Militarized Currents

Someone else’s chain, someone else’s road: U.S. military strategy, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and island agency in the Pacific

“…Geopolitical scholars, foreign policy analysts, journalists, and military strategists have frequently represented the islands and seas of the western Pacific as a political borderland between multiple world powers (Bergerson, 2016;Bohane, 2018;Davis, 2015;Meick, Ker, & Chan, 2018;Yang, 2018;Shigematsu & Camacho, 2010;Tobin, 2019). Over the past three centuries the islands of the region have been targets for colonial powers including Spain, Germany, the U.K., Japan, the U.S., Australia, and France.…”

“…Making sure that these islands fulfill this U.S. coordinated mission, however, has had dramatic social, economic, and environmental impacts on the islands and islanders themselves (Davis, 2015). Whether it has been the long history of U.S. support for an independent Taiwan, the denial of political selfdetermination for Guam, the maintenance of large numbers of U.S. bases and troops in Okinawa, the U.S. dictated 30-year prohibition on foreign direct investment during the years of the Pacific Trust Territory in Micronesia, the damaging effects of U.S. military training and weapons testing across the region, or the signing of free association agreements with Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia that allow the U.S. military unfettered access to their islands and sea spaces (and 'strategic denial' to other militaries), the U.S. has primarily acted towards these islands in ways that keep them politically, socially, and economically tied to the U.S. (or their dependable allies) as well as accessible to its military (Davis, 2015;Hanlon, 1998;Lutz, 2009;Shigematsu & Camacho, 2010;Vine 2019).…”

“…The idea that a particular island must be controlled by one powerful state or another is partly an artifact of faulty dualistic thinking in general, but it is also steeped in colonial logics and anxieties. The islands of the western Pacific have a long history of hearing that they are being colonized in order to save them from someone else's (allegedly worse) colonialism (Shigematsu & Camacho, 2010). Once a claim is made by a foreign power, colonialism functions not only through the forced political, economic, and cultural articulation with a given imperial assemblage, but by precluding a place's ability to articulate with others or even with resources within their own locality (through land seizure, colonial political apparatuses, the destruction of local livelihood practices and knowledges, etc.).…”

“…While one only needs to look at the extensive histories of various colonial projects to see the effects of the political, economic, and military schemes of continental states; the contemporary era is little different. As we will detail in this paper, ever since World War II the islands of the western Pacific have been critical nodes in a military network designed to provide national security to the U.S., Japan, New Zealand, and Australia (Davis, 2015;Immerwahr, 2019;Kearns & Collins, 2016;Powles, 2015;Shigematsu & Camacho, 2010;Watson & Pandey, 2015). In recent years, however, China has increased investment, aid, and diplomatic initiatives in the region (Bohane, 2018a;Wesley-Smith, 2013;Yang, 2011).…”