Lihue, Hawaii – The frequency of activity has increased but the pattern remains predictable: a defiant North Korean missile test followed by provocati
Lihue, Hawaii – The frequency of activity has increased but the pattern remains predictable: a defiant North Korean missile test followed by provocative war games, then another missile launch, more angry threats and warnings, followed by counter-threats and new sanctions, and now a sixth nuclear test and more severe warnings and accusations.
In this geopolitical tit-for-tat, Asia-Pacific communities that host US military bases watch cautiously as fiery rhetoric pushes the two nuclear-armed adversaries ever-closer to what would be a catastrophic war.
The island of Guam came into sharp focus in August when North Korea announced plans to fire four Hwasong-12 ballistic missiles near the US territory following President Donald Trump ‘s threat to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against North Korea .
Guam’s Pacific Daily News reported that a missile launched from North Korea could reach Guam and its more than 160,000 US citizens in just 14 minutes.
As Guam residents were being advised how to prepare for a possible nuclear strike, President Trump cheerfully assured Guam’s governor that the extra media attention would boost the island’s tourism industry.
“You’ ve become extremely famous all over the world, ” Trump said, promising the US territory’s governor that tourism would increase “tenfold with the expenditure of no money.”
But on an island labelled with the tagline “Where America’s Day Begins, ” many of its residents long for the day when American militarism ends.
“The US military likes to couch their activities in solely defensive metaphors, ” says Michael Lujan Bevacqua, a Chamorro studies professor at the University of Guam. “The reference to Guam as ‘the tip of the spear’ , ” he says, “offers a sliver of truth.”
Bevacqua argues that like other empires, the US describes its foreign presence as a source of order and safety, “never the destabilising force… even if it takes land and resources, even if it poisons the earth, even if it depresses or constricts the local economy.”
The US military presence can be characterised as a shield with a giant target on it, Bevacqua suggests. In Guam, it is “really the source of the danger just as much as a source of defence”.
As a US possession (non-self governing territory) without voting rights, Guam will be “dragged along like a spear into battle, ” Bevacqua notes. “Whether the spear loves battle or would prefer peace is irrelevant, as our purpose is to be something used in a fight and little more.”
Vivian Dames, a retired faculty member of the University of Guam, says: “All of these islands in Micronesia, regardless of political status, have some sort of political affiliation with the United States because of the US’ long-standing strategic interest in this region and they all serve the function of being the westernmost, forward defence for the United States.”
Dames is referring to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands around 200km north of Guam and the vast sweep of ocean where the military conducts year-round training and live-fire testing and which the military seeks to expand to an area larger than much of the western United States .
“While these islands, especially the Marianas, are strategically very important to the US, ” Dames says, “most Americans know very little about us and the ongoing effects of American militarism.”
A short drive from the University of Guam, Andersen Air Force Base is the staging grounds for a continuous bomber presence that includes B1-B bombers and B2 Spirit bombers which are capable of carrying B61 tactical nuclear weapons and the B83, a thermonuclear weapon 60 times more destructive than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Increasingly, bombers based at Andersen conduct precision strike exercises and in July the 37th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron deployed to Guam from South Dakota, arming the island with a pre-emptive attack force capable of an offensive attack.
Guam also has a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) antimissile battery, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station and an 18,000 acre Naval Ordnance Annex. Naval Base Guam is the home port for fast attack nuclear and non-nuclear submarines.
From the US military’s perspective, Guam is essential to maintaining a “ready to fight tonight ” capability, but to North Korea, this much firepower from a hostile adversary represents a lethal threat.
