Papua New Guinea (PNG) Customs Service and U.S. Coast Guard personnel prepare to conduct fisheries boardings during bilateral patrols in PNG in March 2025. IMAGE CREDIT: PETTY OFFICER 3RD CLASS JENNIFER NILSON/U.S. COAST GUARD

Indo-Pacific Defense Forum reports,

The refurbishment of a key naval base and joint initiatives with Australia and the United States underscore Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) enhanced defense posture.

The upgrades to the PNG Defence Force’s (PNGDF) Lombrum Naval Base, which U.S. forces can access under the nations’ Defense Cooperation Agreement, are evidence of the growing ties among the three partners. Other developments include expanded military exercises and training, and a proposed defense pact between Australia and PNG that would allow each nation’s troops to serve in the other’s forces.

The increasing bilateral and trilateral engagements come amid Beijing’s push to expand its influence in the Pacific Islands.

Lombrum Naval Base. Screen grab from Google Earth.

This may not seem like it would involve the Coast Guard but it has.

The deployment followed the arrival of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Midgett in the PNG capital, Port Moresby, under the nations’ maritime law enforcement agreement, known as a shiprider, according to the U.S. Embassy. The mission will enhance maritime security, particularly against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, which is a major threat to coastal communities’ livelihoods.

The USCGC Oliver Henry (WPC 1140) crew arrives in Manus, Papua New Guinea, on Aug. 14, 2022, from Guam as part of a patrol headed south to assist partner nations in upholding and asserting their sovereignty while protecting U.S. national interests. The U.S. Coast Guard is participating with partners to support the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency-led Operation Island Chief and the larger Operation Blue Pacific through patrols in the Western Pacific in August and September 2022. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by SW3 Victor Villanueva, NMCB-FOUR)

The US shares with Papua New Guinea a desire to prevent Illegal, Unregulated, Unreported (IUU) fishing and has a history of cooperation with Papua New Guinea.

Coast Guard bases to support cutters that patrol the Western Pacific are limited to Hawaii in the central Pacific and Guam 3,434 nautical miles (6,360 km) to the West. Manus Island is 938 nautical miles (1737 km) South of Guam and 3,530 nautical miles (6,540 km) WSW of Honolulu.

Map of EEZs in the Central Pacific showing significance of Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. (© Cleo Pascal.)

The geographic names in the area are familiar to students of the Second World War in the Pacific. Manus was a major Allied supply base.

The explosion of the U.S. Navy ammunition ship USS Mount Hood (AE-11) in Seeadler Harbor, Manus, Admiralty Islands on 10 November 1944. The smoke trails are left by fragments ejected by the explosion. The cause of the explosion could not be determined.