Vijay Naidu of the University of the South Pacific argues that the Australian Defence White Paper 2009 “does not successfully incorporate Australia's foreign and economic policies in its immediate neighbourhood as a possible source of instability and security risk."

It "proposes the use of ADF with other partners to stabilize countries with fragile states." But, Naidu notes, "there is more than one type of fragile state generating security problems in the neighbourhood. Will Australia supply material support to Indonesia to maintain its territorial integrity?" Naidu argues that "the fragility of Pacific states is in many cases largely the result of the one size fits all neo-liberal economic reforms pushed on small island states of the Pacific by Australia and New Zealand". Australia’s security, concludes Naidu, "lies in assisting development efforts through an approach characterized by enlightened self interest rather than imposing 'Pacific solutions' backed by the threat of using the ADF on missions to stabilize fragile states."