Authors

Jonathan Ludwig¹;  ¹ Oklahoma State University, United States

Discussion

The establishment of the Russian Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok on 21 May 1731 allowed the Russian navy to project military power throughout the Indo-Pacific. However, because of political decision-making and Russian defeats, power projection ebbed and flowed in the decades and centuries ahead and was largely concentrated in the northern part of the Indo-Pacific. From time to time, however, Russia attempted to dip into the southern hemisphere, including deep into the South Pacific. Russia’s actions there, not as well known, are the subject of this presentation.

After a brief nod to history, which is centered on Russian expeditions to Australia and followed by a lengthy absence from the region, I examine how Russia returned to the South Pacific in the last decade, how it attempted to penetrate the region’s island nations financially and militarily, and what it had hoped to accomplish there. I will conclude with a discussion of how Putin’s February 2022 escalation of his years-long war on Ukraine upended relations with these same South Pacific nations, ended what Putin had hoped to accomplish there, and changed the strategic landscape of the region for decades to come.