Getting To Guam

A new Congressional Research Service report looks at U.S. defense deployments to Guam. The report -- originally obtained by Secrecy News -- describes the process by which a bilateral agreement was reached between the United States and Japan to transfer 8,000 Marines from Okinawa to Guam:

However, completion of the Marines' relocation by 2014 would be unlikely, and the original realignment actually would have involved more than moving 8,000 marines to Guam. Japan's dispute over the location on Okinawa of the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) to replace the Marine Corps Air Station Futenma raised implications for the relocation of Marines from Okinawa to Guam. Nonetheless, despite the dispute over the FRF, Japan has budgeted for its contributions to the Marines' relocation to Guam.

Earlier this month, the Navy released a draft environmental impact statement for the Mariana Islands Training and Testing effort, which includes Guam:

The MITT Study Area is composed of established ranges (at-sea ranges and land based training areas on Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands [CNMI]); operating areas; and special use airspace in the region of the Mariana Islands that are part of the Mariana Islands Range Complex (MIRC) and its surrounding seas; includes a transit corridor between the MIRC and the Hawaii Range Complex; and Navy pierside locations where sonar maintenance and testing activities occur.