US war games in the Pacific aim at global participation in imperialist maneuvers

Photo Source: US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Dylan McCord – Public Domain

Every two years, the United States Indo-Pacific Command Center hosts the largest maritime warfare exercises in the world. With over 35,000 participating soldiers from 29 nations, 46 naval surface ships, 4 nuclear submarines and a variety of air and ground troops, the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercise is one of the most destructive training events in the world.

Through these exercises, the US consolidates its control over the Pacific. RIMPAC began as an annual exercise in 1971 and became biennial in 1974. Since its inception, some of history’s worst human rights abusers, such as the US, Australia, Canada and Israel, have participated in the exercise. The US has long used the Hawaiian Islands as targets. In 1965, the US Navy detonated a bomb on Kaho’olawe containing the equivalent of 500 tons of dynamite, raising the island’s water table and littering the island with unexploded ordnance.

In 1893, Hawaii was illegally occupied by American sugar plantation owners, supported by the US military, who wanted to use the Hawaiian port of Pu’uloa (Pearl Harbor) for a coaling station. In 1898, the US Congress, which had actually lost the annexation treaty, illegally occupied Hawaii by joint resolution. Since then, Hawaii has been under illegal occupation by the USA and its military.

US militarism is destroying our country through RIMPAC

RIMPAC, as a symptom of the US empire, has enormous ecological and cultural impacts. Geopolitically, the exercises are used to control trade routes, train genocidal regimes and position themselves against China. Since Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” strategy, the US has moved from Cold War tactics of diplomacy and weapons procurement to hot war tactics that rely on aggressive invasions and unbridled military buildup. RIMPAC is used to test weapons and military technology for weapons manufacturers.

From San Diego to Hawaii, the U.S. military wreaks havoc on land and at sea with its war games. They sink ships, conduct simulated naval invasions in urban and jungle warfare, and conduct live-fire training in wildlife refuges that devastate thousands of acres of land and threaten endangered species. All of these “routine” exercises take place in areas that are culturally and historically valuable sites.

The largest U.S. military base in our islands is Pōhakuloa, a sacred region on the island of Hawaiʻi. Thousands of acres are used as a firing range to train military personnel in warfare, suppression, and invasion. Mākua Valley was a former civilian town that was converted into a firing range between World War II and 2004, filling the valley with unexploded ordnance, white phosphorus, and other chemicals that are forever unusable. The U.S. Naval Base at Mōkapu was built on one of Hawaiʻi’s oldest villages, from which residents were displaced to make way for the base. In addition to the massive pollution and raw sewage the base releases into the surrounding ocean, it is also a sacred burial site where many iwi kūpuna (ancestral bones) are buried near shore.

RIMPAC also threatens delicate and sensitive ecosystems and our vast oceanic conservation areas, which are designated as protected zones except for the military. The U.S. Navy has been accused multiple times of whale deaths through mass strandings to evade Navy sonar; multiple helicopters and planes have crashed on our beaches and in the ocean; and sea turtles are losing access to their traditional nesting sites due to the practice of amphibious assaults on our beaches. The U.S. military is the largest contributor to the climate crisis, and the environmental impacts of RIMPAC only exacerbate this disaster by endangering the livelihoods of ocean nations through repeated missiles, explosions, and heavy metal waste drifting into the Pacific as a result of these exercises. Therefore, RIMPAC directly violates its own Marine Species Awareness Training (MSAT) and its own Protective Measures and Assessment Protocols (PMAP), which require the Navy to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act and take mitigation measures to prevent injury, behavioral changes, or deaths. Each year when RIMPAC is scheduled, the U.S. Navy’s Indo-Pacific Command requests an exemption from these laws from NOAA and the Department of Defense. Special requests are for permission to allow millions of dollars in accidental captures (kills) of marine mammals. There is also no limit on the number of seabirds that may be caught during the exercises. RIMPAC threatens no fewer than 12 endangered species.

RIMPAC: Export of violence

In addition to its obscene display of environmental destruction, RIMPAC supports the oppression of indigenous cultures around the world by actively training regimes that are currently committing genocide or other human rights abuses against their indigenous peoples. RIMPAC plays out various “future scenarios of potential terrorists.” In 2022, RIMPAC conducted a mock invasion of North Korea by going house to house and conducting a regime change operation, with the houses decorated with images of Kim Jong Un. Previously, in 2016, RIMPAC used the Hawaiian Islands to play out a scenario of imaginary so-called “enemy states” seeking to expand their power while running counter to Western influences. And of course, there is the constant saber-rattling and escalation against China, which is being used as a scapegoat in the new US Cold War.

RIMPAC also brings with it a significant increase in gender-based violence. Studies have shown that human trafficking and sexual exploitation, particularly of young Indigenous Hawaiian girls, increases significantly each year. In 2022, a former U.S. Navy petty officer was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sex trafficking Indigenous Hawaiian girls. The influx of more than 25,000 international military personnel into Hawaii creates a constant market for the exploitation of women and gender nonconforming people.

RIMPAC reveals continued US military dominance

This year’s exercises are notable given the current geopolitical context. RIMPAC is taking place in the ninth month of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, a war that has isolated the United States and its junior partner Israel and united much of the world in calling for a ceasefire and opposing the West’s murderous violence against Palestinians and oppressed peoples around the world.

However, some of the most vocal voices condemning Israel and the US on the world stage today have sent their military forces to participate in RIMPAC alongside the US and Israel. Countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico and Indonesia are participating and have either closed their Israeli embassies or publicly disowned Israel for perpetuating the genocide of the Palestinian people. While Western dominance and hypocrisy are being questioned in the developing world, it is harder to challenge US military dominance, as its bloc leads the pack with 74.3 percent of military spending.

Yet these war games are not mere pastimes and excursions; they are a statement of national values ​​and a political intent. The strategies and tactics, weapons and technologies practiced and mastered at RIMPAC are used by participating nations to arm themselves at home. Whether it be for the worst forms of atrocities such as genocide or the suppression of any form of resistance to the state, or to control “free trade routes” to ensure that capital continues to flow for the benefit of the international capitalist elite. In other words, RIMPAC is training governments that have a long history of developing repressive techniques to control their colonies and are now using those techniques against their citizens. As with all imperialist activities, it is up to the social and popular movements of each nation involved to take a stand and reject this continuous rearmament and military expansion of our collective oppressors.

The Hawaiian people stand arm in arm with the peoples of the world to demand an end to these war games and to strengthen our fight against US imperialism and colonialism, which today represents the greatest threat to the survival of our planet – especially for those of us who come from island nations in the “strategic” Pacific. It is the people’s movements that will mobilize to remind the governments of the participating nations that they must withdraw from these exercises, end their collaboration with Israeli occupation forces, and stand by their statements at the United Nations and other forums. Together, we can build a better world.

This article was created by Globetrotter.