As NATO meets in Washington, leaders urged to remember Hawaii

WASHINGTON >> As NATO leaders gather in Washington this week for their 75th anniversary summit, a dozen U.S. senators today asked them to close a hole the size of Hawaii in the North Atlantic Treaty, the military alliance’s founding document.

The treaty was drawn up a decade before Hawaii became a state in 1959. Article 5 of the treaty, which obliges all members to collective self-defense, applies only to areas north of the Tropic of Cancer.

The Hawaiian archipelago, home to 1.44 million Americans, lies south of the Tropic of Cancer. Members of Congress have pushed for a resolution to its status for years, often noting that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 triggered U.S. entry into World War II.

In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken today, seen by Reuters, a dozen Democratic and Republican U.S. senators reminded Blinken of “the importance of clarifying that members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would consider an armed attack on the State of Hawaii an attack on all NATO countries.”

The letter notes that when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended ratification of the NATO treaty in 1949, it did so with the understanding that overseas territories would not be included.

“At the time, Hawaii was a U.S. territory, and the treaty’s drafters were reluctant to bring all of the treaty parties’ territories under the NATO security umbrella. However, the world has changed significantly since 1949,” said the letter, signed by Hawaii’s two senators, Democrats Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, and 10 other senators, including six Republicans.

The Indo-Pacific region has become an increasingly important focus of U.S. national security strategy. Washington views China as the United States’ main rival and keeps a close eye on threats from North Korea.

“The silence on whether NATO allies will come to Hawaii’s aid undermines our strategy to prevent conflict in the Indo-Pacific,” the letter said, calling for a formal amendment to the North Atlantic Treaty.

The letter, which was also copied by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, posed a series of questions to Blinken, including whether the State Department had attempted to amend the treaty to include Hawaii.

“The scars of the attack on Pearl Harbor are still visible today,” the report said.