The Southern Seas: A Sphere of Responsibility, Not Influence
By CMDR Paul Pelczar, OAM RAN*
I recall reading Kon-Tiki in my childhood as a great adventure story, oblivious to its now-defunct theories, but captivated by its portrayal of the South Pacific as a place where the sea carries people and ideas across vast distances.
Six men sailed a traditional balsa-wood raft across the ocean, driven by prevailing currents and trade winds, to test whether the South Pacific connected people rather than divided them through a historical replication. They eventually sailed more than 4,300 nautical miles across open ocean. It was not a story about conquest or ownership, but about understanding the sea on its own terms.
I am reminded of that great sea voyage as recent international commentary has again turned to the language of ‘spheres of influence’, including renewed references to the Monroe Doctrine. While topical in current media feeds, it reflects a long-standing tendency for states to frame security through geography, proximity, and perceived entitlement. The renewed visibility of this language is nevertheless a reminder that location and distance still shape strategic thinking and is increasingly applying Machiavellian pressure to the post–Second World War institutional order that has underpinned the global maritime commons as a shared benefit.
For Australia, questions are currently being raised about how we are regarded externally: whether we are to be overlooked by our closest traditional allies, or forcibly drawn into the strategic designs of others. Australia’s immediate strategic environment includes the South Pacific and the Southern Ocean. This is where our interests, obligations, and consequences intersect most directly. Maritime security, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, environmental stewardship, and protection of critical infrastructure, including submarine cables, which have always been vital even if they are now more openly discussed; and regional stability all converge to influence economic prosperity. Concurrently, and increasingly, adverse pressures associated with strategic competition are bearing down from the north. The cumulative effect is becoming more acute.
Necesito del mar porque me enseña. (I need the sea because it teaches me.) — Pablo Neruda
As the Kon-Tiki voyage demonstrated, the South Pacific has never been empty space. It is a lived maritime system shaped by currents, weather, distance, and long-standing patterns of connection. For many Pacific nations, security is experienced first through the sea: through fisheries, trade routes, communications cables, disaster response, and mobility.
This places a premium on comprehension rather than assertion. Paternalistic or culturally insensitive security activity that is dismissive of local context or misaligned with regional priorities is quickly apparent. Activity that reinforces inclusion, consultation, predictability, and resilience tends to build trust over time.
La mer est tout. (The sea is everything.) — Jules Verne
What has changed since the Kon-Tiki sailed is not the nature of the ocean, but the density of activity on, above and below it — and across the digital, space and cognitive realms that now influence the regional security environment.
Maritime and air operational challenges now sit alongside cyber vulnerabilities affecting ports, logistics networks, and emergency coordination. Space-based systems underpin navigation, communications, and maritime domain awareness across vast distances. The information environment shapes perceptions of legitimacy, intent, and trust, often faster than physical presence can reassure or correct adversarial narratives.
These domains are inseparable in practice. Disruption in one can have cascading effects in others. Such effects rarely present as discrete crises; they accumulate, often below traditional thresholds, and are felt first by smaller states with limited capacity to absorb disruption. This makes coordination, transparency, and predictability more important than scale alone.
Those Best Placed to Share the Maritime Load
Across the southern maritime arc, four nations share deep, practical affinities that have demonstrated maritime capabilities to respond on behalf of those who live upon the Southern Seas: Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and France (through its Pacific territories). These commonalities are not abstract; they reflect lived operational reality.
In the much-discussed prospect of future crisis and conflict, reliance on north–south sea lines of communication cannot be assumed. Disruption along those axes would have disproportionate effects. In such circumstances, lateral east–west routes across the Pacific and Southern Ocean may prove essential to sustaining access, mobility, and resilience.
The Southern Ocean reminds us that human effort is always secondary to the power of the sea
— reflecting Douglas Mawson
Australia’s southern approaches reinforce a long-standing maritime truth: the environment sets the terms. The Southern Ocean, like the South Pacific, rewards preparation, cooperation, and respect for limits. Attempts to impose control without comprehension tend to be perilous as the early Antarctic explorers and intrepid lone yachtsmen would attest.
This perspective is framed in the South Pacific, where the language of spheres of influence sits uneasily with regional norms. Pacific Island countries have consistently emphasised sovereignty, agency, and partnership. Security arrangements perceived as hierarchical or exclusionary struggle to gain legitimacy, regardless of capability.
A more accurate framing is that of shared responsibility: contributing to maritime safety and governance; responding predictably to natural disasters; protecting digital and space-enabled infrastructure that underpins daily life; and acting prudently in the information environment.
Ko au te moana, ko te moana ko au. (I am the sea, and the sea is me.)
This Maori proverb captures a relationship rather than a claim. It reflects an understanding of the sea as something to which people belong, rather than something to be owned. That perspective aligns closely with Pacific thinking and with the practical requirements of regional security.
A Shared Maritime Understanding
No single middle power can meet these responsibilities alone. Scale matters, but alignment matters more. Across the southern arc of the Pacific and Southern Ocean, these four capable maritime nations share enduring interests and practical experience operating across domains. Individually, their capabilities are finite. Collectively, they offer persistence, balance, and credibility.
This does not require new doctrines or rigid structures. It relies on routine coordination, predictable behaviour, and support for existing regional institutions. Navies and other government maritime organisations, by virtue of their planning discipline and ability to operate at tempo, are well placed to contribute within agreed norms and with the consent of Pacific nations.
There is a line in ‘The Hunt for Red October’ that notes that the sea will grant each man new hope. The point is not sentiment. It is insight. The sea rewards those who understand it, and it exposes those who attempt to impose themselves upon it.
The South Pacific does not need new strategic slogans or rebranded doctrines; it relies upon enduring presence, reliable partnerships, and coherent cooperation. In a region defined by the sea, security is not asserted. It is sustained as a sphere of shared responsibility rather than one of hegemonic influence.
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*CMDR Pelczar is a long-serving naval officer who enlisted in 1986 and has operational experience across the region including Southwest Pacific deployments and a professional focus during the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). A graduate of the Royal Thai Navy and the Japan Self-Defense Force staff colleges, he currently contributes to developing capability in the information environment.
