Earlier this month, Sweden joined 31 other countries, including the United States, as the newest member of the security alliance. So that’s 49 of the 50 states in the Union. Due to a geographical and historical peculiarity, Hawaii is not officially admitted to the NATO alliance.
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would have no obligation to defend Hawaii if a foreign force attacked it, such as the U.S. Navy facility at Pearl Harbor or the Indo-Pacific Command headquarters northwest of Honolulu. According to David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum think group in Honolulu, “it’s the strangest thing.” He also points out that most people in Hawaii don’t know that their state is officially independent of the alliance.
He claims NATO is protecting it because people often believe Hawaii is part of the United States. However, he admits that the name of the alliance – North Atlantic Treaty Organization – is a clear sign. Hawaii is of course in the Pacific and is not part of the continental USA, whose east coast borders the North Atlantic like California, Colorado or Alaska. Hawaii is the 50th state.
“Hawaii is not part of North America, so that is the argument for not including it,” Santoro claims. The exception is described in detail in the Washington Treaty of 1949, which founded NATO ten years before the founding of Hawaii.
Article 6 of the Treaty limits the geographical scope of collective self-defense, although Article 5 of the Treaty allows this in the event of a military attack on a member state. Article 6 states that an armed attack on the territory of a Contracting Party in Europe or North America shall be deemed to be an armed attack on one or more Contracting Parties. Additionally, it states that all island territories must lie north of the Tropic of Cancer in the North Atlantic.
According to a US State Department spokesperson, Hawaii is not covered by Article 5, but any circumstance that would affect the 50th state should be covered by Article 4, which states that members consult when “the territorial integrity, the political independence or…” “security” of a member is at risk.
The spokesman added that a treaty revision to include Hawaii was unlikely to be adopted by consensus because other members had territories outside the boundaries set out in Article 5.
For example, when Argentine troops invaded the Falkland Islands, a disputed British territory in the South Atlantic, NATO declined to join the conflict with Argentina in 1982, even though the United Kingdom was a founding member of NATO.
North Korea, Taiwan, Guam and Hawaii
Some analysts argue that circumstances have changed in the decades since the Washington Treaty was signed, and contend that the current political climate in the Indo-Pacific may require a rethink. This is due to the possibility that U.S. military facilities in Hawaii will be critical to thwarting North Korean aggression and supporting the future defense of Taiwan.
Although China’s ruling Communist Party has never held control of the democratic island, it claims territory over it. “Reunification” with Taiwan is a crucial part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s broader plan to “rejuvenate” the country by 2049.
Although Chinese leaders have expressed a desire to conquer the island peacefully, they have increased military intimidation of the region in recent years and have not ruled out the use of force to achieve this.
According to White House officials, US policy remains unchanged, but US President Joe Biden has indicated that he would deploy US military personnel to defend the island in the event of a Chinese invasion. The Taiwan Relations Act requires Washington to provide weapons for the island’s defense.
The Center for a New American Security conducted a war game in 2022 in which China attacked U.S. command and control facilities in Hawaii as part of its efforts to annex Taiwan. According to John Hemmings, senior director of the Indo-Pacific foreign and security policy program at the Pacific Forum, Hawaii’s withdrawal from NATO “removes an element of deterrence” regarding the likelihood of a Chinese attack on Hawaii in support of a future Taiwan campaign.
He claims that by excluding Hawaii, European NATO members are letting Beijing know that they may have a small “escape clause” when it comes to defending U.S. territory in such a hypothetical situation. “Why shouldn’t we use the deterrent element at our disposal?” says Hemmings. Why should we leave that out of the discussion if it would actually stop (China) from invading Taiwan?
The strategic importance of Hawaii has profound historical significance for the United States. This is the site of Pearl Harbor. This is the site of the attack that triggered our entry into the Second World War and, incidentally, it was also the reason why we contributed to the liberation of France,” he explains. ““For Americans, there is a clear connection between this state, our participation in World War II, and ultimately our help in defeating the Axis powers (the coalition of Nazi Germany, Japan, and Italy).”
Additionally, Hemmings advocates for Guam, a U.S. island nation in the Pacific about 3,000 miles west of Hawaii, to be part of NATO. The island is home to Andersen Air Base, which has long been a center of the North Korean saber trade. From here, the US can fire its B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers into the Indo-Pacific.
Hemmings compares Guam’s absence from NATO to the U.S. leaving the Korean peninsula outside a line it drew across the Pacific in January 1950 to prevent China and the Soviet Union from spreading communism. The Korean War began five months after the so-called Acheson Line was drawn.
According to Hemmings, “the enemy feels emboldened to wage a military conflict and it ends up being a war anyway.” Pacific Forum’s Santoro also says Guam should be part of NATO. He claims, “Guam is strategically much more important than Hawaii.”
Partnership of the willing
Some scholars argue that in the event of a hypothetical attack on Hawaii or Guam, the strong and enduring ties between the United States and its democratic allies would have a far greater influence on national decision-making than a NATO treaty formality.
According to Luis Simon, director of the Research Center for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at the Brussels School of Governance in Belgium, “I would expect the United States to try to put together a coalition of the willing to be the primary participant in this – but certainly not . “exclusively – regional allies” in the event of an attack.
Simon points out that in its 74-year history, NATO has activated the Article 5 collective self-defense mechanism only once – after the September 11 attacks. This reaction was quick and forceful. He adds: “But Washington has really chosen to use a coalition of the willing to direct its response, rather than NATO command.” “I think the US would have full control in the event of an attack on Guam or Hawaii want to retain military control over (the response) and diplomatic flexibility.”
Simon adds that he sees no real difference between NATO countries’ loyalty to the US and the alliance. The transatlantic democratic community is based on NATO. NATO countries, including the US, have praised the alliance’s extraordinary solidarity in the face of Russia’s unannounced invasion of Ukraine. In recent years, NATO has also become more rigid in its collective rhetoric toward China, promising to address what it calls Beijing’s “systemic challenges.”
In the event of an attack on U.S. sovereign land, “I personally have little doubt that they would be willing to provide various forms of assistance, including individually and through multilateral bodies such as the (European Union) or NATO,” the man said.