Pacific Islands, explained.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, seated, third from right, meets with the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders in September 2025 (Evan Schneider/UN Photo)
The UN gave small Pacific states a formal voice. The erosion of multilateralism may cost them far more than a philosophical loss.
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If middle powers are rising, where does that leave the Pacific?If middle powers are rising, where does that leave the Pacific?
Speaking at the Lowy Institute last week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said: “when the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options.” Carney then reiterated the message of his landmark speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, calling for middle-power countries to form coalitions based on shared interests, in the hopes of securing a seat – and a voice – at the table that shapes the new world order.
Inherent in Carney’s argument is an assessment that the current world order – a rules-based system with the United Nations at its centre – is eroding. Carney is blunt. A “rupture” is occurring. While he caveats that middle-power coalitions are not intended to replace the UN, it is evident that the system built on nations respecting internationally agreed rules is weakening. Without meaningful enforcement, breaking those rules carries diminishing consequences.
As Carney himself corrected at the Lowy Institute, having misspoken in Davos: middle powers should not mourn the loss of the old order for too long. The philosophy founded in post-Second World War optimism is slipping away – enter minilateralism.
Australia has already secured a number of minilateral-style partnerships, as a member of the Quad alongside the United States, Japan and India, and as a partner in AUKUS with the United States and United Kingdom. Most recently, standing alongside Carney in Canberra, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed Australia into the G7 critical minerals alliance. A nation rich in critical minerals, agricultural exports, energy resources, and with advanced defence capability, Australia is well positioned to be a central player in middle-power coalitions and to secure its voice in whatever world order emerges.
But what of Australia’s region?
Being spoken for is not the same as having a voice.
Australia says, often and loudly, that it is a member of the Pacific family. It could, in principle, commit to representing regional perspectives on the world stage – a voice for the Pacific at tables the Pacific cannot yet reach. It has endeavoured to play this role before.
But proxy representation is no longer considered adequate by Pacific Island nations. The call for agency over advocacy has been clear from the Pacific for some time. Australia has undeniably been the Pacific’s most meaningful development partner. But on the world stage, being spoken for is not the same as having a voice.
For all its dysfunction and ineffectiveness, the United Nations was an institution where Pacific voices were structurally protected. In the chambers of the UN General Assembly, the vote of Tuvalu carries the same formal weight as that of China. On several occasions – most consequentially in the push to enshrine the 1.5°C warming target in the Paris Agreement – unified Pacific voices punched well above their weight, precisely because the multilateral forum (in this case the UNFCCC) gave them a platform no minilateral one ever would.
Pacific Island nations will find it difficult to crack into middle-power coalitions. Membership in such groupings is determined by military capacity, economic scale, control over critical resources, and technological capability. These are not areas where the Pacific holds leverage.
The stakes of exclusion from these coalitions are not abstract. Outside of Papua New Guinea, no Pacific Island nation holds proven fossil fuel reserves, leaving the region critically dependent on imported oil (accounting for 80% of energy supply). Recent disruptions to global oil markets have already exposed just how thin that margin is, and how quickly Pacific nations must turn to partners like Australia when supply chains falter. In a world where middle-power coalitions shape the terms of resource security, a lack of agency has material consequences.
Australia must consider its Pacific familyas it forges ahead securing its place in the new world order. For Pacific nations – and for the many countries around the world that are neither middle-power nor hegemon – the erosion of the rules-based order and the UN system is not a philosophical loss. It is a practical one.
About the author
Connor Graham
Connor Graham is a Research Fellow in the Pacific Islands Program at the Lowy Institute.
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