On May 28, 2026, the Inter-American Dialogue’s Asia & Latin America Program held “Managing Sovereign Waters: Infrastructure, Maritime Security, and Strategic Agency,” the second event in a private roundtable series called “Comparative Policymaking in a Shifting Global Architecture: Approaches from the Caribbean and the Pacific.” During the event, experts from across the Pacific and Caribbean policy, academic, and multilateral communities examined how Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are navigating an increasingly fragmented and transactional international environment. Discussion during this session focused on approaches to maritime spaces which sit at the intersection of security, development, climate resilience, and sovereignty.
Participants broadly agreed that maritime governance can no longer be separated from wider strategic competition. Yet participants emphasized that geopolitical competition could create opportunities as well as constraints for SIDS. Several noted, for example, instances of China and Australia delivering maritime-security assistance to the Solomon Islands within days of one another, illustrating how competition can generate tangible benefits for states facing acute security challenges. Others highlighted China’s growing role through training programs, disaster-response cooperation, undersea cable initiatives, and educational exchanges, alongside expanding engagement by the United States, Australia, and Japan. In some Pacific states, personnel trained by competing powers now serve within the same security institutions, raising questions about both geopolitical alignment and domestic cohesion.
Participants cautioned against viewing all security partnerships primarily through a geopolitical lens. Caribbean governments often pursue cooperation in response to immediate challenges such as organized crime, trafficking, energy security, and public safety rather than broader strategic alignment. Yet many questioned whether traditional understandings of security remain adequate in an increasingly securitized environment, particularly in regions where many states lack significant military capabilities and rely heavily on external partners, making the longstanding vision of the Caribbean as a “zone of peace” increasingly difficult to sustain without acknowledging rising great-power tensions.
Participants also emphasized the relationship between vulnerability and strategic agency. States grappling with trafficking and gang networks, economic instability, and climate shocks often have limited capacity to address longer-term challenges such as maritime governance or managing rising geopolitical tensions. And security cooperation with great powers may exacerbate domestic vulnerabilities by weakening regional alignment and bypassing institutional accountability. Several argued that preserving agency can no longer rely solely on international law and norms as guardrails but increasingly requires building the domestic and regional capacity necessary to shape, rather than simply respond to, external pressures in increasingly contested environments.
On the evolving meaning of sovereignty, participants repeatedly returned to how SIDS can preserve strategic autonomy while navigating relationships with larger powers. While acknowledging real power asymmetries, they argued that SIDS retain the ability and responsibility to shape norms, establish red lines, and influence the terms of external engagement, particularly amid growing securitization.
Regarding the practical implications of sovereignty. Concerns centered not only on military presence but also on subtler forms of dependence arising from infrastructure financing, digital connectivity projects, training programs, technology transfers, and governance arrangements that can gradually shape domestic institutions and policy choices. Several participants also noted that geopolitical competition is increasingly filtering into domestic political discourse and electoral politics, blurring the line between external and internal sources of influence.
The discussion revealed important differences between Caribbean and Pacific experiences of regionalism. Several participants argued that Caribbean integration remains comparatively stronger, rooted in shared histories of colonialism, slavery, and post-independence institution-building. Pacific regionalism, by contrast, operates in a more complex environment in which Australia and New Zealand are deeply embedded in regional institutions, bringing resources and attention but limiting the development of Pacific Island-exclusive spaces.
Meanwhile, both regions face growing strains. Participants noted increasing fragmentation within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) over responses to U.S. policy, security cooperation, and strategic alignment. Some participants observed a growing divide between Caribbean states seeking to preserve traditional multilateral approaches to diplomacy and those pursuing national interests through closer alignment with U.S. primacy. Domestic contradictions exacerbate this growing divergence in policy, as tensions between climate vulnerability and expanding oil and gas production complicate efforts to maintain common regional positions.
In the Pacific, donor competition has created both leverage and division. While competing partners can strengthen states’ bargaining power, managing an expanding web of bilateral relationships imposes significant administrative and political costs at a time of declining multilateral support. Participants also highlighted growing disagreements over deep-sea mining, with some governments viewing seabed minerals as an opportunity for economic diversification and others warning of risks to ocean health and coastal communities.
Despite these pressures, several participants pointed to ongoing norm-setting around the Biological Diversity of Areas beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) as evidence that coordinated small-state diplomacy can still shape emerging institutions. The discussion suggested that regionalism may need to become more flexible: preserving collective action where possible while recognising that states increasingly operate across overlapping bilateral, regional, and multilateral networks.
Discussion framed maritime infrastructure as a strategic asset rather than simply an economic one. Several participants argued that the key issue is not who finances infrastructure, but the governance frameworks surrounding it. Investments should be assessed according to whether they remain interoperable with regional systems, embedded within international legal frameworks, and supportive of long-term sovereignty rather than dependency.
Others highlighted persistent institutional fragmentation, with climate risk management, ports, security, and economic planning often handled by separate ministries despite their interdependence. Participants therefore called for more integrated approaches to maritime governance and strategic planning. Several participants noted that decisions about ports, cables, and maritime facilities increasingly carry strategic implications, making governance capacity as important as financing itself.
Looking ahead, participants agreed that challenge for SIDS is not only to navigate this international environment surrounding maritime spaces, but to shape it where possible, ensuring that external engagement strengthens rather than constrains national and regional priorities. And despite important differences between the Pacific and Caribbean, the regions share sufficient common challenges to warrant closer cooperation on issues of maritime security and ocean governance, with one participant observing that island states should remember that they are “not separated by the ocean but joined by the ocean” when promoting policies across regional divides.
This event was by invitation only.
Think Piece Collection
In conjunction with the private roundtable, select participant were invited to compose a set of think pieces which examines and compares how Caribbean and Pacific actors are navigating a rapidly shifting global order, with focused attention on either of the two issue areas where global developments have meaningfully altered the landscape of opportunities and constraints facing these regions.
The participants who have authored a piece for this roundtable session are as followed:
Transform Aqorau
Vice Chancellor, Solomon Islands National University
Nand C. Bardouille
Manager, Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean, The University of the West Indies (UWI)
Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith
Fellow, Caribbean Policy Consortium
