The United States’ geopolitical & strategic interest in the NMI

For a nation to acquire additional territory, a government must either annex an area by force of arms or by purchase from a sovereign government.

The Northern Marianas was not a permanent legal possession of Japan at the time of the war as it had only been entrusted to Japan under a mandate by a group of countries through their organization—the League of Nations. Therefore, the United States could not strip territory from defeated Japan at the conclusion of hostilities in 1945 since the islands were never recognized as a permanent legal possession of Japan in the first place.

The unique relationship between the United States government and the Commonwealth stems from the fact that the islands were never recognized as a permanent possession of any nation since they were taken from defeated Germany by the Allied Powers during World War I. Subsequently assigned to Japan under a mandate from the League of Nations, the islands’ status did not change after they were occupied by United States armed forces in 1944. Indeed, since their purchase by Germany from Spain in 1899, and their assignment to Japan for administration in 1920 by the League of Nations, the Northern Marianas had no political identity among the countries of the world.

From the time of Germany’s loss of the islands they were never regarded by the United States as a permanent colony within the exclusive sovereignty of any nation, (except, of course, by Japan when it left the League before the outbreak of World War II).

At the conclusion of the Second World War the United States, not desiring to appear as having annexed the islands by virtue of “victor’s rights,” placed them under the supervision of the Security Council of the newly formed United Nations. As the Marianas were considered to be within a strategic area of the western Pacific they were to be overseen through the Security Council where the United States had veto power, rather than the U.N. General Assembly.

Until 1944 the former Japanese Mandated Islands consisted of the island groups of the Western Carolines (Palau, now Belau and Yap); the Eastern Carolines (Truk, now Chuuk; Kusaie, now Kosrae); Pohnpei (Senyavin Island), the Marshall Islands and the Northern Marianas.

Later, under a Trusteeship Agreement with the United Nations, the area became known as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (the U.S. Territory of Guam was never a part of the Trust Territory). Negotiations for self-government, and thus eventual termination of the Trusteeship Agreement, first began in 1970.

The people of the Northern Marianas were encouraged to choose their future political status from several options. These included independence or becoming affiliated with the United States, either through a relationship of free association or a commonwealth status based upon a negotiated agreement. This later became known as the Covenant, which describes the relationship agreed upon between the people of the Northern Marianas and the United States government.

The people of the Northern Marianas were the first of all the former Trust Territory entities to decide their future political identity. They decided to enter into a Commonwealth arrangement in political union with the United States. In all of the former Japanese Mandated Islands within Micronesia, they were the only island group to seek such a close political arrangement with America.

In June 1975 the people of the Northern Marianas elected to accept a negotiated Covenant with the United States. While U.S. citizens residing in the Commonwealth are denied the right to vote in presidential elections, since January 2009 they have been ably represented in the United States Congress by their elected representative, Gregorio “Kilili” Sablan.

No other United States territory or insular possession has a similar relationship with the United States as does the Northern Marianas. Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Guam were all acquired under circumstances far different than that of the NMI.

U.S./CNMI citizen residents can only vote in United States national elections if they are registered as a voter in the United States and vote by either absentee ballot or while present in the U.S. during an election.

Editor’s note: Prior to service with the U.S. Department of State, the author studied the economics of national security from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (now the National Defense University). He is a recipient of the Department of Defense “Cold War Certificate” for services rendered to the U.S. government. During his tenure in the Pacific area he has served as senior economist for the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and later for the Northern Marianas, Palau and Truk.