We’re staring down a ‘polycrisis’ of drugs, cybercrime and climate change

The Pacific Policing Initiative announced at last week’s Pacific Islands Forum will resurrect the strong Pacific policing cooperation that marked 2003 to 2017, and fix one of the own goals of Australia’s Pacific effort in the last decade.

For 14 years, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI) brought together police from every Pacific Islands Forum member, in one of the best examples of regional policing cooperation in the world. 

Pacific police officers came together in Solomon Islands to help a friend: to walk with the Solomon Islands police force on their journey back to being a respected, highly capable force. 

These Pacific police also reassured communities in Solomon Islands they were not alone – but part of a Pacific community with a shared commitment to their security.

If RAMSI’s first job was to serve the government and people of Solomon Islands, there were many other benefits. RAMSI forged links across the Pacific, creating a cadre of officers with common operational experience. They learned together, made friends, even married fellow officers. 

The RAMSI cadre represents a major asset for supporting Pacific security in the difficult decades ahead. Many who served with RAMSI describe it as the professional and personal highlight of their lives. 

When RAMSI concluded in 2017, the job in Solomon Islands done, ideally Australia would have continued to fund shared regional training and shared police deployments. This would have made the most of the RAMSI cadre and maintained the momentum with the next generation of police officers. It was not to be.

But it’s hard to keep a good idea down and, seven years later, we return to the Pacific Policing Initiative. 

“A shared regional approach will help to disrupt and neutralise increasingly sophisticated actors.”  

The initiative has two main elements: the creation of a multinational Pacific force that can be deployed to other Pacific countries in time of crisis or to support major events; and centres for excellence in four Pacific countries offering specialist skills, complemented by a hub in Australia to support deployments.

Much of the commentary has focused on the China angle as a motivation for the initiative. Geostrategic competition will doubtless be a feature of the Pacific landscape in coming decades. But looking at everything through the sexy geostrategic lens can be at the expense of focusing on the real security and policing needs in the Pacific.

Firstly, the volume of the illegal drug trade, with the Pacific often used as a transit point to larger markets. That’s challenging national police, given the vast ocean areas that need monitoring. Recent multi-billion dollar busts show regional cooperation is working. But the drugs that are getting through are increasing other crime types – assaults, robberies – and eroding community health.   

Secondly, the impact of cyber criminals and state-sponsored cyber actors is increasing, with Pacific individuals, businesses and governments all being regularly targeted. Misinformation and disinformation are growing. A shared regional approach will help to disrupt and neutralise increasingly sophisticated actors.  

Thirdly, climate change will also change the nature of Pacific policing. Most obviously responding to natural disasters and their aftermath, but also through increasing pressure on scarce resources and managing sensitive population movements within and between countries as different communities integrate.

The Pacific has much to show the rest of the world with its holistic approach to security, and police cooperation to back it up. Shared police deployments for the region’s own Forum meetings, but also major international meetings in the Pacific like the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and (hopefully) the UN Climate Change Conference would show the Pacific at its best.

RAMSI demonstrated the need for, and benefits of, a shared approach to Pacific police training and deployments well before the strategic competition era. 

Fiji’s Prime Minister Rabuka has said the Pacific is confronting a “polycrisis” – from transnational crime to climate change. Navigating the polycrisis will require a united region, building on past successes.

The Pacific Policing Initiative is an important step forward.

This article was first published on The Canberra Times.