Photograph Source: Luka Peternel – CC BY-SA 4.0

The United States is quietly working to reassert its control over the compact states, three island states in the central Pacific Ocean.

Last month, witnesses at a congressional hearing revealed that the Trump administration is expanding military and intelligence operations in Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Witnesses told lawmakers that the three countries occupy an area critical to U.S. power projection and pivotal for geopolitical competition with China.

“This is a region that is increasingly central to United States security and global stability,” State Department official Tony Greubel said. “And as geopolitical competition intensifies, the Pacific strategic sea lanes, abundant resources, and vibrant communities, they’re more important than ever to the United States and our allies and partners.”

Some congressional leaders criticized the Trump administration’s imperial ambitions in other parts of the world, with Representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) warning about “a colonial conquest binge” affecting Greenland, but they exhibited the same kind of imperial mindset for the Pacific. Lawmakers from both parties called on the Trump administration to preserve U.S. military controls in the compact states.

“If we lose the foothold there, we are never going to get it back,” Representative Addison McDowell (R-NC) said.

The president may continue to insist that the United States should annex other lands and countries, but U.S. lawmakers know that the United States can maintain control over the compact states through other means, just as it has been doing for decades. Rallying behind their own vision of empire, they are working to ensure that the Trump administration remains supportive of the longstanding system of compact colonialism.

“We should not let this administration drop the ball and risk losing our military dominance in such a critical region,” Representative Huffman (D-CA) said.

Compact Colonialism

For decades, the United States has ruled over the compact states, which are also known as the Freely Associated States (FAS). Through a special arrangement with each country called a compact of free association (COFA), the United States has exercised exclusive military controls while claiming special privileges in a vast oceanic area that is comparable in size to the continental United States.

U.S. powers severely limit the sovereignty of the compact states. With the “defense veto,” the United States can prevent the compact states from creating their own security arrangements with other countries. The power of “strategic denial” enables the United States to prohibit military forces from other countries from accessing the compact states’ lands, waters, and airspace.

“With the exclusive military rights, with exclusive military access,........

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