Compact colonialism: U.S. neocolonialism in Micronesia in the early twenty-first century

Abstract

ABSTRACTFor decades, the United States has administered compacts of free association with the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Scholars have criticized the United States for using the compacts to limit the sovereignty of the compact states, but they have not determined how the compact states fit into the American empire in the Pacific Ocean. A review of the U.S. documentary record from the early twenty-first century indicates that the United States has ruled the compact states through its own particular form of neocolonialism, or ‘compact colonialism’. Under the compacts, the United States has exercised several powers, including military controls, political controls, economic controls, cultural influence and humanitarian indifference. With this neocolonial approach, the United States has exploited the compact states to maintain a large oceanic empire in the Pacific Ocean.KEYWORDS: Compact of free associationlarge ocean stateneocolonialismAmerican empireoceanic empire Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 U.S. Embassy Kolonia, ‘Farewell Reflections: A Special Relationship Requires Improved Aid Delivery; China Bids High’, 09KOLONIA123, 13 September 2009. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09KOLONIA123_a.html.2 U.S. Embassy Kolonia, ‘Farewell Reflections: A Special Relationship Requires Improved Aid Delivery; China Bids High’, 09KOLONIA123, 13 September, 2009, https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09KOLONIA123_a.html.3 Thomas J McCormick, China Market: America’s Quest for Informal Empire, 1893–1901, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967; Bruce Cumings, Dominion from Sea to Sea: Pacific Ascendancy and American Power, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.4 David Hanlon, ‘The ‘Sea of Little Lands’: Examining Micronesia’s Place in ‘Our Sea of Islands’’, The Contemporary Pacific, 21(1), 2009, pp 91–110. https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.0.0042.5 Ganeshwar Chand, ‘The United States and the Origins of the Trusteeship System’, Review, 14(2), Spring 1991, pp 171–230; Hal M Friedman, Creating an American Lake: United States Imperialism and Strategic Security in the Pacific Basin, 1945-1947, Contributions in Military Studies, no. 198, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001; Hal M Friedman, Governing the American Lake: The US Defense and Administration of the Pacific, 1945–1947, East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2007; Hal M Friedman, Arguing over the American Lake: Bureaucracy and Rivalry in the U.S. Pacific, 1945-1947, Williams-Ford Texas A&M University Military History Series, no. 126, College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2009; Kimie Hara, ‘Micronesia: ‘An American Lake,’’ in Cold War Frontiers in the Asia-Pacific: Divided Territories in the San Francisco System, London: Routledge, 2006, pp 100–123, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203967003.6 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Pacific Islands, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 7 July 1947.7 U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Pacific Islands, 80th Cong., 1st sess., 7 July 1947.8 Donald F McHenry, Micronesia: Trust Betrayed: Altruism vs Self Interest in American Foreign Policy, New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1975; David Nevin, The American Touch in Micronesia, New York: W. 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Hicks’ Remarks at Worldwide Logistics Symposium 2022: ‘Global Security Implications of Climate Change’’, 8 March 2022, https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2959502/deputy-secretary-of-defense-dr-kathleen-h-hicks-remarks-at-worldwide-logistics/.135 U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, The Freely Associated States.136 Rose Gottemoeller, ‘A Current Security Imperative: The US Role in the Marshall Islands,’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 22 May 2022, https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/a-current-security-imperative-the-us-role-in-the-marshall-islands/.137 White House, Pacific Partnership Strategy of the United States, September 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Pacific-Partnership-Strategy.pdf.138 Damien Cave, ‘Countering China, the U.S. Signs a Broad Deal to Aid Pacific Nations,’ New York Times, 30 September 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/asia/pacific-islands-summit-washington.html.139 Joseph Biden, ‘Remarks by President Biden at the U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit,’ 29 September 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/29/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-u-s-pacific-island-country-summit/.Additional informationNotes on contributorsEdward HuntEdward Hunt is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Regis College. He has taught at Babson College, Stonehill College, Worcester State University, the Wentworth Institute of Technology and the College of William & Mary. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William & Mary. He writes about war and empire for independent news media.