Conclusion: An Uncertain Future

Abstract

Over the next few years, in the virtual absence of external and intraregional military threats, domestically-focused and primarily ‘nonmilitary’ security issues are likely to preoccupy the Pacific island states. These issues include economic uncertainties, environmental degradation, law and order problems, internal unrest, and, in some instances, secessionist movements. The presence of some of these challenges to security will reflect in part the intractable problems of social and economic development which have emerged in several island states over the last decade or so. In some circumstances these various issues, though primarily domestic in focus, will have implications for regional affairs.