Shiprider MoUs: Help for PNG or Hidden Agendas from Five Eyes Powers?

The signing of shiprider agreements with the UK and the US, alongside PNG’s long-standing participation in Australia’s Pacific Maritime Security Program, signals a major transformation in the way Port Moresby manages its ocean domain. On the face of it, these partnerships are practical: they give the PNGDF access to vessels, surveillance, and training it cannot afford on its own. For a country with responsibility over 2.4 million square kilometres of sea, such external help is not optional—it is survival.

Yet beneath the rhetoric of “capacity building” and “partnership,” there is a deeper layer that warrants careful scrutiny. All three of PNG’s main maritime security partners—the UK, US, and Australia—are members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance and central actors in the AUKUS security pact. Their motives cannot be divorced from the larger strategic contest in the Indo-Pacific, where maritime access, surveillance reach, and influence over island states are critical pieces in the geopolitical chessboard.

Shiprider MoUs look simple on paper. They authorize PNGDF officers to operate aboard partner vessels, and in return, give those partners a legal pathway to conduct operations in PNG’s waters. The Pacific Maritime Security Program provides Guardian-class patrol boats, aerial surveillance flights, and support infrastructure. But behind these arrangements lies an unmistakable intelligence dividend: every patrol, every radar scan, and every boarding operation contributes not just to PNG’s enforcement needs but also to Five Eyes’ regional monitoring.

This is where my chapter in Blue Security in PNG becomes relevant. I argued that maritime security is no longer just about stopping illegal fishing or smuggling; it is about controlling flows of information, shaping partnerships, and determining who gets to set the rules in the Pacific. The UK’s re-entry, the US’s legal frameworks, and Australia’s constant presence ensure that PNG’s waters are folded into the wider surveillance web of Western powers. While not “hidden” in the cloak-and-dagger sense, these agendas are embedded in the structure of the agreements themselves.

My chapter on Papua New Guinea in Blue Security in the Indo-Pacific (Routledge, 2024) examines the challenges and geopolitics of PNG’s maritime security.

From PNG’s perspective, the benefits are undeniable. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing costs millions annually. Transnational crime syndicates use maritime routes for drugs, arms, and human trafficking. Without foreign patrol boats, aerial surveillance, and joint enforcement, PNG would remain vulnerable. The agreements therefore deliver immediate tactical relief. But the strategic cost is dependency. PNG cannot sustain maritime domain awareness without its partners, and this dependency risks limiting policy choices in future crises.

The shadow of AUKUS adds another dimension. While shiprider agreements are not about nuclear submarines or advanced weapons, they normalize foreign naval access to PNG waters. Today, it is fisheries patrols; tomorrow, it could be logistics support for AUKUS deployments or hosting new surveillance infrastructure. Once established, such pathways are hard to reverse, especially when they are embedded in legal agreements and framed as “partnerships.”

The central policy dilemma is therefore one of balance. How can PNG leverage these arrangements for capacity building without ceding too much sovereignty? How can Port Moresby ensure that shiprider patrols and donated patrol boats serve PNG’s national priorities rather than simply advancing the Five Eyes’ intelligence reach? Unless PNG develops its own maritime strategy, resource base, and independent enforcement capability, the risk is that it becomes a junior partner in someone else’s security game.

Ultimately, these agreements are both help and hidden agenda. They help PNG plug dangerous capability gaps, but they also bind PNG closer to a network of powers whose strategic rivalry with China is intensifying. The lesson from my Blue Security research is clear: PNG must treat every external partnership as both an opportunity and a test of sovereignty. The seas around us are not just our lifeline—they are the arena in which our foreign policy choices will be most visible, and most consequential.