Guam, national defense and world peace

From the Publisher's Desk By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

 Guam still matters, according to Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command. “Guam sits at the forward edge of the tyranny of distance. Guam anchors our ability to surge, sustain and respond,” the commander said in his remarks at the Honolulu Defense Forum last month.

Paparo gave Guam a cameo in his speech as if he was obligated to remind policymakers that the island still exists despite its noticeable absence in the new Department of War’s policy documents. Typically touted as the U.S. military’s lethal force against China, Guam seems to have taken a back seat as the U.S. pivots its focus to the Western Hemisphere.

Paparo, however, maintains that, “Guam is the homeland and we defend our homeland in a way that makes sense in the 21st century as an integrated system of sensors, shooters, command and control, logistics, power and resilience built to stay on its feet.”

While the commander promises that Guam’s missile defense system meets the Indo-Pacific Command’s strategic needs, a recent report from the Government Accountability Office indicates the implausibility of this assertion. Defense officials themselves indicated that the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which has the Guam missile defense system as its centerpiece, is merely ink on paper.   

Citing defense officials, the GAO reported that the PDI has not received any supplemental or dedicated appropriations from Congress. “Officials from the military services said that without supplemental appropriations, PDI is implemented primarily as an accounting tool for congressional reporting and is not used to prioritize resources or programs in the Indo-Pacific,” the report says.

The U.S. Army Pacific officials said the military buildup on Guam is still in the early stages of building major infrastructure. A small detachment of 100 logistics personnel arrived in December 2024 to support the activation of Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz. However, there have been no follow-up arrivals to join the vanguard.

The relocation of 5,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam is currently on pause. The U.S. Department of the Navy is "constantly reevaluating" its posture regarding the Marines’ relocation, according to Undersecretary of the Navy Hung Cao. 

At the Honolulu Defense Forum, Paparo noted that deterrence requires “an honest appraisal of capability.”

Instead of sharpening the tip of the spear, the Department of War is contemplating force design and strategy modifications, including keeping the 4th Marine Regiment stationed in Okinawa rather than moving it to Guam to maintain deterrence closer to Taiwan.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump hopes to take the peace route with China by engaging President Xi Jinping and negotiating “from a position of strength, not confrontation.”

The newly released National Defense Strategy eyes “a wider range of military-to-military communications with the People’s Liberation Army with a focus on supporting strategic stability with Beijing as well as deconfliction and de-escalation, more generally.”

The NDS, nevertheless, acknowledges the “speed, scale and quality of China’s historic military buildup.” Washington’s goal, according to the document, “is not to dominate China nor is it to strangle or humiliate them; rather, our goal is simple: to prevent anyone, including China, from being able to dominate us or our allies.”

Like every beauty pageant candidate, we all want “world peace,” and we endorse peace negotiations. But the U.S. must maintain a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, especially in Guam, which has been forwarded as bait but is now being left vulnerable.

The GAO noted that while the U.S. has a series of strong bilateral alliances in the Pacific, it lacks a strong multinational security cooperative like NATO, which affects the Department of War’s ability to maintain a consistent presence in the Indo-Pacific.

Whether or not Guam is protected by NATO remains an open question. Article V of NATO pledges the alliance’s collective response if a member country is under attack. But Article VI of the pact sets geographical restrictions on Article V, which applies only to Europe, North America, Turkey and islands in the Atlantic north of the Tropic of Cancer. Security experts argue that if Guam were to be attacked, there would be no requirement for NATO to respond.

Again, we want peace. It is “the highest good,” according to NDS, which seeks to break enemy resistance without fighting. But we want to trust that the U.S. will not let its guard down and remind itself that it’s pursuing a strategy against the nation that produced “The Art of War.”

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