Compact colonialism: U.S. neocolonialism in Micronesia in the early twenty-first century

ABSTRACTFor decades, the United States has administered compacts of free association with the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia. Scholars have criticized the United States for using the compacts to limit the sovereignty of the compact states, but they have not determined how the compact states fit into the American empire in the Pacific Ocean. A review of the U.S. documentary record from the early twenty-first century indicates that the United States has ruled the compact states through its own particular form of neocolonialism, or ‘compact colonialism’. Under the compacts, the United States has exercised several powers, including military controls, political controls, economic controls, cultural influence and humanitarian indifference. 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Hicks’ Remarks at Worldwide Logistics Symposium 2022: ‘Global Security Implications of Climate Change’’, 8 March 2022, https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/2959502/deputy-secretary-of-defense-dr-kathleen-h-hicks-remarks-at-worldwide-logistics/.135 U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, The Freely Associated States.136 Rose Gottemoeller, ‘A Current Security Imperative: The US Role in the Marshall Islands,’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 22 May 2022, https://thebulletin.org/2022/05/a-current-security-imperative-the-us-role-in-the-marshall-islands/.137 White House, Pacific Partnership Strategy of the United States, September 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Pacific-Partnership-Strategy.pdf.138 Damien Cave, ‘Countering China, the U.S. Signs a Broad Deal to Aid Pacific Nations,’ New York Times, 30 September 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/asia/pacific-islands-summit-washington.html.139 Joseph Biden, ‘Remarks by President Biden at the U.S.-Pacific Island Country Summit,’ 29 September 2022, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/09/29/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-u-s-pacific-island-country-summit/.Additional informationNotes on contributorsEdward HuntEdward Hunt is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Regis College. He has taught at Babson College, Stonehill College, Worcester State University, the Wentworth Institute of Technology and the College of William & Mary. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies from the College of William & Mary. He writes about war and empire for independent news media.