Nauru in the Arc of Instability: Too Many Degrees of Freedom?
ously in any credible “arc of instability”, even one whose span includes the remotest region on earth. Yet, for its own special reasons, Nauru deserves some mention in the arc of instability if only to demonstrate its idiosyncratic contribution to this image of a putative zone of unstable states to Australia’s north threatening the Commonwealth’s security. There are, perhaps, a variety of explanations for Nauru’s inclusion in this arc of instability. A principal one is a propensity in the popular media to conflate such terms as “failed state” and “rogue state” thus including Nauru with a wide range of states that have abused their sovereign obligations. A less visible factor is the human tendency to try to find symmetry at the expense of consistency when explaining diverse events under a single rubric. Thus, to use a phrase like “arc of instability” encourages the search for examples to make such an arc complete or continuous. Another rationale may be an expectation of what Nauru is to become as the island’s one significant natural resource – phosphate – runs out. At least until very recently, Nauru has probably been more “roguish” than “failed” but it would seem that Australia has not found Nauru’s willingness to sell its sovereignty necessarily all that threatening; at least when it agrees to process would-be refugees targeting Australia. This chapter presents an overview of Nauru’s inclusion in the arc of instability against a perspective of responsible state behavior. The logic of this approach is grounded largely in the ambiguity surrounding the linkages that make the arc of instability a coherent and useful concept. If there is one constancy that unites countries as disparate as Indonesia, the Solomons and Nauru in a concept such as the arc of instability, it lies in their inability or unwillingness to manage fully the demands of sovereignty. Whether the grounds for this failure to meet expectations of responsible state behavior stems from a lack of will or a lack of means may not be material for those adversely affected although it will affect the response. In the case of Nauru, the question of state responsibility goes back more than just to the origins of the minuscule republic since the same can be said of all the other states in this arc. It also goes to the special, almost unique, circumstances that appeared to give Nauru every advantage to be an effective state despite its small size (Figure 11.1). Linking Nauru’s own special circumstances in managing state responsibility with Australia’s perception of an arc of instability is the island’s long ties to Australia. The primary association was Nauru’s quasi-colonial subordination to Australia under the mandate/trusteeship systems. This United Nations’ moderated relationship enabled Nauru to hasten the pace of national self-determination at a time that was especially congenial in terms of international expectations of smaller polities. The minimal 11. NAURU IN THE ARC OF INSTABILITY: TOO MANY DEGREES OF FREEDOM? RICHARD HERR AND DONALD POTTER
Money Laundering, Global Financial Instability, and Tax Havens in the Pacific Islands
Pacific Islands offshore financial centers (ofcs) are battling for their sur- vival against the danger that international organizations will cut them off from the global financial system. 1 This threat is supported by accusations that offshore centers in Oceania promote money laundering, harmful tax practices, and instability in the world financial system. 2 The multilateral programs of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on harmful tax competition, and the Financial Stability Forum have been distinct but related and coordinated attacks on centers in the Pacific Islands and else- where. These assaults have gained momentum since the mid-1990s. The image of tax havens in the region has been shaped most by the "horror story" of Nauru—the mass media's account of how Nauru was involved in the Bank of New York scandal and other cases of facilitating tens of billions of dollars of Russian money laundering, tax evasion, and illegal capital flight. The most powerful media critiques of Pacific Islands offshore financial centers have asserted their complicity in "money laundering"—a new term that emerged in the 1970s to define a social problem. It has been associated in the popular consciousness with reports that tax havens around the world help to hide the origins of and legitimate hundreds of billions of dollars of illegal drug profits every year. Public hostility toward offshore centers has been connected with media images of drug lords acquiring tremendous wealth, laundered through secretive tax havens, while narcotics ruin lives, addict babies, produce street crimes, and spread hiv/aids. Many members of the public are only vaguely aware that since the mid-1980s some countries have broadened the legal definition of money
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1