Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Guam, Palau, and the Northern Mariana, Solomon, Marshall, and Caroline island groups
are all either U.S. territories, commonwealths with defense agreements with the United
States, or independent states that because of their poverty may well be open to such agree-
ments. The U.S. position in Oceania exists courtesy of the spoils of the 1898 Spanish-
American War and the blood of Marines in World War II, who liberated these islands from
the Japanese. Oceania will grow in importance because it is sufficiently proximate to East
Asia, while lying just outside the anti-access bubble in the process of being expanded by
China's DF-21 and more advanced antiship missiles. Future bases in Oceania are not un-
duly provocative, unlike bases on the “guard towers” of Japan, South Korea, and (until the
1990s) the Philippines. Guam is only four hours flying time from North Korea and only
a two-day sail from Taiwan. Most significantly, as outright U.S. possessions, or function-
ally dependent on the United States for their local economies, the United States can make
enormous defense investments in some of these places without fear of being evicted.
Already, Andersen Air Force Base on Guam is the most commanding platform in the
world for the projection of U.S. hard power. With 100,000 bombs and missiles and 66 mil-
lion gallons of jet fuel at any one time, it is the Air Force's biggest strategic gas-and-go
anywhere. Its runways are filled with long lines of C-17 Globemasters, F/A-18 Hornets,
and the like. Guam is also home to an American submarine squadron and an expanding
naval base. Guam and the nearby Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. possessions both, are al-
most equidistant between Japan and the Strait of Malacca.
Then there is the strategic potential of the southwestern tip of Oceania, signified by the
offshore anchorages of the Australian-owned Ashmore and Cartier Islands, and the adja-
cent seaboard of western Australia itself, from Darwin to Perth: all looking out from below
the Indonesian archipelago to the Indian Ocean, which is emerging as the vascular center
of the world economy, with oil and natural gas transported across its width from the Middle
East to the burgeoning middle classes of East Asia. The U.S. Navy and Air Force, accord-
ing to Garrett's plan, would take advantage of Oceania's geography in order to constitute
a “regional presence in being” located “just over the horizon” from the virtual borders of
a variant of the British naval strategist Julian Corbett's “fleet in being” of a hundred years
ago, a dispersed collection of ships that can quickly coalesce into a unified fleet when ne-
cessary; whereas “just over the horizon” reflects a confluence of offshore balancing and
participation in a concert of powers.
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The concept of strengthening the U.S. air and sea presence on Oceania reflects a com-
promise between resisting Greater China at all costs and acceding somewhat to a future
Chinese navy role in policing the First Island Chain, while at the same time making China
pay a steep price for military aggression on Taiwan. Without ever saying so, this vision al-
lows one to contemplate a world in which American “legacy” bases would be scaled back
