229). The John Howard government cemented the lesson as a "significant shift in our dealings with the South Pacific," (quoted in McDougall and Sherman, p. 178) and as a result Australia now effectively reserves the right to step in to maintain (or restore) the rule of law throughout the region.

If anything, Australia's relationship to Papua New Guinea is stronger than its interest in the Solomon Islands (Wainwright 2003, p. 26), given its colonial history there. Somewhat more recently, Australia provided tacit material support for Papua's invasion of the breakaway Bougainville faction (McMillan 1997, p. 8) before the Sandline mercenary scandal and ensuing general strike made policy makers rethink their role in the affair and, by extension, the nightmare prospect of a true state failure in the region:

In today's globalized world, the failure of [a] modern nation state would not simply mean that its people would revert to the...
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