CDR Salamander - A Death in the Pacific

International relations are just a subset of personal relations. That is why we have summits where national leaders meet face to face, etc.

At the end of the day, all the policy papers, posturing, and talking heads are secondary and supporting operations. Leaders and how they interact with each other is what makes the difference.

Even in 50/50 democratic systems with party politics, the balance of a nation’s people will watch closely how their leaders, and as a byproduct their nation, are treated by friend and foe alike…but especially friends. Are they ignored by other leaders? Mocked? Dismissed? Respected?

In parallel, there is another dynamic in play.

Like people, nations have friends, acquaintances, and even family members, and they also form client relationships where a senior partner may expect deference and appreciation for their sponsorship of junior partners. With that, the more senior partner has obligations to the junior partner.

Especially when junior partners have agency on who will be their senior partner, the senior partner must properly tend to that relationship, going above and beyond for them than they would for non-partner nations. Especially if the senior partner wants to not just maintain its junior partners, but expand them to the detriment of their peer competitor, the actions must reflect a mature understanding of proper stewardship.

This is how you develop a perfect circle of acquaintances and friends in your personal and national life.

Because junior partners with agency have responsibilities and self-interest for themselves and their nations, they are watching and will move their allegiances elsewhere for perceived self-interest or even out of spite at some slight or poor stewardship of the relationship with the senior partner.

This dynamic is what came to mind when I read about the sudden death of Saipan’s Governor, Arnold Palacios.

No one has covered the issues in the small island nations and territories in the southwest Pacific better than our friend Cleo Paskal. Her summary over at LinkedIn last week will catch everyone up.

Governor Arnold Palacios, Northern Mariana Islands, USA (Saipan) just died suddenly.

He fiercely defended America's western's border from all enemies, foreign and domestic. CNMI urgently needs a major federal investigation into corruption and Chinese penetration. Gov. Palacios consistently and publicly requested investigations into corruption in CNMI, including into the Chinese casino that ran BILLIONS of dollars into the U.S. economy and the hundreds of millions of ARPA funding that was disbursed during the administration of the previous Governor, Ralph Torres. How many Governors say to the federal government: 'my books are open, come look at everything'? What was the response?

Recently the FBI closed a years long investigation into previous Gov. Torres (who is now likely to run again). We covered this in the John Batchelor Show interview below, with Gordon Chang.

Some other dubious things going on in CNMI which is, remember, part of the United States of America:

- CNMI is the only place in the US where Chinese can arrive without a visa. This has raised serious security concerns. In the past couple of years, dozens of Senators and Representatives have written to Homeland expressing concerns.

- The woman who ran the BMV and a Chinese citizen were convicted in 2023 of selling at least 50 fraudulent driver licenses to foreign nationals "who lacked lawful immigration status". The going rate was $1700 for a new license.

- At least hundreds of Chinese have been illegally traveling the short distance by boat from CNMI to Guam, where some have been found on U.S. military bases.

- At one point, the Chinese casino in Saipan ran over $2 BILLION a month on just a few tables, with almost exclusively Chinese high rollers. Former CIA director James Woolsey was on the board and advisors included former Louisiana Governor Haley Barbour, former FBI director Louis Freeh and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell according to Bloomberg.

FBI took documents - so far nothing.

There is more. Read Gov. Palacios' own words on "Rising influence of the CCP in Micronesia"

Her timeline on X has been the place to keep up with the state of play, and her appearance on Bannon’s show is worth an investment of your time—especially being that it is only a bit more than 7 minutes.

Saipan? Why yes, we have skin in that game.

Relationships, honor. and ethnical concerns with the U.S. put to the side, why would the PRC be interested in Saipan? For the same clear and strategic reasons we invested there over eight decades ago.

Geography. There it is, that little red dot right in the center.

Besides that obvious reason, there is the reason that I started this post with—people.

The death of Palacios may very well be from unfortunate natural causes, but the U.S. government needs to flood the zone. In a part of the world where the PRC is making/buying/earning new friends and partners at the expense of historical connections to the U.S., the people of Saipan and other Pacific nations are watching how we respond.

We need to treat this as if the Governor of Florida or California died suddenly under questionable circumstances. Make a public and significant effort. Don’t send the B-team. Be respectful, but be overt.

If his death was from natural causes, then we have shown the governor and people of Saipan that we respect them and honor their relationship. If it was from questionable causes, then there can be few higher priorities the U.S. government should have than investigating the murder of political leaders.

As a final note, the funeral is August 2nd. I hope the highest possible representation attends to represent the U.S. government.

It matters.

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