The “friends to all” approach taken by the Pacific’s small island states is no longer fit for purpose in a world that is less accommodating, and where the referees and rules are no longer benign.
Unlike larger states, who are able to navigate and rapidly adapt, Pacific Island countries have always been reliant on a multilateral system that gave them voice and an ability to exert influence. Their achievements were made possible through rules and regulations guaranteed by an architect who now seems to have turned assassin.
Like all states born in the past 80 years, the Pacific Islands benefited from a rules-based order underwritten by a benign United States. But that is no longer the case. Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan put it succinctly when he remarked on the predicament of his own island nation that it was undergoing “not a temporary change in diplomatic weather” but a “geostrategic climate change … characterised by profound unpredictability, instability and volatility”.
What this means in practical terms is that we are now in a geopolitical environment where no great power will willingly risk its domestic politics to foster global ambitions. The change is structural: America’s global withdrawal, and the rise of a fragmented, competitive order, is here to stay.
Australia has quickly learned this and is hedging its bets in the Pacific beyond being just a “donor partner” towards being a key member of the Pacific region, too. The hope is that the rest of the small islands will see the need to refocus on working together.
The challenge will be for the Pacific small island states to be pragmatic and adapt their traditional approach to diplomacy. Crucially, this will need to be done collectively – not individually. The Pacific Islands Forum has to be the vehicle for this, but its effectiveness relies on its ability to address issues of its own fragility.
Tensions between the Forum’s individual members and the organisation itself are well known. Tuvalu, Palau, and the Marshall Islands strongly considered boycotting the 54th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF54) in September this year in protest over Taiwan’s exclusion as a dialogue partner. These actions demonstrate both the limits of consensus diplomacy and the increasing ease with which bilateral interests can override regional concerns – a point made by Forum Secretary-General Baron Waqa at the time.
But this may be changing as the Forum looks to recalibrate to appeal to its members. Australia’s role as a willing architect to underwrite regional stability may be a driver in this. Irrespective, it is an important direction for the region in adapting to the current global political climate.
The PIF is a consensus-driven body that must continually justify its relevance to members who often see more advantage in bilateral deals than in regional commitments.
In what may yet be regarded as a landmark Integration Summit, the PIF54 theme – Iumi (Yumi) Tugeda (you and me together) – sought to operationalise deeper engagement and alignment. Members do not need perfect unity, but “going rogue” would be a clear sign of the Forum's failure. Incentivising membership, strengthening cohesion, and re-establishing the Forum as the central node of the Pacific voice, therefore, become strategic necessities, not just abstract ambitions.
What emerged from the Forum meeting was a three-pronged approach to doing just that.
First, the Pacific Resilience Facility (PRF) offers Forum members a practical mechanism to incentivise collective action and a concrete benefit to remaining in the tent.
Second, the Review of the Regional Architecture (RRA) established a process to rationalise and deepen engagement within and between the Forum, its agencies, and its member states. Crucially, this included the Partnership Mechanism, which determines how external actors can engage with the PIF. In a world of geopolitical flux, controlling how partners enter Pacific spaces is becoming as important as the partners themselves.
Third, the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Standards Committee (PISC) provided the beginnings of a regulatory backbone if not a method for instituting regional priorities across the member states. Regional standards – starting with construction and building codes – offer a shared baseline that could eventually shape how infrastructure and development projects are designed and delivered by external partners. This is, in essence, a quiet assertion of agency: setting the standards to which outsiders must adapt.
If regional integration is the Pacific’s response to geostrategic climate change, then these mechanisms are early but essential tools. Yet a fundamental challenge persists. Integration sits uneasily alongside each state’s desire for sovereignty and freedom to manoeuvre. The PIF is a consensus-driven body that must continually justify its relevance to members who often see more advantage in bilateral deals than in regional commitments.
This tension will not disappear soon. The Forum remains more a diplomatic coalition than an economic bloc. Until the Pacific can move beyond declarations and coordination into genuine market shaping, investment pooling, and regulatory harmonisation, it will struggle to wield collective power. But the seeds of this transition may be germinating – intentionally or not.
The proposition here is quite simple, if provocative. Being “friends to all” is out of step with the current climate. Surviving and thriving in the region now depends on a willingness to work together in spite of outside influences.
