Difficulty in slowing the Arcs progression stems from a variety of social and economic factors impeding the stabilization of member states, with use of military force being inadequate - unless there is an accompanying focus on protection of rights, promotion of peace, proliferation of new and ingenious terrorist groups, and the prevention of organized crime.
[5]There is no official list of member states in the Arc, however it has traditionally been accepted to include South-East Asian and Oceanic nations such as Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Vanuatu, The Solomon Islands, East Timor, and Indonesia.
In 2000, the Australian Department of Defence, under the Howard government, released a whitepaper stating the following:In the Southwest Pacific, as in Papua New Guinea, our aim is to maintain our position as the key strategic partner.
[8]Following this, the whitepaper released by the department in 2009 under the Rudd government did not seem to indicate any departure from the previous strategy:After ensuring the defence of Australia from direct attack, the second priority task for the ADF is to contribute to stability and security in the South Pacific and East Timor.
This involves conducting military operations, in coalition with others as required, including in relation to protecting our nationals, providing disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, and on occasion by way of stabilisation interventions as occurred in East Timor in 1999 and 2006, and in Solomon Islands in 2003[9]This is a partial list of some events within an Arc which have typically been seen as contributing to the region's instability: