2025/01/01 by Fry, Greg
Social Sciences · #Island Studies and Pacific Affairs #Maritime Security and History #Nuclear Issues and Defense #Ocean of Peace #arms control #geopolitics #nuclear ship visits #nuclear-free Pacific #nuclearisation #strategic escalation
paper · doi:10.26021/16139
openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/11/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/01
The 1986 Treaty of Rarotonga, which prohibits the acquisition, testing, and stationing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific nuclear free zone, has a vital role to play in the “Ocean of Peace” concept currently under development by Pacific Islands Forum leaders. This may not be immediately obvious as none of these activities is currently taking place in the zone. However, the treaty is important in ensuring that this prohibition is not breached in a future context of escalating strategic competition between the nuclear powers. The main danger lies in the possible deployment of nuclear weapons on nuclear-capable ships and planes that rotate through Pacific ports and airfields ostensibly as extended “visits.” Such a possibility is already associated with US basing developments in northern Australia and Micronesia driven by a new US strategy of dispersion and flexibility. While described as rotational visits, they are, in effect, introducing the possibility of permanent deployment of nuclear weapons into the nuclear free zone in the case of Australia (which is a party to the Rarotonga treaty). This suggests the need to put guardrails on military visiting access agreements such as those between the US and Fiji and Papua New Guinea, and between China and Solomon Islands. This will in turn require a collective effort to revitalise the use of the prohibition of the stationing commitment (article 5) of the treaty, to clarify the crucial caveat clause allowing “visits,” and a commitment to use the accountability mechanisms provided in articles 8–10 to ensure compliance.