Text Fwd: Guam: Small Pacific Island Becoming A U.S. Strategic Hub 괌, 작은 태평양 섬, 미국의 전략적 허브가 되다.

* Image source: Minagahet Chamorro blog on Sept. 23, 2010
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* Text from Rick Rozoff on Sept. 23, 2010

CNSNews
September 22, 2010
Small Pacific Island Becoming A U.S. Strategic Hub
By Patrick Goodenough
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-Guam, which is currently home to U.S. Navy facilities and Andersen Air Force Base, has long been a functional forward-deployed location for the military, and in 2000 became the first installation outside the continental U.S. to store long-range air-launched cruise missiles, easily accessible in the event of a future conflict in the region.

-In another sign of its growing importance, Andersen on Monday became the first permanent U.S. base to deploy an RQ-4 Global Hawk, the advanced unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft slated in time to replace the venerable U-2 spy plane.

Andersen is scheduled to get three Global Hawks, which are capable of flying at high altitudes for long-distance missions lasting 30 hours or more, tracking moving targets and intercepting ground communications.
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The signing of a document on Guam Tuesday marked the beginning of a historic build-up of U.S. military assets on the small Pacific island, part of an alignment of forces designed to better handle future security challenges in a key part of the world.

The plan calls for the relocation to Guam of 8,600 U.S. Marines and their estimated 9,000 dependents, from Japan’s Okinawa some 1,400 miles to the northwest; the construction of a deepwater wharf capable of accommodating visiting nuclear-powered aircraft carriers; and the development of a U.S. Army air and missile defense facility, to provide a defensive umbrella for the military assets.

Some Marine training facilities also are expected to be built on Tinian island, 100 miles to the north – part of the Northern Marianas, a U.S. commonwealth.

Guam, which is currently home to U.S. Navy facilities and Andersen Air Force Base, has long been a functional forward-deployed location for the military, and in 2000 became the first installation outside the continental U.S. to store long-range air-launched cruise missiles, easily accessible in the event of a future conflict in the region.

But now it is on track to become a much more important strategic hub and staging point for the U.S. as the closest military presence on U.S. soil to regional hot spots such as North Korea and the Taiwan Strait. Guam is about 3,700 miles closer to the Korean peninsula than is Hawaii.

Being U.S. territory, Guam also meets the “freedom of action” requirement, the absence of which has at times hampered U.S. forces based in America’s main regional military allies, Japan and South Korea.

In another sign of its growing importance, Andersen on Monday became the first permanent U.S. base to deploy an RQ-4 Global Hawk, the advanced unmanned surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft slated in time to replace the venerable U-2 spy plane.

Andersen is scheduled to get three Global Hawks, which are capable of flying at high altitudes for long-distance missions lasting 30 hours or more, tracking moving targets and intercepting ground communications.
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At Naval Base Guam on Tuesday, a U.S. Navy “record of decision” was signed, marking what the Joint Guam Program Office (JGPO) executive director, retired Marine Maj. Gen. David Bice, called the “transition point” for the major project.

When then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Guam during a 2003 visit to Northeast Asia to first discuss force repositioning options Gov. Felix Camacho and Guam’s congressional delegate, Madeleine Bordallo, urged him to consider deploying more U.S. personnel there. They also wanted the Pentagon to choose Guam over Hawaii as the homeport for the first nuclear-powered carrier to be permanently stationed outside the continental U.S.

Although they did not get their wish on the carrier homeport – Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan was chosen instead to house the USS George Washington – Guam will see a significant influx of military personnel and dependents in the coming years.

The report signed Tuesday estimates that the population increase on Guam will total around 34,000, although it will reach double that for a limited period while construction work is underway.

The influx will have a big impact on the island, which is about three times the size of Washington, D.C., and has a population of around 178,000 people, about 40 percent of them indigenous Chamorros.

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Two sensitive aspects of the plans relate to the location of a live-fire training range near an ancient Chamorro village, raising heritage preservation concerns; and the impact of the carrier berth on coral reefs. The document signed Tuesday deferred final decisions on those two issues, allowing more time for consultation and marine surveys of possible alternative berth sites.

The U.S. Marines’ move to Guam by 2014 is part of a broader bilateral agreement with Japan, aimed at reducing the U.S. military footprint on Okinawa while retaining U.S. commitments to provide for the defense and security of Japan. As such, Japan agreed in 2006 to carry just under 60 percent of the costs of the relocation.
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