Korean media reported March 15 and 16 CHamoru Standard Time that U.S. Secretary of Defense Peter B. Hegseth will visit Guam, Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines in an upcoming visit to the Asia Pacific region at the end of March.
Speculation by Korean media was that Hegseth may avoid Korea, given the political situation currently playing out there.
Hesgeth visited senior military leaders at the U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command headquarters at Kelley Barracks in Stuttgart on Feb. 11, as well as service members, as part of a visit to Europe, and held a media conference during the Stuttgart visit, to include local representation.
HesgethHegseth is not the first U.S. Secretary of Defense to visit the island.
Donald H. Rumsfeld spent a day and a night in Guam in November 2003.
Rumsfeld spent the night at the then-Outrigger Guam Resort and held a “Town Hall” meeting at Andersen Air Force Base with troops before continuing to visit Japan and Korea.
The visit was notable in that Rumsfeld gave the first hint of the movement of U.S. forces, though not more. It wasn’t until 2006 that the movement of troops from Japan to Guam was first announced, after an agreement between the U.S. and Japan.
Guam has seen a variety of political VIP visits through the years to Andersen Air Force Base, which is a regional refueling stop to wherever the VIPs are going.
Visiting planes have included Air Force One and Air Force Two, carrying presidents and vice presidents. Some VIPs don’t leave the plane, some make time for brief photo ops, and some leave the plane, but not Andersen.
In November 1998, then-President William J. Clinton gave a speech in front of a huge audience at the governor's complex at Adelup.
Prior to the visit, signage was erected along Marine Corps Drive, highlighting local landmarks.
In 1995, first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped in Guam and attended a reception at the Hyatt Regency Guam.
In April 1986, then-President Ronald W. Reagan made an official visit to the island.
In related news, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said the DoD’s plans to defend Guam “face a variety of planning challenges.”
In a March 12 report released on March 17 GAO said, “DOD has taken steps to establish an organizational structure for overseeing and sustaining an enhanced missile defense system known as the Guam Defense System. However, we found that DOD has neither established when and how the military services will take responsibility for operating and sustaining the Guam missile defense system, nor has it identified the number of personnel that the services will need to deploy to Guam.”
The GAO went further.
An inert cruise missile at Andersen during COPE North 2025. Feb. 21 photo from Journal files.
“We also reported that the Army does not have sufficient installation support for its forces currently defending Guam from missile attack. The Army has deployed a missile defense battery in Guam for over 10 years. However, the Army’s forces are not well integrated into the joint base structure on Guam, which includes installations managed by the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps. As a result, the Army missile defense forces are experiencing austere living conditions, have limited space to store equipment and spare parts, and lack dedicated maintenance facilities,” GAO said.
“We made four recommendations in our February 2025 report, including that DOD identify personnel requirements and develop strategies for transferring responsibilities to lead organizations for sustaining and operating the Guam missile defense system, and that the Army take steps to provide better access to installation support for its forces on Guam. DOD agreed with our recommendations,” the report said. The GAO report also said that GAO “found in May 2023 that the Marine Corps did not meet all military training needs, such as different types of live-fire training, at training ranges within the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.”
To mitigate the challenges in meeting military training needs in INDOPACOM, GAO said “the Marine Corps uses alternatives to meet these requirements, such as returning forces to the continental U.S. to train and using rotational forces, exercises, and virtual training.”
Figures from the GAO in September 2023 indicated Guam had 6,363 U.S. active-duty troops and Hawaii has 44,545. The Guam figure may have risen slightly as additional Marine Corps personnel have trickled into Marine Corp Base Camp Blaz.
The U.S. has troops in Japan, Korea and in recent years has seen troops return to the Philippines. U.S. personnel and a number of countries have participated in regional exercises which have also included other nations in the Indo Pacific region. mbj
