Source — AITW Ep095 — Solomon Islands and China Enter a Security Pact¶

Episode Metadata¶

Field	Value
Episode number	95
Title	Ep. 95: Solomon Islands and China enter a security pact
Publication date	2022-04-25
Recording date	Saturday, 23 April 2022
Guests	None (Allan and Darren only)
Allan present	Yes
Format	Single-topic deep-dive on the Solomons-China security agreement; reading segment at close. Published during the 2022 Australian federal election campaign.

Summary¶

A single-topic episode on the most explosive foreign policy news of the 2022 election campaign: the security pact between Solomon Islands and China, whose draft had leaked in late March and whose final signing was announced days before this recording. The episode is unusual in the corpus for what it immediately yields biographically: in the opening exchange, Allan discloses that approximately thirty years earlier he was sent to Honiara as a prime ministerial envoy to negotiate with PM Solomon Mamaloni over a ban on RAAF flights — a vivid, previously unrecorded professional episode that places him in the Pacific at the centre of a bilateral crisis in around 1992. This is one of the most specific and unexpected biographical fragments in the corpus to date.

The analytical register is characteristic: Allan anchors the episode with a practitioner's first principle — "we're talking about Melanesia here, so I think we begin with the domestic rather than the strategic interests involved" — and then applies it consistently, diagnosing Sogavare's motivations in terms of local political competition rather than great-power geometry. His correction of Labor's "worst failure of Australian Foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War Two" is immediate and instinctive: he doesn't contest the politics, he contests the superlative, and moves at once to comparators. When Darren offers a sweeping critique of "decades of Australian Foreign policy," Allan gently but firmly pushes back in defence of the practitioner community.

The episode also contains one of his most compressed definitional statements on diplomacy: "whenever you talk about diplomacy, people think you are saying, be nice, be polite, and that's not it at all. Diplomacy, which is the tactics for achieving your Foreign policy strategy, should always be pointed and sometimes hard edged." This is the practitioner's realism spoken plainly — the same position as his anti-coercion/pro-optionality doctrine in Ep094, now inverted: coercion is everywhere, the question is how to wield it with calibration. His strategic counsel is equally precise: don't aim for immediate abrogation — "that's a bridge too far" — but ensure nothing in the agreement is used to harm Australian interests.

The reading segment adds a characteristically authoritative Lawrence Freedman Substack recommendation, closing with a wry self-congratulatory joke that is as much a professional confidence statement as it is wit.

Key Quotations¶

Prime ministerial envoy to Honiara — "a very intense couple of days"¶

"This is not by any means the first time that Solomon Islands and Australia have had conflicting interests. 30 years ago, I spent a very intense couple of days in Honiara as a prime ministerial envoy trying to persuade the then Prime Minister, Solomon Mamaloni, to lift a ban he'd placed on RAAF flights across Solomon Islands airspace because his government was displeased with Australia's support for Port Moresby in the civil conflict that was then underway on Bougainville. And Bougainville, of course, is part of that same island chain. I didn't think then and I don't think now that there is any interest on the part of the government in Honiara enforcing a profound or permanent breach with Australia. The consequences would be too significant for that, but it is a way of signalling a refusal to be taken for granted."

— [00:04:19.870 --> 00:07:55.710]

The most significant biographical fragment this episode delivers. A specific mission, a specific prime minister, a specific bilateral grievance (RAAF overflight rights / the Bougainville civil conflict), and a specific professional role: prime ministerial envoy. Solomon Mamaloni served as PM of Solomon Islands 1989–1993 and 1994–1997; "30 years ago" from April 2022 places this mission at approximately 1992. Keating became Prime Minister in December 1991, so if this was a Keating-era mission, Allan would have been in PM&C or moving towards the foreign policy advisory role he held by 1994. The phrase "prime ministerial envoy" — not "I was part of a delegation" or "officials were sent" but "I" — confirms he was the designated personal representative. "Very intense" is his understated marker of genuine difficulty. The mission's conclusion — "I didn't think then and I don't think now that there is any interest on the part of the government in Honiara enforcing a profound or permanent breach" — shows he is applying his reading from 1992 directly to the 2022 situation. Thirty years of Pacific experience has confirmed his original assessment. This is how he reasons: with accumulated precedent, not fresh alarm.

The 1987 "Libyan panic" — "if you're old enough"¶

"If you're old enough, and of course, Darren, you are not, you can think back to the great Libyan panic of 1987 when Foreign Minister Bill Hayden made a dramatic flight to Wellington to try to persuade the New Zealanders to join us in regional action to prevent the establishment of a Libyan People's Bureau in Port Vila of Vanuatu. This was an earlier example of our worries about outside involvement in the Pacific. Australian diplomats fanned out across the Pacific. And in that case, we succeeded. But the stakes, of course, with Libya were much smaller than the stakes with China."

— [00:21:43.310 --> 00:22:20.830]

The phrase "if you're old enough, and of course, Darren, you are not" is a signature marker: age gap acknowledged with dry warmth, but the real signal is what follows. "We succeeded" uses the first person plural — Allan was among the diplomats who "fanned out across the Pacific" in 1987, or at minimum identifies with the institutional response as a participant. In 1987 he was in the Hawke government's PM&C orbit and would have been in precisely the right position for Pacific regional work. The Libya comparison also does analytical work: it establishes that outside-power anxiety in the Pacific is a persistent structural feature, not a novelty, and that Australia has historically managed it with coordinated diplomatic pressure. His calibrating close — "the stakes, of course, with Libya were much smaller" — is the practitioner's proportionality test, applied instantly. He does not use the 1987 parallel to minimise the Solomons situation; he uses it to situate it in a tradition of manageable precedents. This is historical reasoning as operational guidance.

"Worst failure ever" — instinctive skepticism of superlatives¶

"Whenever I hear phrases like worst failure ever, I immediately think, hmm, really? And I try to think about other failures of Australian Foreign policy in the Pacific, of which there have been a number. Our inability to foresee or deal with the success of military coups in Fiji was pretty devastating. But I do accept that that didn't have the international policy implications of this agreement."

— [00:16:05.950 --> 00:17:21.110]

Penny Wong had described the agreement as "the worst failure of Australian Foreign policy in the Pacific since the end of World War Two." Allan's response is not political — he doesn't contest the criticism of the Morrison government — but epistemological. The phrase "worst failure ever" triggers an immediate comparative audit. He reaches for Fiji coups, assesses them, and concludes they were "pretty devastating" but had less international implication — which is his way of granting that the Solomons situation is serious while refusing to accept the superlative framing uncritically. This is the same reflex as "it's more a blob than an arc" (Ep094): he does not accept inherited language; he tests it against the record. "Hmm, really?" is not dismissiveness — it is his systematic check against analytical overstatement. It takes three seconds; it always produces a more precise verdict.

Diplomacy redefined — "pointed and sometimes hard edged"¶

"Whenever you talk about diplomacy, people think you are saying, be nice, be polite, and that's not it at all. Diplomacy, which is the tactics for achieving your Foreign policy strategy, should always be pointed and sometimes hard edged. It all depends on what you need at any given moment to shape another country's actions. So in this case, our objective should probably not be to achieve immediately the formal abrogation of the agreement. That's, I think, a bridge too far, but to ensure that nothing in it is used to harm Australian interests."

— [00:22:44.110 --> 00:23:45.790]

Two things are being done here simultaneously. First, a corrective definition: diplomacy is not niceness — it is purposive tactics. This is his standing objection to politicians who describe foreign policy as "soft" (Ep094: "soft diplomacy" / "the dance of diplomacy"). He is restating the same claim, now from the active side: diplomacy is hard-edged when necessary because it is always about shaping another actor's behaviour. Second, he applies that definition to the immediate case: the strategic objective is not the maximal one (get the agreement scrapped) but the minimal one (ensure nothing in it is used against Australian interests). This is the practitioner's calibration — not driven by pride or rhetorical positioning but by what is actually achievable. The phrase "a bridge too far" is used precisely: he knows what the available ground is, and he refuses to stake out a position beyond it.

Coercion in every relationship¶

"Coercion exists in every relationship, whether it's between a parent and her four-year-old child or states in the international system. It's impossible to be free of it. In the case of governments, it's the easiest way for them to achieve their ends at minimum cost to themselves. It's inbuilt into our relationships. In this case, coercive pressure would be the unspoken, largely unspoken, but hinted at, threat that, pressed too hard, Australia might pull out of its support for the Solomons in ways that would harm the political interests of its current government."

— [00:28:01.030 --> 00:28:44.870]

Darren has pointed out the awkwardness of Australia — which loudly supports "a region free of coercion" — applying coercive pressure. Allan's answer is to dissolve the alleged contradiction. Coercion is not a departure from normal international relations; it is constitutive of all relationships at every scale. The parent-and-child analogy is deliberately demystifying: if we understand coercion as the structuring of incentives and consequences, it loses its moral exceptionalism and becomes simply a tactic — one that should be used with precision, not avoided on principle. "Inbuilt into our relationships" removes any pretence of clean hands. This is Allan operating in the tradition of his "analyst not strategist" identity: he sees the shades of grey, and the shades here include the grey of coercion as a normal tool. The practical recommendation that follows — hint at withdrawal of support — is both restrained (unspoken, largely hinted at) and strategically purposive. This is what "hard edged" diplomacy looks like in practice.

Defence of the practitioner community — "a bit unfair"¶

"Darren, I just want to say that I think you're being a bit unfair to decades of Australian Foreign policy there. We have, of course, made mistakes in the Pacific and we have taken it for granted from time to time and we have been patronising. But I don't think that's the whole story of the efforts of Australian governments and officials and ministers over the years. So I'd be a bit kinder to us than you've just been."

— [00:19:31.150 --> 00:19:59.670]

This is one of the clearest expressions in the corpus of Allan's identification with the practitioner community — not the politicians, but the officials and ministers who worked in the Pacific across decades. Darren has offered a structural critique ("deaf and indeed patronising to the region's concerns"). Allan accepts the substance partially but objects to the sweep: "I don't think that's the whole story." The phrase "a bit kinder to us than you've just been" is the giveaway: "us" includes Allan himself. He was one of those officials. He was in Honiara as a prime ministerial envoy. He is not defending policy positions or governments; he is defending the professional effort. This is the same practitioner's pride that produced his objection to "the dance of diplomacy" in Ep094 — the difference being that there the target was a politician who dismissed diplomacy; here it is an academic who dismissed the diplomats. He is equally, if gently, firm in both directions.

Cool head, long game — "the old order has passed"¶

"Keeping a cool head, understanding the long game, engaging diplomatically as well as militarily is going to be critical for us. The old order has passed and a new one is being shaped."

— [00:31:15.110 --> 00:32:29.810]

The close of his strategic assessment, offered in response to whether the agreement marks the beginning of imminent South Pacific militarisation. His answer is that it does not — Peter Jennings' "bold prediction" of Chinese warships "within weeks" will be verifiable and falsifiable. He places the Southwest Pacific "pretty low on China's list of strategic priorities, not off that list" — the qualifier "not off that list" is the precision move, resisting both alarmism and complacency. "The old order has passed and a new one is being shaped" appears almost as a throwaway line, but it is his structural verdict on the episode: the Solomons agreement is not an aberration — it is a data point in the ongoing construction of a new regional order. "Keeping a cool head" is the counsel he has offered since the beginning of the corpus: measured, historically-grounded, strategic. It is also personal style.

Biographical Fragments¶

New

Prime ministerial envoy to Honiara, ~1992 — "30 years ago, I spent a very intense couple of days in Honiara as a prime ministerial envoy trying to persuade the then Prime Minister, Solomon Mamaloni, to lift a ban he'd placed on RAAF flights across Solomon Islands airspace." Solomon Mamaloni was PM 1989–1993; the recording dates this to ~1992. Keating became PM December 1991. This places Allan in a hands-on Pacific diplomatic crisis role — consistent with his PM&C International Division role — at the precise moment the Keating government was beginning. (Ep095)
Possible personal involvement in 1987 Libya/Vanuatu Pacific crisis — Allan describes Australian diplomats fanning out across the Pacific to prevent a Libyan People's Bureau in Port Vila ("we succeeded"). The first-person plural strongly implies professional participation. In 1987 he was in the Hawke government's PM&C orbit. (Ep095)

Reinforcing

PM&C International Division role in the Pacific — the Honiara envoy mission corroborates his PM&C role in the Hawke/early Keating era, with direct operational responsibility for bilateral negotiations in the Pacific. (Ep095)
Correction of political hyperbole as analytical reflex — "Whenever I hear phrases like worst failure ever, I immediately think, hmm, really?" — the same instinct as "more a blob than an arc" (Ep094) and "squibbed it at the end" (Ep023). He audits superlatives. (Ep095)
Defence of the practitioner community — he identifies with "Australian governments and officials and ministers over the years" and objects to sweeping critique of their collective efforts. The "us" is personal. (Ep095)

Style and Method Evidence¶

Domestic before strategic: opens his Solomons analysis with "we're talking about Melanesia here, so I think we begin with the domestic rather than the strategic interests involved" — local political competition is the primary explanatory frame, great-power geometry secondary.
Superlative audit: "Whenever I hear phrases like worst failure ever, I immediately think, hmm, really?" — he tests political language against specific comparators before accepting or rejecting it.
Practitioner's definition of diplomacy: corrects the civilian assumption that diplomacy = politeness; insists it is "tactics for achieving your foreign policy strategy" and should be "pointed and sometimes hard edged."
Calibrated objectives: immediately sets a realistic strategic aim — "ensure nothing in it is used to harm Australian interests" rather than the maximalist "immediate abrogation" — this is the practitioner's proportionality in action.
Coercion normalised: dissolves the apparent contradiction between opposing coercion rhetorically and using it diplomatically; it is "inbuilt into our relationships."
Structural framing on China: "China's main game is always going to be North Asia, the South China Sea, Southeast Asia, Central Asia" — places the Southwest Pacific in its correct priority order for Beijing, refusing to inflate its strategic significance.
"Not off that list": the precision qualifier that avoids both alarmism and complacency — a recurring technique in the corpus.
Regional coalition-building instinct: "It's always, in my view, worth checking in with Wellington. Japan will be influential" — immediately thinks multilaterally and regionally, not bilaterally and reactively.
Warning against Western-proxy optics: "we need to be careful... that we're not making it appear that Australia is acting on behalf of a Western grouping interested only in US-China competition" — reads the episode through the eyes of Pacific Island nations.

Reading, Listening and Watching¶

Allan — Lawrence Freedman, "Comment is Freed" (Substack)

"I've added another substack to my growing list. Comment is Freed, which gives us the writing about contemporary developments from Sir Lawrence Freedman and his son, Sam Freedman, who's an education specialist and writes about British politics. If there was ever a person who epitomises the phrase, the great and the good, surely Laurie Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King's College London, covered in decorations, literally wrote the book about strategy, key member of the Chilcot inquiry into how Britain got into the Iraq War. So it's great that he's delivering regular and unfailingly insightful commentary on what's happening in Ukraine in particular. So I recommend that."

— [00:34:10.230 --> 00:35:01.930]

The description "literally wrote the book about strategy" refers to Freedman's Strategy: A History (2013) — the single most comprehensive treatment of the concept in the literature. That Allan deploys this phrase without footnoting it implies he expects his listeners to understand the reference, or that it is simply the most natural description: the man who wrote the definitive book. "The great and the good" is wry and affectionate — it is English establishment vocabulary, the kind of phrase you use when you approve of the establishment figure in question. Allan rarely recommends writers he admires without some analytical reserve; here there is almost none. "Unfailingly insightful" is his highest category of endorsement for a regular commentator. The mention of Sam Freedman alongside his father also signals that Allan is reading the Substack seriously, not skimming: he has noticed and distinguished the two contributors. The focus on Ukraine commentary places this recommendation in the specific moment of the podcast's 2022 context — the war has been running for two months, and Allan is supplementing his analysis with the best available strategic commentary.

The episode closes with a characteristic wry note. Darren, recommending Bruno Maçães, observes that the price of Maçães's most engaging insights may be that he is "equally wrong at other times." Allan's immediate response: "Happily, Darren, that's not the case with us and this podcast at all." [00:35:49.030 --> 00:35:51.670] — A moment of dry self-satisfaction, but also a quiet professional confidence statement: he is not Maçães; he does not trade insight for error. After fifty years, he thinks he has learned to be right more often than wrong.

Open Questions¶

The Honiara mission (~1992) — was this commissioned by Keating or by Hawke (the Bougainville conflict began in 1988; Keating became PM December 1991)? Mamaloni served 1989–1993. The "30 years ago" from April 2022 points to ~1992, which would make it almost certainly a Keating-era mission. Allan's title at that point — "prime ministerial envoy" — is a significant formulation: is this a formal diplomatic status, or a colloquial description of being sent personally by the PM? Does he refer to this mission anywhere else in the corpus?
The 1987 Libya/Vanuatu episode — does Allan describe this anywhere else with greater precision about his personal role? In 1987 he would have been in the mid-stages of his Hawke-era PM&C posting. The "we succeeded" framing is the closest confirmation so far of active personal involvement in Hawke-era Pacific diplomacy beyond his Singapore posting.
"The old order has passed and a new one is being shaped" — is this a phrase Allan uses elsewhere in the corpus? It closely echoes his Ep012 formulation ("the only international order I've known during my lifetime... came to an end") but is more forward-looking. Is this the beginning of a shift in his framing from "order has ended" to "new order is forming"?
Lawrence Freedman — Allan says he has "added another substack to my growing list." What else is on that list? Does he mention other substacks he reads regularly in later episodes?
"We need to be careful... that we're not making it appear that Australia is acting on behalf of a Western grouping interested only in US-China competition" — does Allan return to this specific optics concern after the election? Does the incoming Albanese government's framing of Pacific policy address it, in his assessment?