The rules-based order is under challenge on a number of fronts. China as a rising power is naturally a major challenger, and its rise has created significant uncertainty about the kind of order that will prevail within the Indo-Pacific into the future. Other external forces at play — from the shifting nature and multipolar distribution of power across the region, to the emergence of new demands and sites for political contest, and the impact of new threats including climate change — are all exerting different pressures on the rules-based order. Add to this the fact that rules are not intended to be static fixtures of global order. They shift and evolve to meet the needs and expectations of those that set, enforce and comply with them. Amid this context of re-ordering, this paper argues that there is a more significant contest underway in the Indo-Pacific: the contest for strategic narrative. It is a contest of leadership, influence and ideas, whereby success is ultimately demonstrated through the ability to set the political agenda, while also framing the rules and terms of compliance for that agenda; thus, shaping the future of regional order in the Indo-Pacific.

Since the late 1980s, a succession of Australian-funded programs has sought to strengthen the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary (RPNGC). The results of these efforts have, to say the least, been extremely modest. This article critically examines the underlying approach to donor assistance to the RPNGC, arguing, among other things, that it has failed to engage with the realities of normative and regulatory pluralism in Papua New Guinea’s famously diverse social landscape. More fulsome acknowledgement of these plural realities, and the adoption of more innovative approaches to internal security provision that can harness and better align the strengths of different providers is likely to yield better results than a continuing reliance on state police alone.