How the Pacific Islands Forum Fell Apart

In February, five countries pulled out of the Pacific Islands Forum. This is geopolitically more important than it might seem. It is a very serious strategic problem which raises questions that get to the heart of some of the West’s most sensitive alliances. Did Australia, New Zealand, and France  deliberately coordinate to sideline the United States in an area where China is highly active? And is the Five Eyes still fit for purpose?

Breaking down what happened – and the possible implications – highlights issues that, if not resolved, could lead to aircraft carrier-sized cracks the West’s Indo-Pacific defenses, including along the strategically crucial first and second island chains.

The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF)

The PIF is a regional political grouping that, until last month, consisted of 18 members and covered a vast, resource rich, highly strategic zone on the front line between Asia and the Americas.

For millennia the people of the region traveled widely between islands. In the 1830s, French naval officer Jules Dumont d’Urville divided the islands and peoples of Oceania into three groups, based partially on geography and partially on his dubious interpretation of ethnicities. That’s how we ended up with the concepts of Melanesia (“islands of Black people”), Micronesia (“small islands”), and Polynesia (“many islands”). The terms are problematic among the people of the region, but have become embedded in bureaucratic structures and today each country in the region identifies politically with one of the three groups.

Some countries in the region are fully independent, others are in what’s known as Free Association with a larger country, and some are constituent parts of larger countries. In that context, the 18 PIF members, sorted by the groups above, are:

Micronesia: Kiribati, the Marshall Islands (Compact of Free Association or COFA with the United States), the Federated States of Micronesia (COFA with the U.S.), Nauru, and Palau (COFA with the U.S.). Some of these islands are part of what strategists call the “second island chain.”

Melanesia: Fiji, New Caledonia (a collectivity of France), Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu.

Polynesia: Cook Islands (Free Association with New Zealand), French Polynesia (a collectivity of France), Niue (Free Association with New Zealans), Samoa, Tonga, and Tuvalu.

The two French polities – New Caledonia (Melanesia) and French Polynesia (Polynesia) – joined the PIF in 2016, with support from Australia and New Zealand.

Australia and New Zealand are also members of the PIF. For historic and economic reasons, Australia often associates with Melanesia and New Zealand with Polynesia. So, in a very, very broad way, from a “great powers” and Five Eyes perspective, the United States (and to a degree Japan) focuses on Micronesia, Australia on Melanesia, and New Zealand on Polynesia.

This dynamic, largely pushed by Canberra and Wellington, has been a persistent irritant. For example, the Micronesian states wondered why, if the French polities could join the PIF, U.S. ones such as Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas couldn’t do the same. The assumption was Australia and New Zealand didn’t want them in the PIF as it would dilute the votes of their “zones of influence.”