The article touches a little on flight costs, but as someone who'd love to visit sometime and never has, it annoys me how flights to Guam work. Given its location most airlines don't fly direct from the mainland, so many flights to Guam are from Asia. But, you can't buy a ticket from the US with a layover in Japan from JAL or with a layover in Korea from Korean Air because any flight with a US origin to a US destination can only be sold by a US carrier. That eliminates all Asian competition and the US airlines get a monopoly even though they barely fly there and many of these flights are codeshares being operated by Asian airlines!
Flight costs are a pain, and the flight durations are nothing to sneeze at either. I live out in Guam (my wife is stationed here with the Navy) and the two most common ways to get back to the mainland are via Tokyo (Narita) and Honolulu.
I would definitely encourage visiting if you have the means! I find there are two types of people here: those who feel limited by the island and its infrastructure (no Target, no Starbucks, etc.) and those who enjoy its incredible outdoor environment. Some of the best snorkeling and scuba diving in the world is right here, and as for hiking: we've been hiking very frequently for the two years since we arrived and haven't gotten bored yet. Depending on where you go on the island, the terrain and plant life looks very different.
No Target, but there's a very good Kmart! Plus, anyone with a military connection has access to the exchanges, which are effectively tax-free Targets.
Most of the domestic tourists I saw around Guam (I was stationed there for a stretch) were divers. I don't know that I'd recommend it for the average non-diving traveler over cheaper-to-get-to alternatives unless it's someone who's specifically looking for the remote character of Guam (and in that case, there are less developed islands that can be gotten to more cheaply).
I thought about retiring in Guam someday since Medicare would actually work there. But I can’t imagine it is much nicer than Bali or some parts of Thailand I’m also thinking about (if my health is good 20 years later), and it’s definitely more expensive than.
Thailand perhaps (although I'd note that political instability in Thailand is carefully done to avoid disturbing the tourism industry in anyway).
But it's been many years (25? If you count Timor crisis?) since any significant political disturbance in Bali/Indonesia and only 3 years since a coup attempt in Guam/USA.
I visited Thailand multiple times just after military coups, and the only thing I noticed was more things getting poached from my checked luggage. Oh, and sometimes the big shopping malls in Bangkok are closed.
Bali did have that bombing just after 9/11 a while back. Sort of ancient history anyways, but I've loved my trips there.
Is it really that different from Guam? It seems to have a similar hot and humid climate, they are both islands of similar size, Bali is just closer to the equator.
It may not be that different from Guam, but I was comparing it (I guess, without making that clear, my bad) to more temperate retirement areas, than Guam.
I'm sure it's based on preference and tolerance, but very hot humid heat just saps all the enjoyment of life out of me when I'm outside, unless I'm on a sailboat or in a pool with a cold drink in my hand.
My father was stationed in Guam for a couple of years during the Korean War but he was in the Navy. And then when I was getting mustered out of the Navy 40 years ago I landed on Guam briefly on a flight out of Kobe Japan, on my way to Hawaii
I get the feeling that Hawaii takes all the US tourism for tropical islands.
In a hypothetical scenario where Hawaii didn't exist maybe Guam would be more popular?
> those who feel limited by the island and its infrastructure (no Target, no Starbucks, etc.)
I hate those people. I live in a city of 1.5 million (there's everything here), and it's a constant background radiation talking point for a significant number of my highschool friends: how unfortunate they are that they don't live in the nearby city of 15 million. IME this constant moping has everything to do with the amount of social media one consumes daily.
> it's a constant background radiation talking point for a significant number of my highschool friends: how unfortunate they are that they don't live in the nearby city of 15 million. IME this constant moping has everything to do with the amount of social media one consumes daily.
Well, you've managed to one-up them in how tiresome and cliched your talking point is.
There is quite a bit of difference between the inconvenience of not having a Target that gets frequent shipments of a wide variety of goods which help ease daily life, and not having the amenities of a 15M person city versus a 1.5M person city.
My biggest pain point of remote island life is not having access to a variety of affordable dairy foods.
I understand. That's why I wrote "(there's everything here)". To clarify, I don't like those people because of their thankless and complaining attidude to the life.
I mean some like hyperdense megacities and everything that comes with it bleeding edge/underground scene for X, 24 hours life, close proximity to people. It's completely alien to me as well but why look down on people liking different things?
It's interesting. I live in London UK, which some might think of as a megacity - though when I look at the biggest cities in the orient (Singapore, Shenzhen etc) London feels like Hobbiton in comparison. I suppose what you're used to becomes your "zero line", and one inevitably assesses other places relative to that.
Guam’s population is 169 thousand, about 10% of the city where you live. It is an island 3,800 miles from Hawaii. I doubt that this situation is comparable to yours.
169.000 ? Funny, I live in a city of 15.000, not even in the city, and think its way too crowded. So much that i'm actually thinking of moving to a 100 ppl village, closest "city" 3000 ppl. Never even been in a starbucks, nor wanting to, I guess preferences differ. Remote work is a blessing.
That is a very important realization and self awareness, alaways :)
Fwiw I lived in 600k-2m cities most of my life. I now moved to a 50k city (for love :) ,but problem is it's a satellite city - a 50k city in rural Minnesota or Manitoba will be a local centre with many amenities and a certain vibe. A 50k city on the greater Toronto area is just a commute residential park.
Anyhoo, I always enjoy people complaining about city becoming bigger because... They themselves moved here! If you moved to that 100ppl place you would be the problem, the 101st person- while likely complaining about other people moving in and ruining it for everyone :). It's like when I'm stuck in traffic and people in the car with me get annoyed "where do all these people think they have to be on a Sunday morning???" - erm, just like us you mean? :)
I've visited Charleston and Huntington, WV. I went to all the 'hippy' spots (the only festival in the area, the farmer's market, bar with gigs, a museum on the outskirts). US 50k cities have less infrastructures and cultural events than 10k cities in my country to be honest, i can quite understand your peers (you also have really good small towns like Fayetteville, WV, if you like outdoorsy stuff and physical activities, but I guess when I was 15, kayaking and rock climbing would have gotten old quite fast).
Picking metro areas in a state that has suffered prolonged economic malaise is a bizarre way to make conclusions about the amenities of a typical U.S. midsized city.
Funny thing, I'm originally from Huntington, WV. My fiance has never been to WV, and we're thinking of skipping the trip to Huntington and just meeting my family in Fayetteville for a weekend trip.
It is an interesting idea to explore: Why do humans predominantly want to live in bigger and bigger groups. Sure, there are a few people that want to live out in the country, but cities are big because people want to be there. Humans like groups.
For the vast majority of city dwellers, they are there either because 1) they grew up there and that's where most of their social connections are, or 2) that's where the jobs are. The reason why cities even grew to the size in the first place is because of the economics of the Industrial Revolution - and, in some places like the USSR, deliberate policies to force the rural population into the cities to man all those factories. We don't actually know the real preferences until those factors are out of the equation.
And more bars, restaurants, theaters.
It isn't just economics that drive people to be together.
People also like to be together, and bigger groups allow more group activities.
Kind of both, in a feedback loop. Economics, jobs, and fun.
Yes, under current airline treaties it's actually more complicated and takes longer to fly mainland US to Guam, than mainland US to the Philippines. Even though Guam is only a short 1500ml from the Philippines, and:
Philippine Airlines flights from west-coast US (SF, LA) refuel in Guam, since a 2006 "technical stop" agreement [0] (not allowed to pick up passengers on Guam, but can refuel and pick up supplies); at least during the winter headwinds, Nov-Mar [1]. Passengers can't even get out of the plane, you get to sit on the tarmac and watch the fuel tankers out the window for 45min in the predawn. I wanted to at least get out and see the inside of the terminal but absolutely not. ("Guam: the ultimate skiplagged challenge")
So you won't see this arrangement show up on any ticket engines, and they're not allowed say "Philippine Airlines flies to Guam". Are there any good articles on how current airline treaties affect routes and pricing in the Pacific?
[1]: "The one-hour technical stops are required during certain times of the year, particularly during the winter months of November to March, when headwinds are strong enough to affect aircraft flying westward across the Pacific." (to avoid exceeding MTOW)
This is because of 'cabotage' rules, where foreign carriers aren't allowed to sell tickets between two domestic destinations, and except for EU carriers flying within EU countries, this is standard practice all over the world.
Qantas has historically had a similar stop in LAX en route to JFK, although new aircraft will allow them to start making the trip non-stop, in an initiative called 'project sunrise.' [1] I believe they are currently routing that flight with a stop in Auckland as QF3, although they are running AKL-JFK as a 5th freedom with pick-up rights in AKL.
I don't think it's true that it's faster to get to Philippines than Guam from the mainland - you just have to transit in Honolulu. SFO-HNL-GUM on United is 14h15, whereas the non-stop SFO-MNL is 14h35. Philippines only offers limited non-stop options to Manila - just LAX, SFO and JFK - so much of the time you'd be connecting either way, and that eliminates any advantages. After all, Honolulu is pretty much on the way to Guam based on the great circle arc. [2]
Same as if there was a medical emergency anywhere along the flight path. The plane pulls into the nearest gate where you'd be looked after and you get off. The prohibition is on transporting passengers between two domestic points as a single flight or as a single ticket / with stops under 24h - but note that there's nothing to stop you for instance buying a ticket from SFO-NRT and then a separate NRT-GUM ticket both on ANA.
Cabotage is also referred to as the 9th air freedom, for the curious. [1]
The prohibition on cabotage also applies to passenger and cargo ships. [2]
I'm sure they'd treat you locally (I wonder if air-rage cases get dropped there unscheduled, too, although I don't think so). It's not like the border is hermetically sealed; just disembarking on those particular flights is not available to passengers or skiplaggers. (To be clear, that's because it's a non-US (Philippine Airlines) flight on a technical stopover in a US territory (Guam)). The limitation is purely legal. The airline treaties distort pricing and competition, otherwise it should be possible to do a 24/48h stopover in Guam, Taipei etc., and even lower your overall ticket price if you're flexible about dates.
If not, a creative itinerary with multiple stopovers like Manila-Guam-Honolulu-Anchorage-Seattle could be interesting.
If you're looking for 'cool itineraries that end in Guam' there's nothing more interesting IMO than the United Island Hopper, a single flight number with 5 stops operated by a 737. Service is between Honolulu and Guam, taking around 14-16 hours, with stops in:
- Majuro in the Marshall Islands (MAJ)
- Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands (KWA)
- Kosrae in the Federated States of Micronesia (KSA)
- Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia (PNI)
- Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia (TKK)
I believe passengers aren't allowed off in at least one, if not two, of the stops because they're basically just a US military base on a rock. [1, 2]
> The limitation is purely legal. The airline treaties distort pricing and competition, otherwise it should be possible to do a 24/48h stopover in Guam, Taipei etc., and even lower your overall ticket price if you're flexible about dates.
Note that you can do this, it just has to be on separate tickets if connections are under 24h. For a connection over 24h, the world is your oyster, so to speak, from a ticketing perspective. Unless you plan to stay at the airport (and only an option in some places with sterile transit) you may need a visa for the intermediate point.
In the past you could have made an argument about foreign airlines not being held to FAA standards.
But today, FAA knows exactly which jurisdictions regulate airlines to a comparable standard and which don’t. Denying cabotage and other higher rights to those airlines is 100%, as you say, naked protectionism.
They‘re actually defined by ICAO, a UN agency with states as members. And the actual restrictions are of course a matter of domestic legislation stemming out countries sovereignty over their airspace. These restrictions largely don‘t exist among European Union member states and between Australia and New Zealand.
IATAs cartel like behavior was due to them regulating airline prices and services. This started at a time when governments where still regulating domestic prices thinking that competition on price or service would lead to cutting corners on safety.
You make it sound like that's a US-specific rule, but there's an equivalent rule in basically every country (with some exceptions, the main one being between EU member states).
Given that many foreign airlines are at least in part government owned, this could be problematic. Do we really want Air China to come in and drastically undercut US based carriers in order to drive them out of business?
Sure? If the Chinese government (or more realistically Qatar or UAE etc) wants to subsidize US business and tourism by making it cheaper to fly within the US it seems like a good thing for the US.
As we've seen, anytime an airline raises prices it is pretty easy for another carrier (or even a brand new carrier) to come in and replace them. So it isn't like a hypothetical foreign government owned carrier could somehow make long term sustained profits.
Let them spend their money on that if they are that dumb!
If there was a monopoly situation (which of course is a big "if") then it's reasonable to have laws requiring specific levels of service from the airline. It's fairly easy to write those laws to force the airline to fly.
If the Chinese state intervenes in US domestic travel affairs then the US has the option to nationalize their fleet. All their assets and operational staff are in the US and the staff aren't going to oppose keeping their jobs...
I guess I just don’t get it then. What’s wrong with the following scenario:
1) China comes in and undercuts US prices.
2) US carriers are unable to compete with a business subsidized by one of the largest economies in the world, and China Air forms a monopoly as it drives competitors out of business.
3) China Air folds, leaving the US with no means of air travel at all.
I’m pretty sure China could outlast any airline in the US in a price war, given how thin the margins that US carriers already operate on are. They don’t have to care about making profits—their only goal is to damage the US economy, as on the world stage it’s a zero-sum game. Any damage to the US is a benefit to China.
So yeah, let them. And what effect do you think it will have on the economy when there are literally zero air carriers left in the United States?
Firstly, the US has a bunch of existing laws to deal with monopolies already. Use them.
And if China Air suddenly folds then the US nationalizes their fleet or some similar intervention. Similar has been done during crises in the banking sector, and similar has been done in other countries when an airline went bust.
I think you are probably mostly familiar with high profile cases in the tech space. Outside that the DoJ has a pretty strong record of success in antitrust cases.
Recent examples include:
* A case involving wage suppression by a secret agreement of poultry procesors in Georgia (May 2023)
* A divestment agreement for ASSA ABLOY AB to take over Spectrum Brand Holding Inc.’s Hardware and Home Improvement division
* An antitrust lawsuit against Activision for esport wage surpression.
I mean, in principle I agree with you. If Qantas or Lufthansa can come in and run things cheaper and better, I have no problem with letting them try to compete on the open market. But just like I wouldn’t want a US government owned airline to operate in competition with private carriers, I think it would be unfair competition to allow foreign governments to come in and operate any sort of ostensibly private company in the US, particularly one that provides a critical infrastructure service.
The even more difficult question is how to tell whether a foreign company is truly private or is secretly receiving government funding. With no way to collect tax information or audit the books of foreign companies operating in the US, there’s no way to tell.
I don’t think it’s inconceivable that China could set up a shell company to operate super cheap flights on, say, the west coast, with the express purpose of causing that market to collapse, leading to a domino effect as US carriers start to fold. Maybe it would work, and maybe it wouldn’t, but consider that the annual revenue for domestic carriers in 2022 was about $160 billion, and profit was about 1% of that. Given that China’s military budget is estimated at $230 billion, it doesn’t seem at all out of the realm of possibility to me that they might well try, entirely legally, undermine the US economy.
I’m not saying cabotage laws are the only thing preventing this scenario, or that it couldn’t be dealt with should it become apparent that it’s happening, but I think it’s definitely something to be consider when discussing the possibility of opening up any domestic market to foreign competition.
> I wouldn’t want a US government owned airline to operate in competition with private carriers
Why not? Ironically, that is the ultimate solution to the problem you're describing - if we consider this market so critical and so easily disrupted, then having a government-owned service provider that focuses on long-term availability of basic services over profits is a sensible precaution. Private airlines can still compete by offering more/better service for more money, or cheaper service due to less overhead.
You can also take the scenic route from HI to RMI to FSM. I can’t think of any reason to hang out in Majuro, but two of the FSM stops are great sightseeing destinations. On Pohnpei you can visit Nan Madol. If you’re into diving, there’s a huge number of Japanese warships sunk near Chuuk.
This. Used for American Samoa...just make damn sure to make your connection. If it's anything like American Samoa, there are only a few flights a week. The smart move is to arrive a day early in Hawaii and spend the night
you can but you're going to pay more in general. There are a lot of pricing rules around layovers that make it cheaper than buying tickets separately (basically to give the airlines flexibility to utilize all their planes).
So get your luggage? Deboarding, going through immigration, getting luggage, and going through customs takes no more than 45 minutes at Narita. Give yourself a 2 hour layover to be safe.
Or pack like Rick Steves and just bring a backpack with the essentials.
I don't think they ever meant it's impossible to get there, just unnecessarily difficult (or expensive) due to a regulation that is bring unnecessary hassle (which is exactly what you are describing, but, somehow, using a tone that it's something smooth).
They don't let you check bags right before the plane takes off - AFAIK it's either 30 minutes or an hour before depending on what airline and airport[0] you change at. So a 2 hour layover "to be safe" would at best give you a grand total of 15 minutes to get all the way back to departures, recheck your bags, go through security, the immigration checkpoint, get to your new gate, etc.
If there's any delay, you miss your next flight, and the airline will not rebook you because your layover's a self-connection, not an actually ticketed thing. So your Guam trip just became a Japan trip.
3 hours would actually have some safety margin in it for short delays. Personally I don't get how people manage really short connections, and I hear plenty of people getting screwed over because of them.
Also, I'm not entirely sure how this works with immigration. The visitor form for Japan asks you about your hotel you plan to stay at - which you won't have since you aren't intending this to become a Japan trip. I have no clue if the immigration officer actually checks that field or if it's purely just for keeping records on tourists.
[0] I heard an hour at LAX. This is the same airport that universally refuses to store luggage overnight - a fact that even people in the airport industry don't seem to understand - so perhaps this is just a rule specific to that tire fire of an airport.
If the airlines have agreements, you can often get your luggage automatically routed to your next flight. I used to do that between Alaska Airlines and Hainan. Not sure if you can get that done in Tokyo, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were actually possible.
> because any flight with a US origin to a US destination can only be sold by a US carrier.
That's not exactly true. It just requires the USA and the other country to have negotiated a Fifth Freedom agreement.
There are lots of foreign-owned airlines flying from the US with layovers and stopovers in other countries. For instance, I recently flew JFK->FRA->SIN on Singapore Airlines. And United even operates their Island Hopper route, Honolulu-Majuro-Kwajalein Atoll-Kosrae-Pohnpei-Truk-Guam, among many others.
I think you misunderstood. They said US->US destination has to be operated by a us carrier. JFK->FRA->SIN doesn’t have a US designation and United is a US carrier.
Kayak may offer it, but if you try to book that on the Korean Air website you get:
"This is based on the regulations of the U.S. Department of Transportation and you cannot make a reservation for an itinerary from the mainland U.S. to Guam (GUM) via a third country"
The rule is not that foreign-owned airlines can't fly point-to-point routes between US destinations - Air Canada can't sell SFO→JFK via Toronto, for instance. You may somehow be able to cause something to be ticketed, but that doesn't mean that you'd be able to check in.
It's not a componentized ticket from the airline, but singular tickets that Kayak has joined together. Or, it's simply ignoring the regulation, and will be denied by the airline once you attempt to book it.
As the other poster mentioned, try grabbing a componetized ticket from the airline and they will not book it.
Just space them out out or even take a couple days to visit Japan. Some airports even have programs where they'll take you on a field trip during your layover
These suggestions are cognitive load on the person making the trip. Most people break out in sweats thinking about organizing a trip to begin with, booking something with any complexity or risk is unbearable to them. My parents are both like this.
I had a partner like that. Would freak out if I started driving without our destination already in the GPS.
I think at least half of travel should be an adventure. Adventures are uncomfortable - but they make the best stories. Nobody has ever said, "Man, remember that time we went on that perfectly planned trip where nothing out of the ordinary happened? How exciting!"
Sure I remember the adventure in Denver that one time, but we barely made it to the funeral the trip was about, and we missed a lot of time with family.
If you just want to travel randomly, then no plan is fine. However we laid out plans can ensure you get to the must sees that are farther from home. Also many close to home things have wierd hours They are open so if you don't plan you won't see them that trip.
When you have a kid and a stressful job and adventures shooting out your ears in day to day life, sometimes the idea of going to Guam and swimming in the beautiful waters and relaxing is what you want out of travel. Adventures don’t have to be exotic, I live adventures daily, and I spend a lot of my life uncomfortable. Many people do. The idea of the adhoc adventure trip i think resonated a lot more with me when I was single or newly married. Now, I love a trip to Bora Bora - my wife is very organized and loves travel planning, and we have perfectly executed trips where the excitement is snorkeling with sharks and mantarays rather than spending 48 hours laying on the floor in a foreign airport with a 9 year old.
Heck, I enjoy a good adventure. But I want the adventure at my destination. There is nothing relaxing or exotic about missing connections and spending the night on a dirty concrete floor.
It's not impossible to do. It just sounds silly that the best way to take a 5 day trip in Guam is to take a 2 day trip in Japan and a 3 day trip in Guam.
I wonder if there's a big list of places that take unintuitively long to get to? Friend of mine flew from California to South America a few years ago by way of Paris (which I think is a requirement for French Guiana?)
I'm from Guam, and half Chamoru. Most of the comments in this thread show the ignorance that this article is pointing out — Americans don't understand the situation in Guam, because they've never had to really pay attention.
Guam is a U.S. colony that has benefitted from the U.S., but has also been overrun by Americans and people from Asia, so that Chamorus are now a minority on the island. We've long wanted to have a vote to decolonize, but this has been blocked by Americans on the island who demand to have a vote in a matter that should be up to the Chamorus.
As a result of blocking decolonization, we have been impacted greatly:
* Big military bases have brought a militarized mindset to the residents.
* Those bases were taken without asking or recompense, and drive up land prices, which drives up the price of everything else.
* The U.S. has protected U.S. corporations from competition (Jones Act, etc) which drives up the prices as well.
* The U.S. has set immigration policies to benefit itself, leading to a flood of immigrants who the U.S. doesn't pay for (healthcare, education).
* U.S. corporations have taken over commerce (think big box stores and chain restaurants), leading to a loss of the local culture.
* Guam residents are mostly in poverty, undereducated, with terrible health. You could argue that it's our own fault, but the U.S.'s unthinking impact has created a system that leads to these results.
There's a lot more to this — it's an incredibly deep topic — but I thought there should be a voice here from someone who understands the issues.
I have no particular opinion on Guam or its governance, but if Chamorus are a minority of the people living there (& a minority of the people born there?) it feels kind of unfair for them to unilaterally make major decisions and remove the majority group from the area.
Ex. obviously what American settlers did to mainland Natives was heinous and should not have happened, but it's less clear that Natives of the current generation should be able to unilaterally vote to remove Americans that are born here now.
Guam is the homeland of the Chamorus, and it was taken from us by the Americans. For them to say they should vote on what should be done with it seems more unfair. We're a minority because of American action, not by choice.
On a historical level, I agree it's unfair. The Chamorus should never have had your land taken against your will. However, there are now a lot of Americans born on Guam, and it's to the point where it seems like it would also be unfair to kick out those people born there, with their families living on Guam for decades & who are now the majority.
I'm not arguing against you, necessarily. It's a hard situation and maybe Americans leaving is the better solution.
How far "back" do you think it's fair for decolonization advocates to go? Do you think the same argument you're using here, applied to other places (ex. the continental U.S.) is also correct?
-
Addendum via Wikipedia: "The United States Department of the Interior approved a $300,000 grant for decolonization education" in 2016[0]. No idea what to make of this.
Decolonization is a fairly established process around the world, many places have decolonized. And it's established that the colonized people are the ones to decide, not the colonizers. The U.S. (and Americans living in Guam) don't seem to grasp it because they think if they're living in Guam, they should have an equal say. That doesn't make sense if you're not one of the colonized.
And yes, as you noted in the addendum, there has been money allocated for decolonization education. It happened, but all efforts to have an actual vote were blocked in court by (a handful of) Americans living in Guam.
Guam is also a pretty large interconnection point for submarine cables. Not too many networks break out to layer 3 there, but more traffic than you’d expect passes through (or at least, used to).
I skydived first time in Guam. Also went to some CrossFit classes when i was there. The people were lovely. There were some weirdos too be sure, mostly in the bars, tho it was fun hanging at the bars with the military personnel. My conclusion: submariners - definite weirdos, "chair force" - cool in a tidy sort of way. Nobody else self-identified!
Overwhelmingly most people were awesome and the little island has a great esprit de corps. I really liked it, but there’s not that much to do, besides hanging out with folks and going to various exercises, jet-skiing, beach. OK, there's quite a bit to do, but not as much as living in a larger place. Which is OK. You can make your own fun. There's a couple shooting ranges too if you enjoy that. The Korean tourists certainly enjoyed their fully-automatic weapons when I was there.
There’s a strange juxtaposition between poor “local” areas, the luxury brands on the high street catering to Asian tourists, and the regular suburban areas. Clime-wise it's kind of like Singapore. Shopping-wise it's like mainland America, or maybe more like Hawai'i. Complete with sprawling malls, Dairy Queen, iHop, Pizza Hut, in a “tropical pacific” climate. Also, IIRC quite a lot of stray dogs hanging about. This was all pre-pandemic so maybe everything is different nowadays.
I was living in Asia at time so flights were a no brainer.
Everyone seems to drive giant utility trucks as well. You have to rent some kind of vehicle.
> As tensions with China mount, the U.S. military continues to build up Guam and other Pacific territories — placing the burdens of imperial power on the nation’s most ignored and underrepresented citizens.
Oh NYT never change. If the country never did, you would bet the NYT would have something like below:
> As tensions with China mount, the U.S. military continues to ignore Guam and other Pacific territories — endangering on the nation’s most ignored and underrepresented citizens.
And what is a liberal, according to [Mort] Sahl? Well, he offered a nice definition at one point, saying that if the Reagan-Gorbachev summit broke down and the worst eventually took place, the headline in the Washington Post the next day would read: 'Nuclear Holocaust; World Ends; Women and Minorities Hit Hardest.'
...
His real quarrel is with what he sees as the cynical manner in which the American political landscape has been divided up in our time--so that a 'liberal Left' that doesn't deserve the label can engage in self-serving mock combat with a bogyman 'Right.' Or as Sahl puts it, 'The liberals always settle for singing; the Republicans just want to run the banks.'
Yea I recently started hosting a very niche game server in Guam (action quake 2) because of its central location.
It’s 95ms from Melbourne, AU, 110ms from Auckland, NZ and about 120ms from west coast US. Central US is probably about 150ms.
All of which are very close playable.
Living in Australia, as a teen FPS gamer it was always frustrating to know that no matter what tech comes next, the physical distance is the limiting factor.
As someone who grew up in Guam, that’s really interesting to hear the island being used as a workaround for ping times. I was always frustrated getting 100-200ms on games like Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament while everyone in the US had much lower pings. Then again, I was playing on US servers. Maybe if I was privy to people using Guam servers as a workaround to bridge the ping gap in this way, I could have used it to my advantage and had the lowest pings on Guam servers haha. I’d probably still lose though, but at least I wouldn’t be able to blame it on ping time.
Was born in Saipan, a smaller island next to Guam. Americans didn’t forget Guam and Northern Mariana Islands. It’s more like Americans were never aware we are part of America to begin with.
Hell, I got married in the States recently. My marriage license registration didn’t go through because my birthplace wasn’t a thing in the online application form. My wife had no issue, and she was born in a foreign country.
No taxation without representation. Stop charging the inhabitants for any and all U.S. taxes. Hell, decolonize and let them have their freedom and independence.
The territories can at any point take a (democratic and non-contestable) vote for their sovereignty. If a majority decided to become a sovereign entity, it's very unlikely the United States would not grant them it. They can also do the same for statehood, but that's a bit more complicated; even so, before 2000, a majority of the United States was pro allowing Puerto Rico statehood, if they decided it. Now....well, good luck given political infighting.
Your option, instead, is forcing millions of American citizens, against their will, into a sovereign situation that they might not be prepared for. Versus letting them make their own choice.
I think your comment is extremely ignorant to obstacles intentionally crafted to prevent those kinds of things in reality. That political infighting does not exist by itself. Another part is that half of the island is by now dependent on a member of family being in the Navy, housing prices are unmanageable, they rely on food stamps etc etc. To which you are saying - why do they want independence then when they're not prepared for it - but this situation was created outside of their control, and they now don't have means to "prepare for it". Also, you might have skipped the part where their draft resolutions are getting just automatically ignored/denied by UN at every assembly.
I doubt a majority of Guam residents want independence at this point. Being part of the US is economically useful, compared to being a small independent island.
But yeah, statehood would solve the representation issue.
Talking about proportionality and the Senate is like talking about fine dining and McDonalds.
Although, oddly enough it seemed to be a small bulwark _against_ extremism in the last election since you can't gerrymander a Senate race. So that was a pleasant surprise.
As a NYer the fact others get 40 times my representation is irksome though.
Or maybe just update the system to match the new realities of a 50+-state America?
"Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last. The smaller States, considering how peculiarly their safety and welfare depend on union, ought readily to renounce a pretension which, if not relinquished, would prove fatal to its duration."
Maleffa yu ni kostumbren taotao tano, kon todo i lengguahe; mampos Amerikanon pao asu yu pago...and yet any way I looked at it---whether as an ethnic native of the Marianas who grew up with wideband exposure to what definitely seemed like a pronounced bimodal economic distribution; or as a veteran who eagerly and proudly served for a decade; or as an assimilated American who benefits from the resources and opportunities the mainland has to offer---this article managed to stir up some deeply repressed emotions that brutally ripped my heart into three.
> Politically, Palau is a presidential republic in free association with the United States, which provides defense, funding, and access to social services.
Free association is different than territorial status. Territories are subnational entities (like states), while free associated states are sovereign entities that share some sort of agreement.
In the case of the Pacific Islands and the US, free association has to do with military protection and guaranteed sovereignty in exchange for shared military access. It oftentimes takes the place of vassalage or protectorate status, but with equal party station (either party can leave, if they see fit versus the more powerful entity enforcing the situation).
The territories of the United States are not associated states, but subnational entities (equal to the States in hierarchy, not necessarily political status).
The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, etc are free associations.
I visited Guam back in 2014 to empty my UA miles as China-Guam used to be a sweet spot for UA miles redemption back then.
I actually got trouble entering Guam because back then I was on L1 visa, which only allows me to enter the US for work, and my employer does not have any office at Guam and I don't have a connection from Guam to US mainland. After being held at the airport for hours (I believe they called my hotel for verification) they finally stamped a parole on my passport and let me in.
...Interesting.
Walt Nauta was born in Guam. His experiences might not change the forgetfulness, but nonetheless interesting to see his path into the mainstream of the US legal consciousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Nauta
In what way? The territories are as much a part of the US as the states are. They simply have a different status than the states do.
I assume you're making some point/remark regarding their status and the political mindfield surrounding it, but that doesn't change their subnational/sovereign situation.
I'm well aware of it's political decisiveness in LATAM, but it's pretty clear the context here is the colloquial usage in English; despite your personal feelings.
Well, US people are prompt to point finger at the rest of the world and tell them how they should treat/call other peoples in order to not hurt them, so I think it is valid from non US people to tell US people to also fix their colloquial usage if it is rude towards other nations. Also colloquial doesn't mean universal.
You know, putting your own house in order and stuff like that.
The colloquial usage is far greater than the US. Go watch some German, Dutch, British, Australian, French, etc media and then come back and talk.
Your umbrage at the word is your problem and your insecurity. Americans are quite aware of the difference between America and America, and it's pretty clear in context. As a Spanish speaker, it's also obvious in 99% of contexts in Spanish. So there's nothing to fix beyond your feelings, which affects no one but yourself.
There's nothing to "play" here. Taking a misguided emotional stance on something that has very little effect on anyone and misattributing it to a "big bad" is a clear sign of personal insecurity.
If you're not Latino, it's even further mind-boggling how you would think this was an American derived phenomenon or in any way unique to American language. It goes back to intra-European communique well before the revolution and any concept of the US began.
Lastly: I'm Mexican, living in Mexico. Literally the only time I've ever heard any Latino refer to themselves as "American" (in English or Spanish) is specifically for the made up injustice you seem to have latched onto. So again, there's nothing to fix, beyond your hurt feelings and insecurities (vicarious or internalized), since the language is unambiguous.
I'm sure you'll have something to argue back with or some weird little nitpick that makes you think you've "won" though...so you can have the last word. Ciao.
Did they ever want to keep it? It was my understanding that, as with Mexico following the Mexican American War, many in the US didn't want permanent integration due to racial sentiments; the thought of giving tens of millions of Filipinos US citizenship horrified them.
If the US had annexed/colonized/assimilated the Philippines permanently (post 1920s), it would have had to resolve the 500 years of unresolved history of Mindanao and Sulu: first colonized /occupied by Spanish [0], then by the US itself.
The US role in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) is underdiscussed, but it includes large-scale civilian deaths, cholera, famine, torture, mutilation, executions, (by both sides) concentration camps; it has been claimed the cholera was intentionally used against the civilian population. Casualties were as high as 1 million of the 6-7 million total population. [1] Mark Twain (along with other anti-imperialists) famously opposed the war and said it betrayed the ideals of American democracy by not allowing the Filipino people to choose their own destiny.
The Moro Rebellion (1899–1913) was an armed conflict between the Moro people (Muslims in Southern Philippines: Mindanao, Jolo, Sulu) and the US military during the Philippine–American War. [2]
I was in Mindanao just this week, and did not get a full understanding of some of the groups hostile to Americans. (Notably the Moro, but not the only group)
I do not know about the Philippines. The US military controlled Okinawa up until 1972, and even then was not very hype about "giving it back" (Okinawa's history mirrors Hawaii, so reversion to Japan was not necessarily the "correct" end state, bit it was a popular one at the time).
I think the reality is that so long as these territories are not states, I think most Americans are "fine", and barely even register that this is happening. I think even the status of places like Puerto Rico (US citizens since 1917!) has only fairly recently been understood by most Americans compared to 20 years ago.
Things are nuanced and not totally black and white, and with the Philippines it does feel like the ball was rolling so strongly that any colonial ambitions would be hard to establish. But Guam was also taken at the same time and is still a territory!
Places small enough to be permanent military bases are likely good candidates for permanent colonialisation by the US gov't.
For anyone interested: the article mentions “How to Hide an Empire” by Daniel Immerwahr. It's a very well-written and well-researched book -- Immerwahr does a great job creating a narrative from all the historical events in the book. The reason I mention it here is because it goes into detail about Americans' reluctance to grant full citizenship to residents of its overseas territories.
Ordinary American citizens didn't like the idea of being colonizers, since they had, not long ago, been a colony themselves and fought to free themselves.
> Ordinary American citizens didn't like the idea of being colonizers, since they had, not long ago, been a colony themselves and fought to free themselves.
Bad comparison: the American Revolution was a group of colonialists rebelling against their colonialist bosses, not a rebellion of the colonised against the coloniser. Indeed, one of the American Revolution’s complaints was that London was too protective of Native American rights, and was limiting its colonies expansion into Native American territories. So rather than an anti-colonialist rebellion, it was a pro-colonialist rebellion
Yeah it's quite impressive how widespread this mythology is and how deeply people buy into it. Many have this anachronistic view of rough-and-ready, good old boy Americans rebelling against tea-sipping foppish British fancy lads solely in the noble pursuit of freedom. The reality is somewhat more nuanced and tbh far more interesting too.
But people like to have a simplified view of history that validates their beliefs and bristle when confronted with the reality that things weren't so simple, and their heroes were often darker, more complex and tbh more problematic than they realise.
> Indeed, one of the American Revolution’s complaints was that London was too protective of Native American rights, and was limiting its colonies expansion into Native American territories.
I've never heard of this. Do you have some links to read more about it?
> from the perspective of almost all NATIVE AMERICANS the American Revolution was an unmitigated disaster… Gradually, however, it became clear to most native groups, that an independent America posed a far greater threat to their interests and way of life than a continued British presence that restrained American westward expansion.
> With remarkably few exceptions, Native American support for the British was close to universal.
The vast majority of Native Americans supported the British in the Revolutionary War, because while the British did not always respect their rights, they did so to a greater degree than the Revolutionaries did
Oh, they love a part of it. The part where they get the cheap labor, but not the part where they hang around for too long and start asking for human rights.
We ban accounts that post slurs. Please don't do it again.
Also, could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait generally? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
What slur did I use? And I'm not baiting anything, just speaking my mind. Sometimes lazy on phone to link evidence. But I shall banish myself. Good day
Ah, yes, the island that could capsize, if we load it up with too much materiel, according to a particular US Senator...
Guam is like Guantanamo, or Diego Garcia. We're there only because they are of strategic importance for the post-war (WWII) projection of power and nothing more. Else all those little island bases would be quiet places like so many other small islands that dot the oceans.
> Else all those little island bases would be quiet places like so many other small islands that dot the oceans.
Most of those "quiet places" in the Pacific are in free association with the United States. They still "act as bases" in return for the United States offering guaranteed protection and sovereignty. So I'm not quite sure what your comparison point is supposed to be: a) places that ended up under US possession after the Spanish-American war and are now full of American citizens (barring one specific example that still exists for very racist reasons) after being a part of the US for over a century or b) places that willingly lend themselves a similar situation in exchange for protection from (what they consider) worse options.
…And then acquired by the Japanese at the outbreak of WWII and then we took it back toward the end of WWII. Its importance lies in its geography. It is a nice base from which to project power. The Spanish knew that, the Japanese knew that and we knew that. Else it’d be like many mid oceanic islands. Or the Orkney islands. The importance is military strategic importance, else they’d be like the Faroe Islands. Some place somewhere.
Not taking a stance one way or another, but the reason for remaining somewhere can be wholly different from the reason you acquired that locale in the first place.
It's an oversimplified view of a very complicated situation, though. And it ignores a) the feelings of the residents in those territories themselves (many would like statehood or the status quo, sovereignty is the least popular option in almost every inhabited territory) and b) the fact that they are all US citizens as well.
People always focus on the fact that there is a military base in some of the territories and assume that is the primary reasoning, while ignoring the fact that there are hundreds of US airbases in California alone, along with the marine, naval and army bases. Yet that's hardly the reason California is a part of the US.
There's certainly an argument for the territories' status and where they should end up, but I don't believe the primary motivation is militaristic.
I know someone who grew up near a US base in the Philippines.
Her father was employed as a cook at the base. When the base was closed, they went back to eeking out a living through subsistence farming.
There are some positive economic impacts for the locals.
https://dc-office.org/basedata#p5 I highly recommend reading the Okinawa prefectural government's DC office fact sheet. Short story: There'd be a lot more useful economic activity from developing the land these bases are on.
(Okinawa has DC offices because the prefecture and the Japanese mainland gov't are not aligned on these topics at all. The prefecture basically wants these bases gone, and don't really want SDF bases there either. Tokyo wants the bases.)
Well, it depends on which "they" you're referring to. The Japanese love hosting the US bases there, except that Okinawa is to Japan largely as Puerto Rico is to the US, and the Okinawans themselves are quite unhappy to be the actual hosts (surely not helped by soldiers' predilections for raping local girls).
> Or maybe just accept that the one constant of life is everyone takes everyone else's shit if and when they can and want.
Sure. But if this is normal, why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?
Just because evils were done in the past, doesn’t mean we should just accept it as universal truths and continue doing the same things to others (islanders).
If you accept that Russia is wrong, then invading natives was wrong and taking land from islanders *IS* wrong.
>>why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?
Jesus christ, that's a logical jump if I've ever seen one, but ok, I'll bite:
IF Russia succeeds at taking Ukraine, then sure in few hundred years it should be accepted as "normal" that's just what Russia's territory is. Just like most European countries where their borders have shifted through wars and violence many times in the past. That doesn't make the present actions ok, just like the past actions of European colonists in North America aren't ok.
There is literally ZERO reason to accept what Russia is doing now. They should be fought against with all might that can be offered, because it's barbaric, brutal, and has no reason to happen. Just like I'm sure Native Americans and all "first people" of any lands have fought against invaders in their time.
> But if this is normal, why is it so hard to accept what Russia is doing to Ukraine?
Because before significant aid could even reach Ukraine, the Ukrainians stopped Russia - ergo they didn’t “defeat the natives” and instead are being defeated.
So your comparison here doesn’t really make sense. It also doesn’t make sense because we Russia is actively attacking Ukraine today.
Well that was your logic. I was pointing out that:
> How is this different from Russia taking Ukraine’s land?
Hasn’t happened yet (in the context of the 2022 invasion - aware of previous annexation). And bigger, more powerful countries like the United States are helping Ukraine stop Russia from doing so.
But since this is ongoing we can say “hey that’s wrong!” And do something about it. Not much we can do (though there is some) about events hundreds of years old.
So it’s normal because it has occurred through your history, and also possible for us to stop today, hence we are. If you want to really dig into the whole might makes right thing (and at the nation state level it does) then the US is the mightiest and is stopping Russia from taking from Ukraine.
Yes. Unfortunately we live in a world where might makes right.
If Russia had kicked Ukraine's ass what do you think would have happened? NATO declaring war? Remember that Putin got away with Crimea in 2014.You only have sovereignty if you can defend it.
It is possible to both agree with fighting back and trying to keep the peace such as it exists, and at the same time realize it’s obviously absurd to try to undo all the aggressions stretching back through history.
Of course it’s impossible to undo evils of the past. I’m talking about the present though. The islanders shouldn’t be invaded for “power projection” because they are human beings too. It’s pretty much the same thing Russia is doing.
> It’s pretty much the same thing Russia is doing.
Complete gibberish. You can’t seriously be claiming that cities in Guam are being turned to rubble under heavy artillery fire, and children being kidnapped etc.
Ukraine is still at war because the west is helping them repel an occupator.
Let's say China started supporting people in Guam who want independence, and supplying them with weapons - that would be just and a good thing, right?
Because you did posit in the previous reply that it's completely expected and a fact of life that larger powers overtake these smaller ones - like USA and Guam, and Russia and Ukraine.
> Let's say China started supporting people in Guam who want independence
Sounds like you’ve forgotten that Russia marched on Ukraine’s capital, deliberately shelling civilian targets, and Ukraine fought off the Russians on their own for weeks, completely defying everyone’s expectations, which is why the West is now supplying weapons to them.
On top of that Ukraine was an independent state with a treaty with a Russia guaranteeing that.
I don't think you can sensibly describe Guam as "being invaded" at this point. Last time there was a referendum there, outright independence from US got less than 4% of the vote. What they rightly want is proper representation within US.
Sometimes you have to let countries duke it out themselves and settle their scores by themselves. I also think post Cold War, we're spending way too much money protecting others at US taxpayer expense. Let those countries defend themselves. Why do we have to be the world police and take all the blowback?
> Why do we have to be the world police and take all the blowback?
Because that's what superpowers do if they want to keep their position as superpowers.
You can, for example, stop policing shipping lanes. But then can't complain once shipments start disappearing as other countries don't take the slack. There is less justification to keep warships near 'interesting' countries in that scenario too. You get to keep the military machine well oiled. And the list goes on.
> On December 6, 1941, the US vs. rest of world might have been a fair fight. Maybe.
No, it wouldn't have. The US would likely have lost the fight, especially if you consider that in such a counterfactual world there probably wouldn't have been a WW2 going on for the past few years.
While it is difficult to be more precise about when the US became the top world power than "during WW2", it is pretty clear to most knowledgeable observers that the answer is definitely not before WW2 breaks out (it is at best at parity with Britain). And honestly, I'd be skeptical of putting it before the Guadalcanal Campaign, where the US throws battleships into a cruiser battle because it has run out of cruisers. The point I'd go for is when the Essex carriers start coming online, which is 1943.
American actions post world war II and post cold war are founded from the experience post-world War I, when USA left Europe to fend for itself, defend itself, and rebuild itself it resulted in a much worse outcome for the world. We tried again after World War II, but after it became clear that Europe would be ripped apart by their internal issues after World War II, and stalin would exploit that to continue to drive the iron curtain west, the USA re-engaged in Europe.
The USA and Europe have a role to play in keeping the peace. It's not a accident that China is regularly violating Japanese territorial waters (as they did last week, he 8 mile line here, not exclusive economic zones) and threatening their neighbors over possession of islands that can strangle world trade.
When China (and Russia for that manner) show that they can be apart of a international community based on common principles of human rights, there won't be a need... but until then.
USA keeping "peace" using Japan as example is detached from reality. The entire reason PRC (and TW and both Korea's and RU via USSR) has DISPUTED maritime borders and territorial claims with Japan (read: not Japanese territory / water) is because USA deliberately kept post war East Asian order unresolved post WW2. There's a reason Japan, the loser of the war, has maritime / territorial disputes with EVERY one of her neighbours (no other country has 100% territorial dispute) her post war territory should have been dictated to her via treaty, but due to US posturing, was left messily unresolved specifically because it gave US military more freedom to operate in region. It's absurd to think anyone but US and by connection JP for being the bad actors for fucking up post war resolution for other ALLIES (read: USSR -> RU and ROC -> PRC). East Asian territorial friction is precisly because USA couldn't keep peace by engineering an situtation where peace is impossible because they didn't want a durable peaceful international order and gave literal war criminals preferential geopolitical treatment because it benefited US military interests, and continues to.
> we're spending way too much money protecting others at US taxpayer expense.
Is US pritectibg Europe, or US interests in Europe?
Over the past 40 years the US spending on arms has grown, but fewer and fewer pieces are being produced. Pentagon fails audits.
Now it got to the point where USA cannot supply Ukraine with enough artillery rounds, and they are like the aimplest item to produce. Economy of Russia is like 10x smaller, this should not even be a contest in terms of production.
Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered? China has 10 the manufacturing capabilty of Russia.
I doubtwe need to spend so much, but why are we not getting our money's worth?
> Now it got to the point where USA cannot supply Ukraine with enough artillery rounds, and they are like the aimplest item to produce. Economy of Russia is like 10x smaller, this should not even be a contest in terms of production.
Never in modern history has a country been able to sustain a full-blown war without adapting its production capacity. It's not surprising that an economy dimensioned for peacetime doesn't successfully sustain a war.
> Imagine if there is a real conflict, and things like cruise missiles need to be replaced, what happens then - you place an order and wait 2 years for it to be delivered?
Basically, yes. Always was. As explained in the Vietnam war example [1]: "D to P stocks are those war reserves of ammunition which are stocked in peace time to provide the necessary reservoir of ammunition to sustain combat operations until such time that the planned production base can be activated"
An implicit deal we have made with many other states is that in exchange for managing the peace, they will not develop or further develop nuclear capability.
Yup - if we didn't accept Finland and Sweden into NATO then their only option to prevent a Russian invasion would be to develop nukes and aim them at St. Petersburg.
Do you mean Russia or USSR? It is unclear if you are asking about a hypothetical event in the past or a hypothetical event in the future after ratification of Sweden’s NATO membership.
Interesting that Sweden sees modern Russia as a bigger threat than the USSR. Whatever there was before is not enough now and they want a full NATO membership instead.
Whatever there was before, was dismantled late eighties or early nineties, it’s hard to tell for sure.
One big reason Sweden jumped into NATO now is that the Swedish military is, not exactly a shadow of its former self, but very small.
If Sweden would have had an equivalent of the military power it had in say, 1991, I doubt a NATO application would have been made, or at least not as hastily.
The dollar became the world currency by accident after the OPEC started pricing petroleum in dollars. We're starting to see a slow departure from that.
If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc. Instead, they go to ensuring Japan, Korea, Philippines, etc. don't have to spend so much on defense.
As China ascends to No. 1, will they take over the spending? (I'd be happy of they were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us)
> The dollar became the world currency by accident after the OPEC started pricing petroleum in dollars.
OPEC was formed on September 14, 1960. The definition of "world currency" is somewhat nebulous, but for the purposes of determining when the "dollar became the world currency", perhaps the best date to use is the Bretton Woods conference, which set up the main international financial system, establishing that everyone would peg their currencies to the US dollar, as well as the existence of the IMF and the World Bank. This was done--on purpose, not "by accident"--in June, 1944, 16 years before OPEC ever existed. The Bretton Woods system itself collapses in the 1970s.
> If we did not spend those extra tens of billions per year in projecting power, we could better serve our students, workers, retirees, infrastructure, etc.
This is laughable. If we didn’t spend billions projecting power, we’d be much poorer because world trade would become much more costly for us, as China reshapes it to its own advantage.
China isn’t looking in great shape to do any ‘ascending’ anyway.
> I'd be happy [if China] were the ones keeping shipping lanes for their own exports open and not us
History's not on your side for that one. You're talking about the country that, plagued by pirates disturbing its coastal shipping, went to massive expense to construct an enormous system of inland canals running parallel to the coast that the pirates couldn't reach.
If Chinese merchants wanted the sea kept clear, say because they wanted to trade with nearby islands, they had do that in their own private capacity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koxinga
Except that's history. Reality today is not on your side. PRC has more ship building capacity than rest of world combined. Annual production of dead weight tons per year is about 6x-8x more than output US emergency ship building program during WW2. Not to mention most new PRC surface combatants do anti piracy tours out to Africa. If PRC/PLAN wanted to take over piracy protection for her SLOCs, they can basically do so already, plenty of small hulls being retired to coast guard that even they have enough capacity to do it.
Because that’s what being a superpower means. A lot of the rights and privileges you enjoy is precisely because the US is a superpower. If you don’t like it, you’re more than welcome to move to some quiet backwater, there are plenty of those around the world.
The usual lies and distortions that we expect from the Times. Just some examples:
>In 1893, Americans overthrew the monarchy in Hawaii, then later annexed the island.
A committee of native-born Hawaii citizens, Americans, and Europeans overthrew the monarchy, not the US government. The US didn't annex Hawaii until the Spanish War in 1898 demonstrated the islands' importance to the US.
>a series of Supreme Court rulings called the Insular Cases that began in 1901, five years after the court allowed “separate but equal” segregation"
The Insular Cases had absolutely nothing to do with Plessy v. Ferguson. The latter is no longer the law of the land; the former still are.
>Though some CHamoru tried to fight the Japanese, the overwhelming narrative holds that American soldiers were the saviors of Guam. Every year on July 21, the island shuts down for the Liberation Day Parade, a grand military procession down Marine Corps Drive to mark the anniversary of Uncle Sam’s return.
This and the following paragraph makes it sound like Guam's residents have been brainwashed into thinking that American soldiers were not, in fact, the saviors of Guam.
>The country wasn’t colloquially referred to as “America” until 1898.
This is so, so, so wrong that I can't even sputter about it.
Small islands are either part of bigger countries, or are protected by them. There is no alternative. One does not have to like it to accept it as the only realistic outcome. If Guam were not American, it would today be a Chinese possession with the entirety of its surface area garrisoned. Without the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the Pacific War, the Japanese rapes of native Guamian women would have continued forever.
> A committee of native-born Hawaii citizens, Americans, and Europeans overthrew the monarchy, not the US government. The US didn't annex Hawaii until the Spanish War in 1898 demonstrated the islands' importance to the US.
The native-born citizens in the Committee of Safety [0] were almost all second and third generation descendants of Americans. No ethnic Hawaiians were members.
While the committee was composed of private citizens, they acted with the ultimate goal of annexation with the United States. They were crucially supported by a contingent of US troops that surrounded the palace of the Hawaiian monarchy on the orders of the chief American diplomat, whose interests in annexation aligned with the committee. [1]
> The native-born citizens in the Committee of Safety [0] were almost all second and third generation descendants of Americans. No ethnic Hawaiians were members.
So because of their ethnicity, they don't count as "native" Hawaiians despite having been born on the islands with birthright citizenship. Got it.
One begins to understand why they joined the "Committee of Safety" that plotted the overthrow of the monarchy, the same monarchy that was planning to revoke the relatively liberal constitution.
>While the committee was composed of private citizens, they acted with the ultimate goal of annexation with the United States.
Correct. Annexation was something that most people, in the US and in Hawaii, expected during the 19th century would happen eventually. Kamehameha III in the 1850s asked for annexation, but it didn't happen because of US internal politics.
>They were crucially supported by a contingent of US troops that surrounded the palace of the Hawaiian monarchy on the orders of the chief American diplomat, whose interests in annexation aligned with the committee.
US consul John Stevens was a member of the committee that plotted the overthrow of the monarchy. He exploited the time gap between Honolulu and Washington to ask for the soldiers on US Navy ships in the harbor to march off the ships, parade through the city, then march back on. When Washington learned of what Stevens had done he was fired, but it was too late; the queen had been intimidated into surrendering.
And don't even bother to bring up the Blount Report, because I can bring up the Morgan Report. My larger point is to, when discussing something you obviously didn't know anything about before today, not try to refute someone else by citing superficial readings of Wikipedia articles that you, again, had never looked at before today and go "A-ha! Got you!" Just don't.
> So because of their ethnicity, they don't count as "native" Hawaiians despite having been born on the islands with birthright citizenship. Got it.
One of the first things you learn when you spend time in Hawaii is that you don't call yourself a Hawaiian unless you have indigenous roots. These were white Western businessmen with strong American ties. They represented a small minority of Hawaiian nationals, the vast majority of which were ethnically Hawaiian. [0]
> One of the first things you learn when you spend time in Hawaii is that you don't call yourself a Hawaiian unless you have indigenous roots.
I am aware of how widespread this blatantly racist practice is, yes.
>And please don't make unfounded assumptions about my experience and knowledge of Hawaiian history.
Taking you at your word, no doubt you are also a supporter of Kamehameha's admissions practices. There's a reason why the Bishop estate has consistently settled lawsuits challenging said practices despite the enormous financial cost; it knows very well that it will lose, both in the courts and in the court of national public opinion.
(This is now when you rush to Wikipedia to look up "Kamehameha School" and "Bishop Estate".)
