Editorial: Peacekeeping - Australia The Persistent

Map of Existing Pacific class Patrol Boat users

October 9, 2014: Australia is spending nearly $2 billion to replace the 22 Pacific Forum class patrol boats they built and gave to twelve Pacific Island nations in the 1980s and 90s. This is part of the Pacific Patrol Boat Program, which was started in the 1980s. The twenty new patrol boats will go to the original twelve (Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Samoa, Vanuatu, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands and Cook Islands) members plus East Timor. The patrol boats are used for things like fisheries protection, search & rescue and dealing with smuggling. The original boats were 31.5-meters (101 feet) long and designed to last at least 15 years. As those original boats reached their service limit it was noted that they had held up better than expected. So Australia refurbished them but now these original boats are definitely in need of replacement. About a third of the money will go for building the new patrol boats while the rest will be spent over the next 30 years to help maintain and operate the boats.

PNG Pacific class Patrol Boat HMPNGS Dreger

The Pacific Patrol Boat Program is one of many efforts by the more affluent (like Australia and New Zealand) Pacific nations to assist the many poor Polynesian and Melanesian states that were formed since the 1950s. While the Polynesian nations of the south and central Pacific mainly need economic and technical assistance, the Melanesian nations (Papua, the Solomons, East Timor and a few others) are not only closer but more often in need of peacekeepers (occasionally) and help (more frequently) with internal security. As a result of those needs Australia has found itself, often against its will, deputized as the policeman of Melanesia. It's a thankless task that has sent Australian peacekeepers to several different island trouble spots since the 1990s.

Read the full story at Strategy Page