A new era for Pacific policing has launched. Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police (PICP) last week announced PACPOL, unifying the PICP with the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) under one umbrella.
PACPOL will seek to improve how Australia and its Pacific neighbours organise regional security by strengthening leadership, coordination and capability across the region. Success will be determined by how well these new regional arrangements can deliver against the many facets and requirements of policing. They should not be defined by a narrow lens focused on geopolitics or even just the ability to detect and disrupt crime.
When the Pacific Policing Initiative was announced two years ago at the 2024 PIF leaders meeting, geopolitics dominated the media reaction. At first glance, some may look to PACPOL as another successful effort to counter China’s growing influence in Pacific security – a geopolitical win for Australia and like-minded partners. But effective regional partnerships inherently mean a reduced dependence on other foreign supports for support. Geostrategic benefits can sometimes be a by-product of delivering workable regional solutions. Reducing policing partnerships in the Pacific to strategic competition obscures their long history and the multiple purposes they serve.
The Development Intelligence Lab’s recently published brief “Six faces of Australia’s Police Cooperation in the Pacific” identifies six interrelated “faces” of Australia’s police cooperation in the Pacific, each reflecting a distinct purpose.
Alongside the geopolitical face, there are five others: diplomacy, security, stability, development and governance. Together, these faces provide a more nuanced framework for understanding investment in, and the evolution of, Pacific policing.
Governance is where PACPOL could make the most immediate contribution. The Pacific already has the PICP meeting, a transnational crime network, and arrangements for training and deployments through PPI and other mechanisms. The challenge is to make those arrangements work together to their fullest potential. PACPOL could provide clearer responsibility for implementing collective decisions and coordinating assistance across participating police services.
by The Interpreter – Governance, not geopolitics, will make or break PACPOL
