Guam: Protests at the Tip of America's Spear

In 2009, the US Department of Defense outlined their plans to dramatically increase their military presence in Guam, a Micronesian island that has been a colony of the United States since 1898. This move of several thousand Marines currently stationed in Okinawa represented the most recent instance whereby the United States intends to “sharpen” what its military planners have referred to as “the tip of their spear” leveled against potential threats in Asia. The increased military presence as well as proposed firing and training ranges would have significantly impacted the environment and culture of the island, and as such have become objects of local community debate and protest. Michael Lujan Bevacqua's article chronicles recent activism against US militarization in Guam and provides a context as to why this 212-square-mile colony in the Western Pacific holds so much strategic value to the United States.