From Strategic Denial to Strategic Reclamation: “Mothballed” Micronesia

This article first appeared in the SiC Report “Rethinking Insecurity in the Blue Pacific Region.“ Click here to access the introduction and a full PDF download of the Report.

By Kenneth Gofigan Kuper

Introduction 

On August 6, 1945, the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, resulting in the first use of atomic weapons during war. This disastrously momentous occasion originated in the island of Tinian, part of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The Enola Gay took off from Tinian’s North Field, and the Bockscar, which dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima was bombed, also took off from Tinian. After World War II, the United States made an agreement with the Northern Marianas to lease 17,799 acres of Tinian to carry out US defense responsibilities, inclusive of North Field. Now, due to strategic competition with China, the US is once again looking to use these airfields and facilities it used during World War II. In 2023, former commander of the Pacific Air Forces, Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said the US military was “reclaiming” these airfields from overgrown jungle. Brig. Gen. Michael Zuhlsdorf, commented, “We’re going to capitalize in investing in that and bringing some of those…bases to life. We’re going to bring to life some mothballed bases that are out there.”¹ What is happening in Tinian represents a larger shift in US strategic thinking about and operations in the islands of Micronesia. Due to competition with China, the US military is shifting to more distributed and dispersed operations, leading the United States to “reclaim mothballed” facilities it once used in Micronesia. In this essay, I analyze the genealogy of this strategic reclamation that will affect the security of the subregion and the people who call it home.

Strategic Denial and Micronesia

The subregion of Oceania known as Micronesia is no stranger to the US military. While many parts of Oceania were used during World War II for US military operations, none figured more prominently into post-World War II strategic thinking than Micronesia. As a subregion, Micronesia consists of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (currently US territories) and three countries in free association with the United States (the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia).² While the US had sovereign control over Guam since 1898, the rest of Micronesia would fall under US administration via the United Nations’ Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI). After World War II, American military planners became convinced that a key component to American security in East Asia was turning the Pacific Basin into an “American Lake.” Controlling Micronesia would allow the military access to mobile forces and island bases in the region and the islands would help constitute a base network from which offensives could be launched. Furthermore, military planners argued that these chains of islands in Micronesia should be controlled, even if they were not to be developed into bases, simply so that they can be “denied” to others. This strategic denial would balance military security needs with potential domestic concerns on overspending on the development of the islands into bases.³ As outlined by historian Hal Friedman, “The strategic denial of entire island chains, or strategic physical complexes, from other powers was now considered important as a secondary means of defense against potential future enemies.”⁴ This objective was achieved through the TTPI and its subsequent political arrangements.  

The dissolution of the TTPI resulted in the creation of the CNMI and the three freely associated states. Each of these arrangements, the Covenant with the CNMI and the respective Compacts of Free Association with Palau, the FSM, and the Marshall Islands, calls for the US to be responsible for these islands’ defense. The US is also able to establish military installations and facilities in the freely associated states (FAS) (although it really has only done this in the Marshall Islands, particularly Kwajalein). In doing so, the US effectively achieved the strategic denial it sought. Although independent countries, the Compacts of Free Association contain provisions that deny third countries access to or use of FAS land, airspace, or territorial seas for military purposes. Strategic denial allows the freely associated states to act as important buffers between military bases in Guam and East Asia. As some have argued, “Strategic denial, therefore, remains a prudent ‘insurance policy’ for US security in the Pacific.”⁵ Reinforcing this, Siddharth Mohandas, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, said, “The defense rights guaranteed by the compact agreements provide security not only for the compact states, but for the broader Pacific Islands region and for the US homeland, as well.”⁶ Yet, as the Tinian story illustrates, strategic denial is no longer enough: the US military is now planning to use the islands, not just deny them to others.

Distribution, Dispersal, and Micronesia

In April 2020, five B-52 bombers, six KC-135 tankers, a MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter, a RQ-4 Global Hawk, and a MQ-4c Triton participated in an elephant walk on Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. This elephant walk was meant to symbolize the end of Continuous Bomber Presence (CPB) in Guam. From 2004-2020, the US Air Force regularly rotated the deployment of B-52s, B-1s, and B-2s to Guam, ensuring that there was a deployment of some bombers at all times in the island. However, in 2020, this practice ended abruptly. Responding to the end of CBP, STRATCOM remarked, “We will maximize all opportunities to train alongside our allies and partners to build interoperability and bolster our collective ability to be operationally unpredictable.”⁷ This decision represented a shift in US strategic planning for the region that would have significant ramifications for Micronesia. 

The end of CBP aligned with the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS). The 2018 NDS made it clear that the priority for the military was interstate strategic competition and not terrorism, and because of this shift, a restructuring in the military was needed. To do this, the military needed to become strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable. The NDS summary states, “Our dynamic force employment, military posture, and operations must introduce unpredictability to adversary decision-makers. We will challenge competitors by maneuvering them into unfavorable positions, frustrating their efforts…and forcing them to confront conflict under adverse conditions.”⁸ This new geopolitical environment has led to the development of operating concepts within each service branch for more distributed combat and logistical operations. These include the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE), the Marine Corps’ Expeditionary Advanced Basing Operations (EABO), the Army’s Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), and the Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO). At their core, all of these developing operating concepts “represent attempts to reduce the vulnerability of air, naval, and ground forces and increase their effectiveness against an adversary able to credibly disrupt, contest, or deny US control of the battlespace”⁹ and follow certain characteristics: being rapid, agile, dispersed, technology-enabled, all-domain, and deceptive. 

One relevant example to Micronesia is the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE), defined as “a proactive and reactive operational scheme of maneuver executed within threat timelines to increase survivability while generating combat power.”¹⁰ During the Cold War, the Air Force had bases that were once sanctuaries, but new weapons systems and peer competitors are now placing these bases at risk and making them more vulnerable. Once, US posture had been seen as a deterrent to adversaries. Today, US  bases and posture in the region are associated with targeting risk. “Advances in missile guidance and related technologies now offer US adversaries a means to attack US air bases (both major peacetime bases and expeditionary locations) without first defeating the Air Force in the air.”¹¹ To counter these advances , ACE seeks to complicate the enemy’s targeting process which will subsequently create flexibility for the military and other friendly forces.      

Servicemembers must be able to execute operations from various locations swiftly. As the concept note describes, “ACE shifts operations from centralized physical infrastructures to a network of smaller, dispersed locations that can complicate adversary planning and provide more options for joint force commanders.”¹² In turn, ACE means spreading servicemembers and military assets across a larger swath of locations and operating environments, so they are not concentrated in one central location. The more operating locations the Air Force has to work from, the less damage that can be done to US air operations with a single ground attack in one location. By moving forces to “predetermined, dispersed locations” and back to “enduring locations,” friendly forces will achieve operational momentum. Although ACE is most directly relevant to Micronesia, distributed concepts of other branches are also applicable. For example, the Marine Corps’ EABO emphasizes having mobile expeditionary forces use austere, temporary locations ashore or inshore within a contested or potentially contested maritime area. 

US military emphasis on distribution and dispersal then, is predicated on having both enduring locations (which support ongoing activities and interests on a permanent basis) as well as contingency locations (CL) (which provide temporary support for contingency operations). The latter of the two  can be referred to as “places” as opposed to “bases.” As noted by Lt. Gen Jon T. Thomas of the US Air Force, 

“These places are what the ‘bases’ are not—alternate locations, sometimes remote, often austere, but with sufficient infrastructure to support maneuver and sustainment should use of these alternative operating locations become necessary.  The key reason for these places is to permit dispersal of US, allied, and partner forces, reducing the concentration of assets at the MOBs and, thereby, increasing survivability and the ability to operate.”¹³ 

Essentially, there is emphasis on the creation of a hub and spokes system with the enduring location serving as the hub and contingency locations as the spokes. 

The emphasis on securing austere locations as contingency locations is a primary motivation in the US military’s move to “reclaim” Micronesia and begin preparing the islands for potential use. It is this reorientation to dispersed locations that catalyzes the move from strategic denial to strategic reclamation. This is where one sees the important aspect of the FAS in Micronesia: to act as “more places” to operate from and utilize the relevant provisions of the respective Compacts. For the US, the islands of Micronesia can no longer just be places that are denied to others; rather, they now have to be utilized. 

Geopolitical changes require the United States to adapt its force posture in the Indo-Pacific region. With the search for  more “places” to operate from comes anxiety over access to US  military bases in the case of kinetic conflict with a country like China. Would a long-standing ally like Japan allow the US military to operate from its bases there in the case of conflict with China? Some argue that allies would not seek to join the US in such a kinetic conflict. As Daniel Larison writes in Responsible Statecraft, “The allies’ reluctance to take part in a major war that they are not obliged to fight is understandable. All of them stand to lose a great deal if they took up arms against China, and they have no compelling reason to join such a conflict.”¹⁴ This is a serious concern for the United States and is where Micronesia provides a strategic advantage. Unlike host nations like Japan or South Korea, territories and FAS in Micronesia provide stable access for the United States via the Compacts of Free Association or by essence of being a territory. As I explained in a separate piece, a RAND report on ground-based intermediate-range missiles (GBIRM) assessed that it was “very unlikely allies in the Indo-Pacific would be willing to host these systems. In considering four alternatives, one of them was to place them in Guam and the FAS. If no US ally is willing to host, the sentiment is that the US can always rely on Micronesia. The argument is that the special political relationships the islands have with the US reduces the obstacle of having their governments refuse to host the GBIRM systems.”¹⁵

The Role of Guam

In order to comprehensively understand how Micronesia is being used in this new age of distribution and dispersal, one must understand the increasing vulnerability of Guam. The island of Guam has served US strategic purposes for more than 100 years. Originally a coaling station for the Navy, after World War II, the island would become a major military asset for US military operations in the West Pacific. Guam, an unincorporated territory of the United States, plays a role in power projection, logistics, deterrence, and credibility. The island is host to major military installations such as Marine Corps Camp Blaz, Naval Base Guam, and Andersen Air Force Base, which will be especially important in any conflict involving Taiwan. As described by Lt Gen Stephen Sklenka, USINDOPACOM Deputy Commander, “Guam is a place where our combat power will aggregate and congregate and from which it will emanate…from there we send a powerful strategic message to our allies and our adversaries that the United States has invested in this region.”¹⁶

Yet, it is precisely Guam’s role as a strategic hub that makes it vulnerable. Some have observed, “China has invested in a vast regional missile arsenal increasingly capable of holding Guam at risk, and correspondingly, also increasingly rendering it a liability rather than an asset provided it is not protected by an advanced missile defense system.”¹⁷ Even members of Congress have commented on Guam’s vulnerability, noting, “Despite its strategic importance, Guam remains highly vulnerable to an increasingly sophisticated network of missiles from the People’s Republic of China.”¹⁸ Guam is now within range of certain PLA missiles such as the DF-26 intermediate-range ballistic missiles (which some have dubbed the “Guam Killer”) as well as various cruise missiles. This has led to the US military arguing for 360-degree missile defense of the island, although there are significant feasibility issues on how to accomplish this as well as local concerns on how it will affect Guam. 

Thus, in the case of conflict between the US and China, Guam’s intended role is more to be the first line of attack, rather than the first line of defense. We can see this through a recent CSIS report.¹⁹ In each of 24 war game iterations, China attacks Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. Even in the most optimistic scenario for the United States, China tries to attack air bases in Guam as part of the first phase of conflict. It is clear that if or when tensions between the US and China turn kinetic, Guam and Taiwan are frighteningly entangled. 

Guam’s vulnerability, then, acts as an impetus for the US military to find places to operate from if Guam, especially Andersen Air Force Base, is no longer usable. At the end of the day, distribution and dispersal in Micronesia is rooted in the question, “what do we do if Guam is compromised?” We can see this as the military emphasized Guam’s importance as a command-and-control node for operations and activities across the Guam cluster (Guam, CNMI, Wake Island, and Midway Island and the FAS). This is perhaps best expressed by former Joint Region Marianas Commander Nicholson, who said, in reference to improving Yap’s airport runway, “It’s very helpful if we have multiple places throughout the region that if a threat materializes, we can shift forces and operate from those areas” which was “much more efficient than having more permanent bases all over the place.”²⁰ 

“Reclaiming Micronesia:” Military Activity in Micronesia

The factor of Guam’s vulnerability has led to the military developing a divert airfield in the island of Tinian. A divert airfield is meant to support training and ensure aircraft could meet mission requirements if access to other airfields in the region was limited. In the case of Tinian, the divert airfield is primarily a contingency plan. According to DOD officials, “The purpose of the initiative is to establish additional divert capabilities to support training activities, while ensuring the capability to meet mission requirements in the event access to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, or other western Pacific locations is limited or denied.”²¹ The US plans to spend $79 million in fiscal year 2024 for airfield developments, fuel tank and pipeline installation, as well as parking apron. The Air Force has also been practicing Agile Combat Employment in Tinian, such as the “Agile Reaper” exercise in March 2023 where F-22 Raptors operated out of Tinian’s airport. Together, the Air Force hopes to turn Tinian into a large and functional place for agile-combat-employment. From the site of the atomic bomb runway to this new reclamation, Tinian is set to be used in the case of conflict in this region by the United States as a place ‘they can go that is ready for them.’

In Palau, the US military is also ramping up activity and is now more regularly including Palau in joint exercises, such as Northern Edge 23-2 where the combined Joint Force reportedly practiced in a degraded environment and discovered forward-thinking ways to set up and execute operations. Furthermore, as part of the Valiant Shield exercise in June 2022, the US Army Pacific’s 1^st Battalion fired the Patriot missile defense system to shoot down a dummy cruise missile in the Pacific. Two Pac-2 Patriot interceptors launched from Palau intercepted a cruise missile target over 20 miles from the island. This was the first time the system was launched from Palau and according to a spokesperson from the 94^th Air and Missile Defense Command was “the first time a Patriot had combined with a stealth fighter for a live-fire drill outside of testing in the US. ”²² A year later, in July 2023, the US Army conducted another Patriot missile live-fire exercise from Palau. 

These tests of the Patriot system may have also led to Palau’s president, Surangel Whipps Jr., requesting for the permanent deployment of the Patriot system to the country, saying that the close relationship that Palau has with the United States makes it a target of possible attack. “We are already a target. The targets are the radar sites, the port, the airport, and the facilities that the United States can use in times of conflict. So, we are just saying, if we are already a target, make sure our country is defended and defended with the best defenses possible.”²³ In doing so, he also likened Palau to Guam, saying that Palau deserves the same protection as Guam. This proposal has been opposed by Palau’s Senate whose president, Hokkons Baules, remarked, “Permanent basing of purely military weapons in the Republic of Palau is not consistent with our nation’s history as an independent country, and not consistent with any current threats to Palau’s sovereignty or security.”²⁴ 

President Whipps’ fear of being a target stems from Palau being chosen to host a Tactical Multi Mission Over the Radar System in Palau, to enhance Air Domain Awareness. This system will consist of rows of massive, interconnected antennas that broadcast high-frequency radio signals. According to the Environmental Impact Statement for the transmitter facility, “Construction of the TACMOR system would enable the US government to conserve or redirect manpower, fuel, and defense resources otherwise spent on ships and aircraft that have traditionally been used to monitor the regional air domain.”²⁵ The US has argued that this radar system will be beneficial to both Palau and the US as it will promote a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific.’ However, some in Palau are resisting the process by which this radar is being built. On the receiver site, Angaur, the local government sued the Palau and US government and on the transmitter site, Ngaraard, leaders are disappointed with the consultation process. The group, Allies of Micronesia, reported that military personnel have begun clearcutting on Angaur Island without completing an environmental impact statement.

In the Federated States of Micronesia, as a result of a Joint Consultation meeting with the US, the airport and seaport in Yap will continue to be improved with reported air defense assets for Yap airport. The military plans to spend $37 million for International Airport Runway Rehabilitation which will include the removal and resurfacing of the airport’s runway pavement as well the removal of an earth mound that is obstructing the view between the runway and the taxiway. While currently seeing less activity than Palau, this does not rule out the FSM’s role in future US military operations. In a recent Axios interview, FSM Senator Peter Christian said, “I doubt very much that China will go to the US and fight a war. I doubt that the US will go to China and start a war. But they might fight here.”²⁶ The potential for kinetic conflict or for preparing our islands for potential conflict cannot be ignored. We, in Micronesia must pay vigorous attention to these developments as they unravel.  

All of these developments in Micronesia pose real questions for the security of the islands and islanders who call them home. First, the US military emphasis on distribution and dispersal does not simply refer to assets. Rather, inherently entangled with the dispersal of assets is the dispersal of risk. As the case of Guam outlined above shows, the presence of the US military inevitably comes with targeting risk. For the rest of Micronesia, becoming operating spokes for the US military means being potentially dragged into a conflict not of their own making. Palau President Whipps’ desire  for Patriot missiles illustrates this dilemma: he  acknowledges fully that US facilities, including the radar system, will make Palau a target. However, his solution deserves further debate; he wants the Patriot system in Palau because ‘presence is deterrence.’ Others, however, worry about militarization. In response to the radar project, 10 Palauan youth publicly commented, “The impacts of the military worry us – not just the environmental impacts but also how militarization affects our communities. As youth, we are the ones who will feel the consequences of the choices made today. That is why we feel that our voices should be heard in making these decisions.”²⁷ 

This dynamic between targeting and deterrence, spurred by the spread of risk associated with US military distributed and dispersed operations, will be a key factor in the security horizon for Micronesia. In a recent Congressional Research Service report on the Indo-Pacific, the author harkens back to the international relations concept, the security dilemma, to help define the geopolitical landscape of the larger region. The core of the security dilemma is that effort for one state to increase its own security threatens other states, which in turn may actually decrease the security of the state, rather than increase it. Even if each state says they are only taking defensive measures, there is not an incentive for trusting the stated intentions of other states. This becomes a problem that may lead to an escalation spiral. The distribution of risk that is occurring in Micronesia forces one to consider what role this subregion of Oceania will play in escalating tensions or potential kinetic conflict between the US and China. Is US military activity making Micronesia more secure or less secure?

In September of 2023, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, Spokesperson for the Chinese Defense Ministry commented on US military operations in Guam, saying, “As for Guam … its security depends on what role the US wants Guam to play. If Guam were to be an outpost to wage wars, it would not be secure even if it were armed to the teeth.”²⁸ Only time will tell if a similar scenario develops when it comes to the rest of US-affiliated Micronesia. What was once just denied to others, is now being utilized. What was once “mothballed” is no more. Micronesia and Micronesians will have to grapple with this “strategic reclamation.” Our security is at stake.

Footnotes

1: Seth Robson, “Air Force plans return to WWII-era Pacific airfield on Tinian,” Stars and Stripes, December 27, 2023, accessed at https://www.stripes.com/branches/air_force/2023-12-26/tinian-airfield-reclaimed-wwii-air-force-12473942.html.

2: Geographically, Micronesia also includes the Republic of Kiribati and the Republic of Nauru, but their colonial histories and relationship with the US are different from the rest of Micronesia, and are thus not analyzed in this essay.

3: Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, “The Compacts of Free Association (Part I),” Guam Daily Post, April 6, 2023, Accessed at https://www.postguam.com/forum/featured_columnists/the-compacts-of-free-association-part-i/article_6ff8336c-d349-11ed-af65-b70a047010a2.html.

4: Hal M. Friedman, Creating an American Lake: United States Imperialism and Strategic Security in the Pacific Basin, Praeger, 2000.

5: John Fairlamb, “Compact of Free Association Negotiations: Fulfilling the Promise,” June 2001, Accessed at https://www.fsmgov.org/comp_per.html.

6: Jim Garamone, “DOD Official Highlights Importance of Pacific Island Nations,” DOD News, July 20, 2023, accessed at https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3466096/dod-official-highlights-importance-of-pacific-island-nations/.

7: Joseph Trevithick, “The Air Force Abruptly Ends Continuous Bomber Presence On Guam After 16 Years,” The Drive, April 17, 2020, accessed at https://www.twz.com/33057/the-continuous-strategic-bomber-presence-mission-to-guam-has-abruptly-ended-after-16-years.

8: Department of Defense, “Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America.”

9: Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Defense Infrastructure in the IndoPacific: Background and Issues for Congress,” June 6, 2023.

10: United States Air Force, Air Force Doctrine Note 1-21 “Agile Combat Employment,” August 23, 2022, pg. 3.

11: Miranda Priebe, Alan J. Vick, Jacob L. Heim, Meagan L. Smith, “Distributed Operations in a Contested Environment: Implications for USAF Force Presentation,” RAND Corporation, 2019

12: Ibid, pg. 7.

13: Lt Gen Jon T. Thomas, “Bases, Places, and Faces: Operational Maneuver and Sustainment in the Indo-Pacific Region, Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs, April 8, 2021, accessed at https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/JIPA/Display/Article/2565134/bases-places-and-faces-operational-maneuver-and-sustainment-in-the-indo-pacific/.

14: Daniel Larison, “War with China over Taiwan? Don’t expect US allies to join,” Responsible Statecraft, July 17, 2023, accessed at https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/07/17/war-with-china-over-taiwan-dont-expect-us-allies-to-join/.

15: Kenneth Gofigan Kuper, “Security in Micronesia: Navigating a Violent Geography,” National Bureau of Asian Research, March 21, 2023, accessed at https://www.nbr.org/publication/security-in-micronesia-navigating-a-violent-geography/.

16: US Indo-Pacific Command, “Time for Guam Missile Defense Build-Up is Now,” December 9, 2021, accessed at https://www.pacom.mil/Media/News/News-Article-View/Article/2867950/time-for-guam-missile-defense-build-up-is-now/.

17: Patty-Jane Geller, “Defense of Guam: Don’t Let an Asset in Deterring a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan become a Liability,” Hudson Institute, 2022, pg. 22.

18: Select Committee on the CCP, “Chairman Gallagher Urges Army to Defend Guam from Chinese Missiles,” November 13, 2023, accessed at https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/media/press-releases/chairman-gallagher-urges-army-defend-guam-chinese-missiles.

19: Mark F. Cancian, Matthew Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, January 2023.

20: Mar-Vic Cagurangan, “US eyes Yap for regional defense plans,” Pacific Island Times, Feb 28, 2022, accessed at https://www.pacificislandtimes.com/post/us-eyes-yap-for-regional-defense-plans.

21: Oriana Pawlyk, “U.S. Pacific Air Forces chooses Tinian Island as divert airfield,” Air Force Times, Feb 12, 2016, accessed at https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2016/02/11/u-s-pacific-air-forces-chooses-tinian-island-as-divert-airfield/.

22: Seth Robson, “Patriot missiles down drone target from Palau with assist from Lightning II,” Stars and Stripes, June 16, 2022, accessed at https://www.stripes.com/branches/army/2022-06-16/palau-patriot-f-35-drone-6358533.html.

23: L.N. Reklai, “Patriot missile plan stirs debate in Palau,” Radio Free Asia, October 4, 2023, accessed at https://www.rfa.org/english/news/pacific/palau-missile-10042023223611.html.

24: The Straits Times, “US missile defence proposal stirs debate in Palau,” December 21, 2023, accessed at https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/us-missile-defense-proposal-stirs-debate-in-palau.

25: Pacific Air Forces, “ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT FOR TACTICAL MULTI-MISSION OVER-THE- HORIZON RADAR TRANSMITTER FACILITY, BABELDAOB ISLAND, REPUBLIC OF PALAU,” July 2023.

26: Dave Lawler, “China’s push for influence in Micronesia tests U.S. power in the Pacific,” Axios, November 29, 2023, accessed at https://www.axios.com/2023/11/29/chinas-push-for-influence-in-micronesia-tests-us-power-in-the-pacific.

27: Center for Biological Diversity, “U.S. Military Expands Palau Base Without Environmental Review,” Press Release, November 2023.

28: Ministry of National Defense of People’s Republic of China, “US continued forward military deployment in Asia-Pacific increases regional tensions: Defense Spokesperson,” August 31, 2023, accessed at http://eng.mod.gov.cn/xb/News_213114/NewsRelease/16249146.html.

Kenneth Gofigan Kuper is Associate Professor of Political Science and Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam’s Micronesian Area Research Center, where he runs their international relations research agenda. He is also the co-founder of the Pacific Center for Island Security based in Guam, which provides island and islander perspectives to geopolitical maneuvering in the Pacific Islands, particularly Micronesia.