Pacific Power? Australia’s Strategy in the Pacific Islands

Any student of the Pacific Islands or of Australian foreign policy should welcome this new study. Joanne Wallis covers the key issues in Australian policy towards the Pacific comprehensively and meticulously. She examines, among other things, the Defence Cooperation Program, the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, disaster relief, policing assistance, cooperation in countering transnational crime, seasonal labour schemes, the aid program and the lesser known ‘interventions’ by Australia such as Pacific Regional Assistance to Nauru. She points to the changing geopolitical scene in the region, with China’s presence growing and that of the United States faltering under the Trump administration, and to a changing regional order which exhibits a new independence on the part of Pacific Island governments in regional affairs and international diplomacy. She concludes that Australia’s influence in the region is diminishing.