The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has released a new report ‘Sliding-door moments: ANZUS and the Blue Pacific’ by Dr Richard Herr OAM, Dr Anthony Bergin and Nikolaos Skondrianos. The report addresses the important lessons to be learned from the 70-year history of ANZUS in the region and how these lessons bear on the Step-Up, Reset and Pacific Pledge commitments of today.
The report examines some key ‘sliding-door’ moments that have shaped the trajectory of ANZUS in the Pacific Island region over seven decades, to reach the current confused state within the alliance regarding its aims in the Pacific Islands.
Our Pacific neighbours recognise that their security is tied up with the region’s new and complex geopolitical environment and they have made it clear that they have no wish to be a catspaw in any strategic rivalries.
Our neighbours fear the loss of agency as the Free and Open Indo-Pacific project, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS are coming to dominate a much broader security agenda.
The ANZUS members have an opening in the current sliding-door moment to build on historically close ties with the region by championing Pacific Island security interests in the Indo-Pacific arena.
As lead author Dr Richard Herr notes, this poses a key test for ANZUS as an alliance and for its three members. Herr asks “Does ANZUS have the resolve to develop a coherent position on its own security role in the region?”
The report argues that ANZUS has not been fully functional as an alliance for several decades. If its three members are not unified on Pacific Island regional security, the alliance can scarcely advance the Islands concerns more widely.
For these reasons, the report recommends that ANZUS strengthen its internal machinery by finding the accommodation needed to resume ANZUS Council Meetings.
It also recommends using the Treaty’s Article VIII provisions to incorporate supportive extra-regional powers into an ‘ANZUS Plus’.
While recognising that ANZUS isn’t a humanitarian aid agency, as co-author Dr Anthony Bergin notes, “we can’t ignore the security importance of regional infrastructure.”
The report also recommends that the ANZUS allies act proactively through national aid programmes to identify and protect these interests in partnership with the Island states’ public and private sectors to prevent key assets becoming strategic bones of contention.
