Partnerships, Priorities, and Possibilities
New partners such as India, Japan, and South Korea are seeking to provide maritime security assistance in the Pacific Islands region alongside established partners Australia, New Zealand, the US, and France.
Royal Australian Navy, Maritime Security Advisor, Lieutenant Commander Mhanda van Engelen discusses the day’s activities with Inspector Donald Alick of the Police Maritime Wing of the Vanuatu Police Force in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Source: Defence Images
But what happens when those partners and their Pacific counterparts have different understandings of:
- the priorities of Pacific countries;
- what assistance is required and where it should be targeted;
- what key concepts mean; and
- existing maritime security mechanisms and assistance?
There is the risk that partners and their Pacific counterparts will ‘talk past’ each other, assuming shared understandings that may not exist. There is also the risk that new players do not have expertise or developed relationships both in the region and/or with other partners. These factors may, in turn, lead to poorly coordinated, duplicative assistance that overwhelms the absorptive capacity of Pacific countries and regional institutions. Pacific leaders have repeatedly identified poor partner coordination as undermining maritime security.
By bringing together researchers and officials from across the Pacific and partners this project will answer the following questions:
- How can Pacific countries and their partners best target and coordinate maritime security assistance?
- How can expertise, relationships, and issue-based partnerships develop?
- What are the consequences for Defence’s partnerships and policymaking?
This project commenced in July 2024. Please revisit this website for updates and our first project outputs over the coming months.
Pacific maritime security cooperation: Views from the Pacific and its partners
Our first project output is a set of 13 papers that examines what maritime security means in the Pacific Islands region and what maritime security mechanisms exist and what forms of assistance partners are providing in the region.
The papers provide primers on key issues relating to the maritime domain:
- Understanding key concepts - Joanne Wallis
- Cooperation to manage Pacific fisheries - Transform Aqorau, Quentin Hanich, Kamal Azmi, and Genevieve Quirk
- The legal and regulatory environment for maritime security cooperation - Margret Joyce Kensen and Genevieve Quirk
- Security cooperation to respond to maritime-based transnational crime - Henrietta McNeill and Genevieve Quirk
- Managing geopolitical tensions to advance maritime security cooperation - Maima Koro and Genevieve Quirk
- Security cooperation to deliver maritime-based humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and resilience and search and rescue - Miranda Booth and Genevieve Quirk
- The involvement of non-sovereign territories in maritime security cooperation - Kenneth G. Kuper and Genevieve Quirk
They also provide background on the maritime security activities of established and new partners in and with the Pacific Islands: - Australia - Joanne Wallis and Genevieve Quirk
- New Zealand - Henrietta McNeill and Genevieve Quirk
- United States - April Herlevi and Genevieve Quirk
- France - Céline Pajon and Genevieve Quirk
- India - Premesha Saha and Genevieve Quirk
- South Korea and Japan - Jiye Kim and Genevieve Quirk
- China - Joanne Wallis and Genevieve Quirk
The project team
Professor Joanne Wallis – University of Adelaide
Maima Koro – University of Adelaide
Transform Aqorau – Solomon Islands National University
Quentin Hanich – University of Wollongong
Ken Kuper – University of Guam
April Herlevi – Center for Naval Analyses
Margret Kensen – University of the South Pacific
Premesha Saha – Observer Research Foundation
Céline Pajon – French Institute of International Relations
Jiye Kim – University of Waikato
Henrietta McNeill – Australian National University
Miranda Booth – Charles Darwin University
Kamal Azmi - University of Wollongong
Genevieve Quirk – University of Adelaide