Posted by
Bert Chapman on Tuesday, September 21, 2010 6:07:14 PM
In 1898, as part of the Spanish-American War, the U.S. acquired the Philippines and the island territory of Guam. Following World War II, the Philippines gained independence and hosted a significant U.S. military presence until the early 1990s. Guam has remained a U.S. territory with an estimated 2009 population of 178,000. It also hosts a growing U.S. military presence including Andersen Air Force Base and a naval base. The impending withdrawal of some U.S. troops from the southern Japanese island of Okinawa will see these troops transferred to Guam.
As a U.S. territory, Guam is administered by the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs. It has an elected governor and territorial legislature as well as an elected congressional delegate who serves on congressional committees but does not have House floor voting power. It has been 51 years since Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the union and I believe it's time for Guam to become the 51st state. My reasons for this are geopolitical. Guam is located within a few hours flying time of Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, China, the Korean Peninsula, and the Philippines. The 2010 Defense Department report on Chinese military power features a map on p. 23 listing Guam and the U.S. administered Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands as being within the 2nd island chain of a Chinese maritime defense perimeter. This is intolerable! We cannot let China think it has a manifest destiny to threaten U.S. military dominance of the western pacific by extending its hegemonic aspirations to well beyond any reasonable coastal defense limits.
We must also remember that we have defense treaty obligations to Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan that would be threatened if China controls these seas or airspace. In addition, the Western Pacific and South China Sea's increasing importance in international trade and energy supplies would also be jeopardized if China is allowed to gain control of this area.
We also must be aware of the need to rapidly deploy U.S. and other allied forces to this region if North Korea engages in aggression against South Korea or Japan or if the current dispute China and Japan over Japanese boarding of an errant Chinese fishing boat is allowed to escalate as Chinese nationalist bloggers are advocating.
Maintaining Guam as a territory creates a sense of ambiguity about its status which could embolden assertive powers such as China to think we would barter it away. This unfortunately, is highly possible under the strategically naive Obama Administration. Granting statehood to Guam would make our presence in the Western Pacific permanent and send a clear signal to rulers in China and North Korea that their hegemonic aspirations will have to contend with a significant and permanent military presence and a relentless willingness to protect our interests in this strategic area by not allowing a hostile power or combination of powers to threaten our interests and hegemony in the Western Pacific.