With tensions high between the U.S. and China, one small island in the Pacific stands
as a nuclear-capable front line in what has the potential to be one of the devastating
wars the world has ever seen.
As the U.S. military expands its already dominating presence, however, not everyone who calls
Guam home wants any part in such a conflict. And yet, the Indigenous people living on the
shrinking two-thirds of the island not already consumed by U.S. military bases have little to no
choice in the matter.
"There are many in the community who are critical of the role that Guam, as an unincorporated
Territory, is forced to play in the posturing and aggression occurring between China and the
United States," Melvin Won Pat-Borja, executive director of the Guam government's Commission
on Decolonization, told Newsweek.
"As a Territory," he added, "Guam's relationship with the federal government, and
thus the Department of Defense, is marked by consultation and not consent."
Guam has played a critical role in a number of U.S. wars, from Korea to Vietnam
and even more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and the Middle East, during which
U.S. bases on the island have helped to facilitate the movement of equipment and
personnel.
But this U.S. military footprint has also put a target on the island's roughly 160,000
residents, as directly evidenced in 2017 when North Korea began openly threatening
Guam amid a war of words with the U.S.
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