The US-Australia Alliance and Deterrence in the Pacific Islands Region

The Pacific Islands region has traditionally been peripheral to alliance deterrence discussions. That’s beginning to change.

Since 2018, representatives from Australia and the United States have engaged in an annual dialogue to refresh the alliance’s thinking about deterrence in an era of strategic competition with China. These discussions have underscored several assumptions and expectations in need of revisiting, including as to where the allies should expect to better defend, deter and, if necessary, fight together in the Indo-Pacific.
However, the Pacific Islands region remains somewhat peripheral to these discussions. Among other initiatives, the annual Indo-Pacific Endeavor naval exercise was conducted through the Pacific in 2018, while Australia is sponsoring programs to improve states’ maritime domain awareness and surveillance capabilities, and standing up a Pacific Support Force to lead regional military training.
There is evidently some distance between current Australian and American perceptions of the PIR’s strategic importance, and it could not come at a more significant time. Though Davidson claimed that American and Australian Indo-Pacific strategies both clearly sought to prevent the establishment of Chinese bases in the Pacific, is it unclear whether their respective approaches are sufficiently aligned for the purposes of collective deterrence. The alliance urgently needs to consider whether China’s alleged designs can be deterred or, if not, forge a consensus on how best to mitigate the strategic challenges that could result.

This article was written by Tom Corben

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