Mahan on my Mind: The Strategic Case for Western Pacific Statehood
Author’s Note: This essay was originally published in August 2020
Between the Hawaiian Islands and the First Island Chain, the US possesses several territories in the Western Pacific that have not yet been afforded the statehood they so deserve. Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) have belonged to the US longer than most Americans have been alive. The arguments for statehood often revolve around proper political representation and putting an end to colonial policies. Those are solid arguments, but I want to make a different kind of argument in this essay. In policymaking, it is too easy to write off territories as expendable, to see them as nothing more as places to land fighter jets and harbor Marines. States, on the other hand, are part of the homeland and require a greater degree of care and consideration. Statehood for our Western Pacific territories should be a part of a greater Indo-Pacific strategy that cements our place in the region. Territories without statehood leave far too much ambiguity and keep Pacific politics from the public eye. If we want to hold our ground against China, we must afford the proper recognition to the ground on which we stand and fight.
The island of Guam is the most strategically important US garrison west of Hawaii. Guam is home not only to tens of thousands of US troops but more than one hundred thousand American citizens. Guamanians are Americans and not only do they host a US joint base, they serve in the US military with as much honor and distinction as any other American. Located on the Second Island Chain, Guam is our territorial frontline against China. If war breaks out, the first ChiCom strikes on American soil will not be on Hawaii but on Guam. The Second Island Chain is the final gate to the greater Pacific region for China. If war breaks out, Guam may very well be our Verdun, a bloody fight to prevent an enemy breakout into a far more maneuverable battlespace. In granting Guam statehood, we are signaling a long-term, unquestionable commitment to the Pacific far beyond the Hawaiian Islands; integrating the US into the community of the Western Pacific in a way not seen since pre-Filipino independence. Guam would no longer be the standalone US garrison in the middle of the Western Pacific Ocean but the sharpened edge of the American republic with all the rights, privileges, and recognition that its citizens deserve.
The CNMI and American Samoa are of equal importance to the US Pacific strategy as Guam but for a different reason. In preparation for a Sino-American war, the US military has begun to focus on spreading its forces across the Pacific in order to limit damage from ChiCom strikes at the outbreak of the war and in order to harass Chinese forces as they move across the Pacific. This amphibious insurgency depends on the availability of land, ports, and supplies in the Western Pacific. The territorial islands of CNMI and American Samoa are not only potential locations for such basing, but they are the historic sites of American battles in the march across the Pacific against the Japanese. The US Marine Corps, aware of its own history and the coming China fight, has revamped its warfighting doctrine with the Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) concept which includes plans to distribute forces across the Pacific in the event of war. As China buys up ports, airfields, and whole islands across the Western Pacific, our own territories face the possibility of enemy action from within their local neighborhood. Making statehood a reality for the CNMI and American Samoa not only reaffirms our commitment to their security but will help shift resources to their defense and pushes back against ChiCom disruption of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
The more Americans know about their national security, the more likely they are to make informed decisions in support of our efforts to confront an ambitious and aggressive Beijing in the Pacific. When the American people see that our fellow Americans are under immediate threat, they will feel more invested in the outcome of US-China policy. No one makes the case that Hawaii shouldn’t be defended even though it’s thousands of miles from the American mainland, but the same cannot be said of our smaller islands closer to Beijing. Most Americans aren’t even taught what or where our Pacific territories are, let alone who lives there and why they matter to us.
And they do matter to us.
Americans don’t have the time to learn all the nuances of Sino-American relations, but they can and will understand what it means for the US to be threatened by a foreign power. Suddenly a new covert ChiCom outpost in the Pacific is now a ChiCom outpost within range of an American state. Americans pay attention when the homeland is under threat, and our territories deserve that same association.
Some will argue that the population of the combined territories is not enough to justify appropriate representation, or that they should not be absorbed into the union on account of imperialism and instead should be released as free countries. However, the population needed for admittance is up to Congress and the strategic significance of the islands should be considered in addition to other requirements. Moreover, admitting the territories into the union would remove the colonial restrictions on representation and resourcing that already exist on the islands. In admitting the islands to our union, we would not only be putting ourselves on a better footing in the Indo-Pacific, we would be giving our fellow Americans equal footing in America. Why should we throw Americans to the wind when they have fought and died for the union which we currently deny them? The voices of the territorial representatives will have equal weight in Congress and therefore they will be better able to bring the security concerns of the islands to the American people. The territories and their inhabitants are on the frontline of the new cold war and their elevation to statehood would be beneficial not only to them but to the whole of American security.
Too often, the China fight is criticized as a struggle far beyond America’s shores, but our territory and people are right there in the Western and Central Pacific. In granting statehood to our Pacific territories, we demonstrate to our allies that we will not be fair-weather friends in defending them from Beijing. In addition, we demonstrate to Beijing that there is no question of our place in the Indo-Pacific, that we will not cede territory for peace. Every encroachment by Beijing with a new debt-trap base or fishing fleet is an encroachment upon the homeland. Our Pacific territories are as symbolically important in statehood as they are strategically critical to containing ChiCom expansion in the Pacific. If we want to contain Beijing’s advances, we must build a strong frontline.
That starts with granting statehood to our Pacific territories.
