China watches as the U.S. fumbles around in central Pacific

The COFAS are what ensures that the U.S. can deploy unmolested across the vast Central Pacific and reach its treaty allies and bases in Japan, South Korea, Philippines and elsewhere.

- CLEO PASKAL

This, in turn, is essential for a free and open Indo-Pacific, with implications reaching all the way to India and beyond.

It wasn’t intended to be embarrassing. It was probably intended—by the people who announced it—to be a sort of celebration. Unpacking what happened next gives a peek into why nothing can be taken for granted in this era of heightened strategic “competition”, how healthy country-to country relations require constant and real communications, and that the actual problems may not be where you are looking.

BACKGROUND: THE MOST IMPORTANT DEFENCE AGREEMENTS YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Three independent countries in the central Pacific— Palau, Republic of Marshall Islands (RMI) and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM)—cover a highly strategic contiguous maritime zone running from west of Hawaii to the Philippines.

The United States, through separate agreements with each of the three—known as the Compacts of Free Association (COFA)—are granted defence and security rights and responsibilities over this zone, that is about the size of the continental United States. The U.S. is also granted strategic denial, meaning it can deny military access to others.

The COFAs are what ensures that the U.S. can deploy unmolested across the vast Central Pacific and reach its treaty allies and bases in Japan, South Korea, Philippines and elsewhere. This, in turn, is essential for a free and open Indo-Pacific, with implications reaching all the way to India and beyond.