A new security report authored in part by a senior Palauan official accuses the United States military of sidestepping environmental and legal safeguards as it accelerates its footprint in Palau, with fresh details about large-scale land clearing on Angaur and ongoing legal challenges. The Pacific Centre for Island Security’s Micronesia Security Outlook 2025 — whose Palau segment was written by Jodean Remengesau, director of the Bureau of Agriculture in Palau’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment — says guardrails meant to protect Palau’s environment and sovereignty have been undermined by recent military activity.
Remengesau’s section of the report lays out specific failures, including what he describes as the U.S. military’s clearing of 271,807 square metres of land on Angaur for the first site of a tactical mobile over‑the‑horizon radar system without obtaining a required environmental earthmoving permit or conducting community consultations. The report alleges that shredded tree debris from the site was handled hastily and dumped on residents’ yards, creating conditions favourable to the invasive coconut rhinoceros beetle — an outcome the report says the environmental stipulations in the Compact of Free Association were designed to prevent.
The Angaur clearing prompted legal action in 2023 when Angaur Governor Steven Salii sued Palau’s central government, the Palau Environmental Quality Protection Board, the U.S. government and its military contractors. The lawsuit alleges violations of Palauan environmental laws and breaches of compact agreements by disturbing the property without an environmental impact assessment or the necessary permits. The Pacific Centre’s report frames that suit and the on-the-ground disruptions as evidence that long‑standing institutional protections have not been respected amid the accelerated build‑up.
The findings come against the backdrop of a renegotiated Compact of Free Association that began its new funding cycle on October 1, 2023, under which the United States committed an US$890 million package to Palau over 20 years and affirmed defence responsibilities. The report notes Palau’s fiscal dependence on compact funds and foreign aid, warning that such dependence increases the likelihood of the U.S. military making expanded use of Palauan territory — a dynamic the authors say is already eroding the nation’s peace and sovereignty as traditionally experienced by its people.
The U.S. military’s radar project in Palau — budgeted at about US$118 million — is expected to be operational this year, heightening the immediacy of the report’s concerns. The Pacific Centre’s analysis argues that installations initially presented as mutual‑use infrastructure for Palau and the United States have, in practice, functioned primarily to advance U.S. and allied security objectives as geopolitical competition in the region intensifies.
The report explicitly criticises the U.S. military for “missing and falling short” of its duties and responsibilities under the compact, language drawn from Remengesau’s contribution. It frames recent activity in Palau as symptomatic of a broader regional trend: increased militarisation tied to U.S.–China strategic rivalry that risks sidelining local laws, environmental protections and community consultation processes.
This latest development matters because the radar’s imminent activation turns what had been a policy and planning debate into a tangible operational reality on the ground. The Pacific Centre’s findings put renewed scrutiny on how compact arrangements are implemented in practice and signal potential for further legal, environmental and political contestation in Palau as residents, state leaders and civil authorities press for enforcement of environmental safeguards and greater transparency around defence projects.
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