Peace begins in Guam: Former JGPO chief says military investments will assure stability in the region

David Bice

 By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

Guam is at the forefront of the Pentagon’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which some say makes it a default target for China and an impending battleground for the world’s superpowers. Retired Gen. David Bice thinks otherwise.

“The investments that the United States is making—both on the military side as well as economic and other soft power areas resonating from Guam—is going to help assure peace and stability in this region,” said the former executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office.

Guam is bracing for the flow arrival of the 5,000 Marines from Okinawa this year and onward, following the arrival of the vanguard in December as part of the 2006 agreement between the U.S. and Japan on troop realignment. The agreement entails billions in military investments, including the installation of the U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Blaz.

The Missile Defense Agency also plans to build a $1 billion missile defense architecture, which military officials describe as a “deterrence.”

“I’m very proud of the work that we did in setting up the development, reshaping the military capability in the Western Pacific,” said Bice, who headed JGPO—now known as the Joint Region Marianas—from 2007 to 2010. “It just warms my heart to see all the economic developments going on, too, because it's more than just military, it's an economic development that's going on here.”

While critics express concerns that the escalating geopolitical tensions in the region put Guam in a vulnerable position, Bice assured that the island is adequately protected.

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“Guam is ready in terms of providing that peace, stability and strength,” Bice said in an interview with the Pacific Island Times during his recent trip to Guam, where he escorted the Iwo Jima veterans as president of the Iwo Jima Veterans Association. “Because what Guam has done in this effort moved the homeland. I keep telling folks that distance-wise, the distance between Guam and China is about the same distance between Washington, D.C. and Dallas, Texas. It's not that far and the influence that Guam has in this part of the world is significant.”

Bice expressed confidence that the Trump administration is interested in building Guam’s defense capabilities to “help assure peace and stability,” assuage concerns from other island nations and contain China’s influence in the region.

“I think it's going to be very positive because when other island communities start seeing what's happening in Guam, they will be attracted to the United States, and that's going on,” he said. “U.S. interests are reaching out into other island communities and hoping to influence them and bring them into the sphere of political, economic and sometimes military influence throughout the whole world.”

Guam leaders, however, are concerned that massive cuts in federal spending under the Trump administration might take their toll on the territory’s combat preparations.

“Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asia-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without

 shelter because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage that is keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero said in her State of the Island Address last month.

But Bice stressed that Guam is in a good place, “just seeing that growth and development—and sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast—go into providing peace and stability in this part of the world.”

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