When Tonga opened diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union in 1976, the West reacted strongly. It reacted as if Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev himself had planted the hammer and sickle flag on Tonga’s shores. The establishment of relations between a Pacific island nation and the West’s strategic competitor sent shockwaves rippling across the vast Pacific Ocean. Australian officials quickly reassessed their regional priorities. New Zealand rushed to expand its aid programs. American diplomats suddenly “discovered” Pacific nations they had long ignored.
The 2019 diplomatic shift by the Solomon Islands and Kiribati toward recognizing the People’s Republic of China in place of Taiwan’s Republic of China also sent geopolitical tremors across the Pacific region. New Zealand and Australia strategically increased their foreign aid packages; the United States expanded engagement beyond its traditional Micronesian focus; and Australia established security agreements with Tuvalu and Nauru.
However, if today’s geopolitical rivalry mirrors the Cold War, that period also offers lessons. Those lessons highlight how cooperation and coordination can enhance a renewed approach to strategic denial.
Although government officials, academics, and others in the U.S. often understand strategic denial as the narrow right to block military access to the Freely Associated States’ land and territorial waters, during the Cold War the concept of strategic denial was a broad guiding principle for regional cooperation and coordination. Western powers recognized that Soviet influence could progress from economic or political engagement to military partnerships, necessitating a comprehensive approach to prevent all forms of adversarial presence before they could take root.
Following decolonization, this strategy could not be achieved by diktat alone. Instead, the Western powers had to rely on eliminating the conditions conducive for the establishment of a Soviet economic or political presence. Australia demonstrated this understanding by quadrupling its regional aid after the 1976 Russian diplomatic initiatives. This proactive approach addressed a fundamental challenge: Pacific Island countries, having suffered through World War II, resisted demands to choose sides in great power competitions while simultaneously leveraging rivalries to maximize aid benefits.
During the Cold War, Washington learned the hard way that strategic denial by decree is insufficient. Following Kiribati’s independence, the United States negotiated and signed a Treaty of Friendship with the country. The treaty extended strategic denial to several islands and military installations formerly operated by the United States and called for consultation on third party military access beyond.
Washington’s treaty with Kiribati, however, was insufficient to insulate the country from Soviet influence. In 1985, the signing of a fishing treaty between Kiribati and the Soviet Union prompted another Russian scare over fears that the agreement could lead to a naval or surveillance presence. Western nations implored the Kiribati government not to sign the treaty. Although unsuccessful, the incident did provide the trigger for Washington to redouble its efforts to negotiate a multilateral fishing agreement across the Pacific, eventually signed in 1987. The Soviets did not renew their treaty with Kiribati. The episode illustrated how economic engagement could preemptively close opportunities for rival exploitation.
Cooperation between Western aligned countries also amplified strategic denial efforts, as demonstrated when Australia, New Zealand, and the United States jointly delivered a marine science package to counter Soviet proposals. In addition, Britain, France, Japan, and even China were also brought into the fold of strategic denial.
Cold War policies also demonstrate the value of regionalism in ensuring strategic denial against an adversarial great power. Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. understood that a successful policy of strategic denial meant no Soviet presence anywhere in the Pacific. Under this framework, while bilateral relations were important, regional approaches were equally necessary. As remains true today, the West is unable to outbid China in every sector in every country. Instead, the most viable path forward is the pursuit of regional solutions to common problems.
With a fundamentally different playing field today, the United States and its Western partners should adapt, rather than outright adopt, the strategies of the Cold War. With China already present across the region, attempts to ensure a total absence of Chinese influence is impractical and unwise. Nonetheless, the Cold War framing of strategic denial, specifically understood as the cooperative blocking of all types of influence across the region offers valuable lessons to policymakers today.
While there are questions over the long-term sustainability of Australia’s 2024 security agreements with Tuvalu and Nauru, they do demonstrate lessons learned from the Cold War. To international observers, the most important aspects of the deals are the security provisions calling for mutual consultation on external security engagement with third parties. However, strategic denial by edict may not be sufficient. As such, in the treaties, Australia has also committed to providing substantial development aid to the two countries. The promised financial and development assistance is equally necessary as the security provisions for blocking a threatening Chinese presence from emerging.
The Cold War is also instructive on the utility of foreign aid and development assistance in the Pacific Islands today. While China is unlikely to directly fill the hole left by the freezing of USAID, it does make China’s offers more attractive given less competition. Strategic denial in the Pacific must mean limiting the adversary’s ability to establish a presence that could evolve into one threatening U.S. interests. Foreign aid achieves this while also supporting the development needs of Pacific Islands.
Through bilateral arrangements, China has utilized internal security and law enforcement aid to extend its presence and influence in Pacific Island countries. Recognizing the potential danger posed by China’s policing deals, Australia has funded the Pacific Policing Initiative to provide aid and capacity building across the region. With Australia and New Zealand full members of the Pacific Islands Forum and all ANZUS countries part of the Pacific Community, the West has a natural advantage in pursuing regionalism over China. By funding regional institutions, Western countries can achieve strategic denial without outwardly attempting to outcompete China.
