Environmental protection as international security: Conserving the Pentagon’s island bases in the Asia–Pacific
| Author | Peter Harris |
| Published date | 01 September 2014 |
| Date | 01 September 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0020702014538772 |
| Subject Matter | Scholarly Essays |
International Journal
2014, Vol. 69(3) 377–393
!The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0020702014538772
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Scholarly Essay
Environmental
protection as
international security:
Conserving the
Pentagon’s island bases
in the Asia–Pacific
Peter Harris
Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin,
TX, USA
Abstract
Island bases are integral to US grand strategy in the Asia–Pacific. In this article, I discuss
the increasingly common practice of using environmental protection initiatives to
secure the Pentagon’s hold on these prized assets. I argue that nature reserves on or
around militarized sites on Guam, the Central Pacific islands, and Diego Garcia ser ve to
buttress US political control over the territory concerned. In short, nature reserves in
the Pacific and Indian oceans give vital political cover to the island fortresses that they
envelop by adding a public relations-friendly rationale for the US military’s occupation of
colonized territories as well as an additional layer of politico-legal control.
Keywords
Island bases, environmental protection, international security, Marine National
Monuments, Marine Protected Areas, US foreign policy, Asia-Pacific region, geopolitics
Introduction
Island bases are an indispensable part of US grand strategy in Asia. Early bases in
Hawaii and Samoa were launching pads for the economic and political penetration
of the Western Pacific by the US, while contemporary bases on Guam, Okinawa,
and Diego Garcia continue to undergird Washington’s geopolitical and military
presence from East Asia to the Persian Gulf. Without its island bases, the US Navy
Corresponding author:
Peter Harris, Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin, 158 W 21st St Stop A1800,
Austin, TX 78712-0119, USA.
Email: peter@peterharris.com
today would face the prospect of policing Asia’s sea lanes from ports on the west
coast of North America or else rely more heavily upon the cooperation of friendly
nations; US troops in South Korea and elsewhere would suffer from reduced air
and naval support in the event of a major, land-based conflict; and Washington’s
allies would be willing to place less stock in the US security guarantees than they
presently do. For about 150 years, island bases have been nodes to connect the con-
tinental US ever more to the western half of the Pacific and beyond—economically,
politically, and militarily. Maintaining control over such bases is critical, especially
in the contemporary context of the rise of China and the Obama administration’s
so-called ‘‘pivot’’ to Asia.
In this article, I canvass the increasingly common yet understudied phenomenon
of environmental protection regimes being applied to island territories that host US
bases. Few commentators on US military strategy realize that military sites on
Guam, the Johnston Atoll, Midway Island, Wake Island, and Diego Garcia are
now enveloped in formal-legalistic environmental conservation regimes. Yet these
nature reserves portend implications for military strategy and geopolitics as much
as for the natural environment. In particular, I argue that military environmental-
ism has the effect—likely intentional—of securing the Pentagon’s long-term access
to island bases, including those that ostensibly have been demilitarized. The paper
proceeds as follows. First, I provide a brief history of US island bases in the Asia–
Pacific.
1
Second, I discuss the reasons for why the US has sought (and continues to
seek) such bases. Third, I outline the logic by which environmental protection
regimes have become compatible with the Pentagon’s designs for its island bases
and present three illustrative case studies of US bases on (1) Guam, (2) the Central
Pacific islands (especially Midway Island, Johnston Atoll, and Wake Island), and
(3) Diego Garcia in the British Indian Ocean Territory. Fourth, I discuss some of
the complexities and implications that are presented by the comingling of environ-
mentalism and militarism.
Waves of expansion
The US has maintained overseas bases, including island bases, since the mid-
nineteenth century. The earliest were established under the aegis of the Guano
Islands Act of 1856, a federal law that authorized US citizens to seize unclaimed
territory—‘‘any island, rock, or key’’—for the purpose of harvesting guano (sea-
bird excrement, at the time a valuable natural resource).
2
Dozens of islands in the
Atlantic, Caribbean, and Pacific were taken into US possession in pursuit of guano,
1. For present purposes, I define the Asia–Pacific region to include the Pacific Basin plus the
eastern half of the Indian Ocean littoral. This roughly mirrors the geographic space covered
by the United States military’s Pacific Command (USPACOM). See United States Pacific
Command, ‘‘USPACOM area of responsibility,’’ http://www.pacom.mil/about-uspacom/area-of-
responsibility.shtml (accessed 16 February 2014).
2. See Jimmy M. Skaggs, The Great Guano Rush: Entrepreneurs and American Overseas Expansion
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995); and Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the
Pacific World: A Global Ecological History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). For the
378 International Journal 69(3)
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