This thesis looks at the causes behind Fiji’s 5 December 2006 coup. It takes a twofold approach, first looking at the background causes which illustrate that Fiji was vulnerable to a further coup after the 2000 coup. The study then moves on to an analysis of the triggering causes. This analyses both the motive; consisting of threats to the military’s interests and failures of the government, and the opportunity, consisting of a deflation in the government’s legitimacy and military cohesion. To test these factors a cross-time comparison of the five instances of high tension between the Fijian military and Government is presented in an effort to identify how the coup differed from those disputes that preceded it. These periods of tension are: the 2004 reappointment of Bainimarama; the Unity Bill dispute; the January 2006 coup threat; the 2006 election; and the December 2006 Coup. From this analysis it was found that threats to the military’s interests were key in generating the motive for intervention, but that governmental failures were not a significant factor; while they motivated the military to be a vocal actor, they did not garner the motive for intervention. The opportunity was only found to occur when there was both a deflation in the Government’s legitimacy and strong military cohesion. For Fiji’s 2006 coup the motivating factors were the threats to the military’s interests, from the scheduled Supreme Court ruling on the role of the military, the rivalry with the fully-armed Tactical Response Unit of the Police, and crucially the pending criminal charges against Bainimarama. This coincided with the opportunity for intervention from a drop in the Government’s legitimacy as a result of a crisis in the multi-party Cabinet and the Government’s growing ethnic bias, along with strong cohesion in the military.

This thesis argues that the Australian military intervention in East Timor in 1999 was motivated primarily by the need to defend Australia’s own strategic interests. It was an act of Australian imperialism understood from a Marxist perspective, and was consistent with longstanding strategic policy in the region.¶ Australian policy makers have long been concerned about the security threat posed by a small and weak neighbouring state in the territory of East Timor. This led to the deployment of Australian troops to the territory in World War Two. In 1974 Australia supported Indonesia’s invasion of the territory in order to prevent it from becoming a strategic liability in the context of Cold War geopolitics. But, as an indirect result of the Asian financial crisis, by September 1999 the Indonesian government’s control over the territory had become untenable. Indonesia’s political upheaval also raised the spectre of the ‘Balkanisation’ of the Indonesian archipelago, and East Timor thus became the focal point for Australian fears about an ‘arc of instability’ that arose in this period.¶ Australia’s insertion of military forces into East Timor in 1999 served its own strategic priorities by ensuring an orderly transfer of sovereignty took place, avoiding a destabilising power vacuum as the country transitioned to independence. It also guaranteed that Australia’s economic and strategic interests in the new nation could not be ignored by the United Nations or the East Timorese themselves. There are therefore underlying consistencies in Australia’s policy on East Timor stretching back several decades. Despite changing contexts, and hence radically different policy responses, Australia acted throughout this time to prevent political and strategic instability in East Timor.¶ In addition, the intervention reinforced Australia’s standing as a major power in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific. The 1999 deployment therefore helped facilitate a string of subsequent Australian interventions in Pacific island nations, both by providing a model for action and by building a public consensus in favour of the use of military intervention as a policy tool.¶ This interpretation of events challenges the consensus among existing academic accounts. Australia’s support of Indonesia’s invasion and occupation of East Timor from 1974 was frequently criticised as favouring realpolitik over ethical considerations. But the 1999 intervention, which ostensibly ended severe violence and secured national independence for the territory, drew widespread support, both from the public and academic commentators. It has generally been seen as a break with previous Australian policy, and as driven by political forces outside the normal foreign policy process. Moreover, it has been almost universally regarded as a triumph for moral conduct in international affairs, and even as a redemptive moment for the Australian national conscience. Viewing the intervention as part of the longstanding strategy of Australian imperialism casts doubt on such positive evaluations.