The United States is working to keep China out of Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The New Battle for the Compact States
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Guam
Guam: The Sharpening of the Spear’s Tip
Washington puts the island of Guam, but not the people of Guam, at the center of its military strategy in the Pacific.
Death and Living in the Face of Empire
Julian Aguon’s ‘The Properties of Perpetual Light’ is a thoughtful meditation on how, to understand problems at the center of a colonial society, we have to look at the margins.
These Two Islands, 1,400 Miles Apart, Are Banding Together Against U.S. Bases
Guam and Okinawa have a shared history of exploitation by their governments — and a shared threat from new military installations.
In Guam, the Gravest Threat Isn’t North Korea — It’s the United States
The United States is using this Pacific colony as its own private firing range.
The Asia-Pacific Pivot: More Smoke Than Firepower
The lumbering aircraft carrier known as the United States should be executing a pivot that lives up to its name: a shift from the martial to the pacific.
Open Fire and Open Markets: The Asia-Pacific Pivot and Trans-Pacific Partnership
Thomas Friedman once said the hidden hand of the market needs the hidden fist of the military. The TPP and the Obama administration’s Pacific Pivot pack both.
Reinforcing Washington’s Asia-Pacific Hegemony
A year ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signaled a major transformation in U.S. foreign policy in an article titled “America’s Pacific Century,” which announced the U.S. “pivot” toward Asia, the Pacific, and the strategically important Indian Ocean. The expansion comes at a price for the region’s people.
Making the Invisible Empire Visible
It is the singular misfortune of the residents of Guam and the Northern Marianas to have been born on tiny islands of great strategic value in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The consequence has been their colonial subordination for four centuries to a succession of empires: Spain, the United States, Germany, Japan, and, since the Pacific War, the US again.
Fortress Guam: Resistance to US Military Mega-Buildup
United States presidents rarely visit the U.S. territory of Guam (or Guåhan in the Chamorro language), but President Obama may visit in June 2010. This will be a significant stop for residents of this small island, 30 miles long and eight miles wide, dubbed, “Where America’s day begins.” Guam is the southern-most island in the Northern Mariana chain that also includes Rota, Tinian, and Saipan. It is the homeland of indigenous Chamorro people whose ancestors first came to the islands nearly 4,000 years ago. Formed from two volcanoes, Guam’s rocky core now constitutes an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the United States military in the words of Brig. Gen. Douglas H. Owens, a former commanding officer of Guam’s Andersen Air Force Base.1