Solomon Islands is again considering the need to establish a national military force. Yet while this is a sovereign decision, there should be better ways to meet the country’s security needs. Regional solutions, such as the Pacific Policing Initiative, need to be championed, and non-military countries such as Solomon Islands need more opportunities to coordinate and engage with Pacific military mechanisms in order to build regional resilience.
A decision on establishing a military is unlikely to happen soon, with policies and concept papers yet to be written. Some parties are understandably alarmed by the idea of a military, especially given the country’s history of armed violence during the period of unrest known as “the tensions” culminating in the early 2000s. But Solomon Islands Minister of Police, National Security and Correctional Services, Jimson Tanangada, has stated that “while there is no fixed timeframe, the matter is considered urgent given the security challenges the country is facing”.
According to Tanangada, these challenges comprise a broad range of non-conventional threats, including climate change, pandemics, and grey zone activities such as cyberattacks, where actors aim to disrupt and undermine governments beneath the threshold of armed conflict.
Some of these threats could be addressed with a military, but many require stronger integration into the region’s existing and developing security architecture.
The Pacific Fusion Centre and the Pacific Policing Initiative are two such examples of regional institutions and mechanisms designed to support Pacific Island countries facing these challenges. The Pacific Fusion Centre, which has been operating in Vanuatu since 2021, is designed to build capacity and resilience across the region against many of these non-conventional threats through analyst development and tailored regional assessments. Greater support, engagement and investment in the Centre from across the region would help to address many of the issues flagged by Tanangada as urgent security challenges.
Not every country in the region has the same opportunity as Solomon Islands to establish a military if they so desire. Some simply lack the population or economic size.
The only major grouping in the region that currently excludes countries without military forces is the Pacific Response Group (PRG). Established through the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting (SPDMM) in October last year, the PRG is designed to deliver effective and coordinated regional military support to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Just last week, SPDMM also indicated that the PRG could expand to incorporate joint military stability operations within the Pacific region in the near future, including in support to Pacific countries without their own. These decisions are in line with statements from Pacific leaders that call for greater regional responses to security threats.
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele said that if his country had a military, they could assist in sub-regional crises. This would most likely occur through those PRG mechanisms. But a military isn’t the only way to provide support.
Last year, for example, the Pacific Policing Initiative established a Pacific Police Support Group (PPSG), which can deploy to assist the region for a variety of reasons ranging from responding to natural disasters to hosting Pacific games. In many cases, the PPSG and the PRG could be expected to respond to similar crises, meaning that a military isn’t a requirement for any country looking to support and benefit from regional security. However, both of these initiatives are still in their infancy and there is a lot of work yet to be done to determine how they will coordinate and contribute support to crises when they arise. The South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting could also still consider the inclusion of other countries into the PRG, including Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, without needing fully established militaries in those countries.
Regardless of these initiatives, Australia will respect Solomon Islands’ sovereign decision-making process and has made it clear it wants to remain the “security partner of choice”. This would extend to the establishment of any military, likely at a significant but ultimately justifiable cost to the Australian taxpayer in the name of strategic competition. But these other developing regional mechanisms would deliver similar, if not better, outcomes for Solomon Islands and many other Pacific Island countries.
Not every country in the region has the same opportunity as Solomon Islands to establish a military if they so desire. Some simply lack the population or economic size. But all should be given the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from regional security cooperation. That is why more investment and attention is needed in championing initiatives such as the PPSG and PRG and ensuring they grow to meet the needs of the region. These initiatives, if done right, could fulfil many of the needs for countries like Solomon Islands considering a change to their own security architecture.
