Upon the scaffolding of the new submarine deal, the AUKUS security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States gives the first real heft to the idea of an American “pivot” to the Pacific, first proposed early in the Obama administration but until now never meaningfully advanced.

In the past decade, the United States, European Union, Australia, Spain and Italy have reacted to spikes in immigration by striking deals that outsource border control to their neighbors. But do these arrangements even work to stem refugee flows, or is it simply throwing “good money after bad”?