Airfield upgrade highlights Northern Mariana Islands’ growing role in Free and Open Indo-Pacific

FORUM Staff

The covenant creating the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a 300-mile-long archipelago in the Western Pacific, was approved by legislators and voters in 1975. The territory is poised to celebrate five decades as a commonwealth in March 2026 — the 50th anniversary of then-United States President Gerald Ford signing the joint resolution creating the commonwealth “in political union with the U.S.”

More recently, Northern Mariana and its three main islands — Rota, Saipan and Tinian — have grown in strategic importance as the U.S. and its Allies and Partners uphold a Free and Open Indo-Pacific amid China’s military buildup and its escalating coercion in the Taiwan Strait, and the South China and East China seas.

“The world is changing in the Indo-Pacific and we need to acknowledge that. We need to face reality,” Northern Mariana Gov. Arnold Palacios told The Guardian newspaper in November 2023.

The U.S. Defense Department is investing about $800 million to upgrade military facilities on Tinian, which has about 3,500 residents on its 101 square kilometers. Construction began in 2022 and includes an airport renovation with new runways, plus equipment and facilities to support operations and training. Some projects are set for completion in 2025.

The U.S. island territory of Guam, about 207 kilometers south of Tinian, is home to U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy bases and is a centerpiece of the nation’s military capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.

The expanded airfield at Tinian’s North Field covers nearly 2 square kilometers of runway, taxiways and parking aprons and will increase the facility’s capacity to handle routine and contingency operations, Newsweek magazine reported in February 2025. The U.S. military is conducting the upgrades under an operational concept aimed at dispersing forces to hinder enemy targeting.

“I think everybody in this world would like to see peace, but the best deterrent is to have a good defense and to be prepared,” Palacios said.

FORUM, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2025, has highlighted the role of the Northern Mariana Islands in Allied and Partner engagements over the years, including:

• A 22-day U.S. Coast Guard deployment across Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands to deter illegal activities and deliver humanitarian assistance in November and December 2024.
• The 12-day Valiant Shield exercise in 2024 in Guam, Japan, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau and other Indo-Pacific locations that focused on interoperability in a multidomain environment.
• A July 2023 rescue in which Canadian, French and U.S. military forces deviated from training off the Northern Mariana Islands to rescue 11 people on a disabled vessel adrift in dangerous seas.
• The 2022 Cope North exercise in which more than 3,500 Australian, Japanese and U.S. personnel conducted joint humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations at airfields in Rota, Saipan and Tinian, as well as in Guam and Micronesia.