A new security assessment warns that Palau’s accelerating militarisation is outpacing the safeguards meant to protect the island nation’s environment and sovereignty, leaving residents sidelined from decisions that affect their land, the Pacific Centre for Island Security says in its Micronesia Security Outlook 2025.
The Palau chapter of the report was authored by Jodean Remengesau, director of the Bureau of Agriculture in Palau’s Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Environment. Remengesau argues the Compact of Free Association, which grants the United States extensive access to Palauan land, waters and airspace while obliging it to meet Palauan environmental standards, is not being honoured. “The U.S military had missed and fell short of fulfilling its duties and responsibilities under the compact of the U.S with Palau,” he writes in the report.
The report cites concrete examples of that shortfall. It says the U.S. military cleared land on Angaur — one of Palau’s 16 states — to host an initial site for a tactical mobile over‑the‑horizon radar system without securing an environmental earthmoving permit or holding required community consultations. Remengesau details how piles of shredded tree debris at the site created a pest risk and were later dumped on residents’ yards in hurried attempts to manage the problem, a chain of events the report says the compact’s environmental protections were designed to prevent.
Those actions are already the subject of litigation. In 2023 Angaur Governor Steven Salii filed suit against Palau’s central government, the Palau Environmental Quality Protection Board, the U.S. government and military contractors, alleging violations of Palauan environmental laws and compact obligations after the clearing of 271,807 square metres of land without an environmental impact assessment or permits, the report notes.
The security outlook places these disputes in the context of Palau’s renegotiated compact with the United States, which includes a US$890‑million assistance package spread over 20 years that began on October 1, 2023. Because much of Palau’s national budget depends on compact funds and foreign aid, the report warns, the island is likely to see increased U.S. military activity. The U.S. Department of Defense’s US$118‑million radar project in Palau is expected to be operational in 2026, the report says — a development that promises to sharpen debate over local control and environmental oversight.
Remengesau and the Pacific Centre echo broader regional concerns about great‑power competition in Micronesia, saying U.S.-China strategic rivalry has set the stage for rapid infrastructure deployments that have outpaced consultation and regulatory processes. The report also flags that what was initially presented to Palauan authorities as a single shoreline radar installation has since involved separate or additional installations, complicating oversight and community understanding of the projects.
The Micronesia Security Outlook 2025 frames the current moment as a critical test of the compact’s built‑in guardrails: whether Palau can secure both the financial support and the environmental and sovereign protections its laws and agreements promise. With the Angaur lawsuit pending and the US$118‑million radar due online this year, the report underscores that legal, political and community responses in Palau will determine how those tensions are resolved.
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