Opinion | Tonga’s 2025 National Security Policy: A Strategic Overreach with Constitutional Consequences
Tevita Motulalao
The 2025 National Security Policy (NSP), launched by Prime Minister Eke earlier this year, has been presented as a milestone in modern governance. In the author’s assessment, however, the document represents a serious strategic and constitutional misstep. Beneath its polished “whole-of-society” language lies a framework that risks institutional overreach, raises fundamental questions about the allocation of constitutional authority, and accelerates the securitisation of areas of public life traditionally governed through civil, social and political processes.
Rather than strengthening Tonga’s resilience, the NSP arguably creates new structural vulnerabilities by attempting to formalise and centralise matters that have historically been managed through constitutional convention, royal prerogative and strategic restraint.
At the core of the policy’s weakness is its conceptual overreach. By adopting a broad “human security” approach—one that extends national security to encompass health, education, climate resilience and economic wellbeing—the NSP collapses distinctions that are critical to effective statecraft. Security theorists have long cautioned that when everything is treated as a security issue, prioritisation becomes impossible. In such settings, institutions designed to respond to existential threats risk being diverted into managing routine governance challenges.
This is not merely a theoretical concern. A security apparatus that treats climate-induced crop failure or public health shortages with the same urgency as maritime incursions or external coercion risks diluting its strategic focus. In geopolitical terms, the inability to differentiate between high-order and lower-order threats weakens deterrence and undermines credibility.
The NSP also raises concerns about institutional design and capacity. Its architecture appears aligned with externally driven policy “mapping” frameworks rather than Tonga’s specific constitutional arrangements. The result is an expanded bureaucratic footprint—often donor-funded—engaging in strategic planning and coordination functions that may exceed existing mandates and expertise. While donor engagement and regional cooperation are not inherently problematic, policy structures shaped primarily by external templates can foster administrative dependency rather than sovereign capability.
Tonga’s historical strength has lain in its informal but effective conventions: high-level diplomacy, calibrated ambiguity, and the disciplined separation of political authority. Replacing these with rigid, standardised frameworks risks substituting adaptability with compliance, particularly where interoperability with larger regional partners becomes an implicit design objective.
More significantly, the NSP raises constitutional questions regarding the locus of authority over national security. Under the 1875 constitutional settlement, the responsibility for securing the realm rests with the Crown, exercised through the King-in-Council. This is not a ceremonial arrangement but a foundational safeguard within Tonga’s system of government. Recent institutional developments, including the establishment of the His Majesty’s Diplomatic Service, have reaffirmed the principle that strategic direction emanates from the Crown, with the executive operating within that framework.
Against this background, the NSP can be read as attempting to redefine the national security calculus through executive policy rather than through royal commission or primary legislation. Proposals discussed in policy settings for bodies such as a National Security Council or strategic coordination units within the Prime Minister’s Office—while not yet established by law—illustrate the risk of creating parallel decision-making structures without clear constitutional grounding or parliamentary oversight. Such arrangements, if pursued, would warrant careful scrutiny.
The policy also departs from Tonga’s long-standing foreign policy posture of “Friends to All, Enemy of None.” That approach relied on strategic ambiguity, allowing the Kingdom to navigate regional power dynamics without binding itself to explicit security alignments. By articulating specific partnership conditions and security expectations, the NSP risks signalling exclusions where none previously existed. In a contested regional environment, such signalling may invite external pressure rather than reduce it.
Historical experience offers further caution. The post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” demonstrated how expansive security definitions can normalise exceptional measures, often at the expense of civil liberties and constitutional restraint. In states with limited accountability mechanisms, broad securitisation has frequently preceded surveillance overreach, politicisation of dissent, and erosion of rights. The NSP’s expansive threat landscape may unintentionally provide a rationale for extraordinary measures in areas that would traditionally fall within ordinary law and policy.
The policy’s emphasis on inclusive public consultation through “talanoa” likewise warrants reconsideration. While public engagement is essential in many areas of governance, national security occupies a distinct category. It requires specialised analysis, controlled information environments and clear lines of authority. Without careful boundaries, open-ended consultation risks politicising threat perception and exposing security deliberations to partisan or external influence.
A more sustainable approach would involve a return to first principles. Any reconfiguration of national security institutions should be grounded in legislation enacted by the Legislative Assembly, with clearly defined mandates, judicial safeguards and parliamentary oversight. Existing laws governing secrecy, classification and foreign influence may warrant review and modernisation, but such reforms should proceed through transparent legislative processes rather than policy proclamation.
Above all, the strategic calculus of the Kingdom should remain anchored in the King-in-Council, consistent with constitutional convention and historical practice. Tonga’s security has endured not because it has attempted to securitise every challenge, but because it has known where authority lies, what truly constitutes an existential threat, and how to preserve strategic flexibility in a complex region.
True national security does not emerge from expansive policy documents alone. It depends on a compact, disciplined and constitutionally grounded system that understands both what it is protecting and to whom it is accountable. The 2025 National Security Policy, while well-intentioned, raises questions that merit serious reconsideration before its frameworks are entrenched in practice.
