Pacific nations look set to expand the remit of a new military response group so it can tackle major unrest in the region, while moving to kickstart negotiations on a treaty that would allow it to respond more quickly to natural disasters and other crises.
The Pacific Response Group (PRG) was formed in 2024 as part of a push from Australia and several other governments in the region to develop a more coordinated response to natural disasters.
It was first deployed in December 2024 when Vanuatu was hit with a devastating earthquake, with a small PRG planning team arriving to offer advice and support.
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Last year, the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting endorsed a move to “broaden the mandate” of the group beyond disaster response to include “stabilisation operations”, asking defence chiefs to lay out a framework for regional deployments.
And in a major move, defence officials from across the region, who have been attending a major gathering of Pacific defence, military, immigration and customs personnel in Brisbane this week, are now pushing for a new treaty to develop a framework that would help govern regional deployments, including by the PRG.
Samoa Police Detective Superintendent Lefaoali’i Aldora Mamaia with Vanuatu’s Pacific Fusion Centre Assistant Director Monalisa Tiai-Keti at the meeting. (Supplied: Department of Defence)
The Joint Heads of Pacific Security (JHOPS) released a communique which recommended Pacific leaders “agree to commence negotiations on a Regional Operations Deployment Framework Treaty”, saying it would provide a “flexible and responsive mechanism” so Pacific nations can offer assistance more quickly.
The Chief of the Australian Defence Force Admiral David Johnston said the PRG would form a “hub” for crisis response that “each nation is able to build on”.
“We’re really building it out so we have all of those options available for our leaders and for any Pacific country to call for that support,” he said.
“That’s what we’re continuing to see emerge, the work we’re doing in the JHOPS meeting here, the Pacific Response Group and the policing initiatives — all of those are very much focused on the region taking the lead on the problems or security issues that emerge … and bringing the best of our capabilities together.”
His Tongan counterpart, the Chief of Staff of His Majesty’s Armed Forces, Brigadier Lord Fielakepa, said he wanted to see a “region first” approach to crises.
“This is our home. We have to get together and work together and help each other first,” he said.
Mike Hughes from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute said it would be “another plank in the broader Pacific integration agenda that this government has championed”.
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“It’d be a good development all-round, ensuring that the real regional challenges we all face are dealt with together in a cooperative, shared manner underpinned in this case by a treaty, which speaks to the importance to all of rules and governance amidst a deteriorating global order,” he said.
The announcement comes against the backdrop of relentless strategic competition in the region, with Australia and other partners intensifying efforts to stop China from gaining a security foothold in the Pacific.
Admiral Johnston said while “strategic competition” was a “feature of the environment in which we’re all working”, it was not the main driver of the PRG.
“All our focus that we’ve had is on our Pacific nations working together,” he said.
“There’s no focus on any particular country beyond that,” he said.
But Australian officials have previously said in private that initiatives like the PRG will also make it harder for Beijing to deploy police or troops to the region in the event of a crisis by embedding a “Pacific first” approach.
Mike Hughes also said there was a clear strategic rationale for the new treaty, saying the “additional benefit” was that it would “ensure that external actors’ malign influence in the region is limited”.
The expansion of the PRG and the new treaty framework also risks stoking controversy among Pacific nations, some of whom remain deeply suspicious of Australia’s efforts to curb their ties with China and wary of any interference in their own politics.
The communique stresses that Pacific sovereignty would “be safeguarded by the key principle that deployments would only be triggered by a formal request for assistance by a member”.
Brigadier Lord Fielakepa stressed that “all the Pacific nations have to agree on this [the new framework] before it’s really formalised”.
“It’s by invitation — that’s a sovereignty issue — and there are other requirements on the troop contributing nations,” he said.
Pacific security expert Anna Powles from Massey University said the proposed shift was “highly significant” as it “creates a legally binding framework to enable regional deployments”.
“In this respect, it differs from interventions of the past such as RAMSI [the Australian-led regional deployment that restored order in the Solomon Islands], which was mandated under the Biketawa Declaration,” Dr Powles said.
She said it was clear Australia was driving the treaty as it was engaged in a policy of “strategic denial”.
“The key questions are why does the region need a treaty-level regional deployment framework and why now?” she said.
“In the past three years, there has been a proliferation of bilateral security agreements and this proposed treaty reflects some of the same drivers — strategic denial through a strengthened regional security architecture.”
Still, some Pacific defence officials say they can see benefits to a new framework, particularly as a growing number of countries take a strategic interest in the region.
When Tonga was struck by the massive Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai eruption and tsunami in 2022, it struggled to coordinate offers from outside nations that were jostling to provide help, particularly because communications were so badly hit.
Brigadier Lord Fielakepa told the ABC a new deployment framework would also make it easier for Pacific nations to manage the influx of donors from within — and outside — the Pacific.
“All the others — the United Kingdom, the US, China, Japan, like it happened with the tsunami — they have a right to offer their assistance and support, and every Pacific island has a right to accept what assistance or support is offered,” he said.
“The challenge for us is coordinating all the goodwill coming across.”