Pacific Reflections

Poor countries have limited ability to insulate themselves from energy price leaps. They have fewer energy reserves, whether in the form of strategic stockpile of oil or excess battery capacity. Their governments don't have a cash surplus to afford subsidizing the cost-burdened population. They have fewer options to cover lost work time and limited revenues for those who have no other choice.

I’m not going to tiptoe around semantics. America is at war. When missiles fly and civilians die, it’s a war.

Pacific Reflections By Gabriel McCoard For a moment, I was worried I was about to plunge back into the morass of the Insular Cases. Someone shared an article from Forbes about the FBI obtaining a search warrant for a remote passcode to open files on several laptops belonging to Charissa Tenorio and Frankie Rosalin, the relatives of Guam’s lieutenant governor, Joshua Tenorio, who are facing federal charges in a Covid benefits fraud case. Since this took place on Guam, naturall

I remember the night the Uyghurs arrived in Palau. I’m sure everyone on the island that night 17 years ago remembers it. Shortly before dawn, with no commercial flights inbound, the loudest plane I’ve ever heard circled twice. As virtually the entire land mass of Palau lies in the flight path of the airport, the arrival was anything but secret.

The scenario I will monitor this year is whether the U.S. will visibly flex more military muscle in the Pacific. Despite years of discussion of America’s abandoning the Pacific Pivot, which I have contributed to, a recent shift in U.S. policy suggests the question is far from settled.

Once, with the sinking sun behind Tonoas shimmering off the waters of Truk Lagoon in that short, spectacular burst of light, I had a conversation as to whether the scattered islands of Micronesia have much in common.

Guam is the capital of Micronesia. That’s hardly a unique observation. Whatever you want to call the reason, Great Power Geopolitical Play, Trappings of Empire, Expansionism, Injustice, the simple fact of the matter remains that Guam is the economic and social anchor of the Western Pacific known as Micronesia.

This past month brought yet another episode of violence to the American political landscape, and with it, anxiety and nightmares about freedom of expression and whether there even is an American constitutional order.

I don’t know why reporters love anniversaries, but they do, especially when they end in a five or zero. Case in point: this past month, the world marked the 80th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. The two other related anniversaries, the bombing of Nagasaki and the actual surrender ending World War II, oddly didn’t get much play.

Turned out that everything he said at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore was more or less what everyone knows about China’s aspirations in the Pacific. An invasion of Taiwan could happen. It could be imminent. Could be.

Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii reintroduced the “Our Pacific Partnership Act” in the U.S. House of Representatives. Per the article, this legislation would “mandate the Department of State to institute a clear and comprehensive strategy to enhance the United States’s diplomatic posts, defense posture and economic engagements with the Pacific island bloc."

What does the Chuuk election mean for Asia-Pacific? While political federations often lack a clear understanding of what unifies them into a country, the FSM increasingly looks precariously perched between competing visions of China and America.