The Importance of America’s Pacific Family

After years of negotiations, the third iteration of the Compacts of Free Association (COFA) – Compact III – between the United States and the countries of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), are nearing completion. The COFA Amendments Act was signed into law in the United States on March 9, shortly after it was completed in Palau and FSM, and it is currently undergoing public consultation in RMI, with approval expected within weeks.

Understanding how the COFAs came to be, what is in them, and what they mean for a free and open Indo-Pacific requires a fundamental rethinking of “the Pacific Islands.”

How Did the COFAs Happen?

The COFAs are unlike any agreement the U.S. has with any other countries – because this region is unlike any other. A bit of (admittedly reductionist) history helps explain why.

The people of what are now Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Palau, the FSM, and the RMI have a long history of excellence in seafaring. They crisscrossed the region for centuries until their first major colonization – by Spain. After the Spanish-American war (1898), the United States took Guam, and Germany (which already had control over the Marshall Islands) bought the rest from Spain.

In 1914, Japan took Germany’s possessions during World War I, and was eventually awarded them as the South Seas Mandate by the League of Nations. Imperial Japan colonized the region and increasingly fortified it, allowing Tokyo to project power to areas near Hawaiian waters.