Marianas midterm vote a referendum on China’s murky influence

While some watch election outcomes in Michigan, Texas and other high-profile campaigns, defense planners should closely watch election results in another part of the United States.

The US territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is also going to the polls and will elect a new Governor, Attorney General, and more, as well as decide a tight race for the CNMI Delegate to the US Congress.

Although CNMI’s population is around 50,000, its location makes it disproportionately important to the rest of the United States.

CNMI’s main island, Saipan, is an eight-hour flight west of Honolulu and only four hours from Taiwan.  Just south of CNMI is the fellow US territory of Guam, and to its north it shares a maritime boundary with Japan.

CNMI is America’s Asian border – right in the center of the so-called Second Island Chain of islands that runs from Japan, through CNMI, Guam, Yap (Federated States of Micronesia), Palau, Taiwan, the Philippines, and further south.

US Pacific Command (PACOM) has been increasingly focused on this area, including under concepts such as the US Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment (ACE) and the US Navy’s Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) concept. The US Marines, Army, Coast Guard and Space Force each have their own plans.

In CNMI, the US military is refurbishing and expanding World War II-era airfields on the island of Tinian, while also making more use of nearby Saipan and the broader Mariana Islands chain as logistics and training areas for US forces and allies.

Read more HERE.