Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) introduced a joint resolution on Thursday aimed at ending the unauthorized U.S. military role in the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen.
The move comes amid President Biden’s unpopularvisit to the region, where he will visit with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the coming days. In an op-ed explaining the reasoning behind the trip, Biden touted an ongoing truce in Yemen, but didn’t say whether he would press for an end to the war.
The House introduced a similar bill last month led by Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.). The senate companion will be considered “privileged,” meaning it can be voted on 10 calendar days after it is introduced.
“We must put an end to the unauthorized and unconstitutional involvement of U.S. Armed Forces in the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen and Congress must take back its authority over war,” Sanders said in a press release. “More than 85,000 children in Yemen have already starved and millions more are facing imminent famine and death.”
Sen. Warren noted that “The American people, through their elected representatives in Congress, never authorized U.S. involvement in the war,” adding that “Congress abdicated its constitutional powers and failed to prevent our country from involving itself in this crisis.”
“The U.S. must immediately end its support for Saudi-led coalition in Yemen unless explicitly authorized by Congress,” she said.
Ben Armbruster is the Managing Editor of Responsible Statecraft. He has more than a decade of experience working at the intersection of politics, foreign policy, and media. Ben previously held senior editorial and management positions at Media Matters, ThinkProgress, ReThink Media, and Win Without War.
Photos: Rob Crandall, Trevor Collens, and Rich Koele via shutterstock.com
Top photo credit: Republic of Singapore Air Force pilots step to their F-15SG Eagle aircraft before a training mission during Cope Tiger 13 at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand, March 12, 2013. ((U.S. Air Force photo/2nd Lt. Jake Bailey)
In an event barely noticed outside of the region, the U.S. military abruptly cancelled a planned bed down — the military term for housing planes — of 12 Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) F-15s at Andersen Air Force Base (AAFB) in Guam.
No other explanations about the “mutually agreed” decision, announced in August, have been forthcoming. In the context of the U.S. campaign for regional allies to boost burden sharing, commit to conflict with China, and increase defense budgets, this decision to cancel a desired agreement with a close ally raises unanswered questions.
Without further explanation we can assume, given the broader context, that the cancellation reflects an increasing unilateralism by the U.S. which anticipates full compliance from its partners.
The case for the bed down of RSAF fighters at a US Air Force base
The proposed basing of RSAF fighters at AAFB had been agreed to in 2019. The interest of Singapore in basing fighters (with attendant magazine areas) was clear:
“Overseas training detachments are integral to meeting the RSAF's training requirements. The access to vast airspace overseas allows the RSAF to overcome local airspace constraints, and conduct high-end, realistic training to hone its operational competence.”
Having fighters and ordnance staged in Guam would have provided Singapore’s Defence Forces unusually unfettered freedom for both flight and live fire activities in the Marianas Island Testing and Training (MITT) area. As late as December 2023, the U.S. Air Force was bullish on the project, noting the project:
“is needed to enhance DAF (Department of the Air Force) capability to support U.S. and partner nation forces within the Indo-Pacific region and strengthen the U.S.’s ability to respond regionally and worldwide, through…increased support of fighter aircraft, in alignment with evolving DAF and DoD strategies and initiatives for the region. Increasing and improving airfield and munitions infrastructure would address capability gaps and allow for greater efficiencies and agility in the way ground operations are conducted.”
The prospect for this type of activity was heralded in the halls of the U.S. Congress. In addition to the RSAF, the Senate Armed Services Committee Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act expressed the view that “DOD should consider whether there are additional opportunities to host the military forces of other foreign partner countries on a permanent or rotational basis at Andersen.”
As the formal scoping process for developing the infrastructure for the project began it was noted that the project was in “alignment with (the US Department of Defense’s) initiatives for deterrence and stabilization in the Indo-Pacific region.” This process began in April 2021 and did raise concerns (particularly the impacts on native and engaged flora and fauna) as well as the socioeconomic impact of relying on off-base housing to host the accompanied Singapore Defence Forces personnel.
The Singapore Ministry of Defense, in a response to media queries on August 12, released a brief statement saying it was a “mutual” agreement to cancel the project. “The RSAF will continue with periodic short-term training and exercises in Guam, such as an upcoming fighter training detachment in Oct-Nov 25,” the statement read.
Cancelling a close ally
Today, it remains unclear what happened in discussions between the U.S. and Singaporean governments from late spring to early summer 2025. It is unlikely, however, that this was an outcome desired by Singapore.
As noted in the ROD, the decision was “based on matters discussed in the Final Environmental Impact Statement, input from the public and regulatory agencies, and other relevant factors.” A notice that was published in Guam newspapers on August 8, 2025, contained a similar but slightly different construction:
The decision was based on operational analysis, results of site surveys, and environmental, economic, and technical factors discussed in the ROD; environmental impacts as analyzed in the Final EIS; input from the public and government agencies; and military judgment factors.
But given that the Final EIS published on April 26 did not present environmental obstacles, it is difficult to reconcile how those issues played a significant role in the final decision. Moreover, in Guam, the U.S. military has regularly cleared pristine environmental areas with endangered flora and fauna to make way for military projects. If the U.S. Department of Defense wanted the project to proceed, even if environmental issues had been identified as “significant,” accommodations through “mitigation” would have been made.
Importantly, many of the proposed projects of the bed down are slated to proceed without the RSAF. Specifically, construction for approximately 20 acres of new airfield aprons adjacent to the existing runway, new fuel lines that tie into the existing fuel transfer system, a utilities vault and new utilities lines, security fencing, roadways, parking, walkways, and stormwater management infrastructure are moving ahead.
We believe, however, that “other relevant factors” and “military judgment factors” weighed on the U.S. decision to cancel the RSAF bed down. Moreover, the cancellation may be an important bellwether for how other “relevant” and “military judgment decisions” of the U.S. government are executed across the region. In an environment of sharpening U.S. competition with China, and a U.S. expectation that allies do more, spend more, and commit more to U.S. objectives in relation to China, what happens in Guam merits attention.
The U.S. holds all the cards in access to its bases in Guam. Whatever U.S. requirements led to the discontinuation of discussions about the RSAF bed down, it is a safe assumption that the U.S. was leveraging the privileges of a host. Whether the U.S. requested Singapore to “pay up” for the planned improvements or sought the commitment of RSAF fighters on station at AAFB in the event of a conflict with China, Singapore blinked.
That a deal between allies fell through is itself significant, but the implications of what happened in Guam are likely much broader.
Sovereignty and security
Early in the process, the US Air Force rejected alternative RSAF bed down locations in Diego Garcia (BIOT) and Iwo To (Japan) because these foreign locations could “impede U.S. military activity.” The bed down of the RSAF assets “on U.S. soil” was a determining factor in identifying AAFB, since it was deemed essential that the U.S. maintain full operational control of strategic military assets on U.S. lands to achieve the necessary national objectives in the Indo-Pacific.
Setting aside for a moment the question of American sovereignty in Guam (where the U.S. government has actively obstructed and denied the local self-determination/decolonization of a Territory as outlined by the United Nations), the conditions which the U.S. might put on Singapore for access to its bases are its indisputable prerogative.
In general, the trend is bending toward a U.S. preference for the region, writ large, for both (1) unilateral decision-making and (2) the pre-commitment of others to its future actions.
If Singapore backed out because it did not want a deployment in Guam to signal participation in a U.S.-led containment strategy, which could draw Chinese retaliation, emerging U.S. calls for operational control of basing assets across the region would have provided important context.
The imposition of its U.S. national security objectives and accompanying assignment of local risk defines Guam’s relationship with the U.S. military. It is not a pretty picture if Guam is your homeland. Corrosive and underdeveloped socio-economic circumstances frustrate the development of both sustainable modernity and indigenous government. On the “security” front, there is no better example of the military-first view than the expectation that Guam will be a first-strike community in the event of a conflict with China.
On one hand, the U.S. Department of Defense is developing a multi-billion-dollar “missile defense” network that is likely (at best) only to frustrate a determined attack by an adversary. On the other hand, there are no plans for community shelters or food resiliency in the event of the anticipated conflict. From the military perspective, Guam is all utility and risk with no provision for community security.
As the U.S. military and policymakers look to turn back the clock on spheres of influence to times of client states, advancing a decision structure that has been in place in Guam since 1898 seems ascendant. This approach would benefit operationalization of the military’s self-defined “initiatives for deterrence and stabilization in the Indo-Pacific region.”
How this approach might advance the security of sovereign nations in the region will be a matter for them to determine. As other states enter discussions on these issues with the U.S., they might benefit from understanding what happens in Guam.
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Top photo credit: A vessel, which U.S. President Donald Trump said was transporting illegal narcotics and heading to the U.S., is struck by the U.S. military as it navigates in the southern Caribbean, in this still image obtained from video posted by U.S. President Donald Trump on Truth Social and released September 2, 2025. DONALD TRUMP VIA TRUTH SOCIAL/Handout via REUTERS
Military tensions in the southern Caribbean have rapidly grown following President Trump’s decision to launch an airstrike on a boat allegedly smuggling drugs near Venezuela. As the U.S. announced the deployment of 10 F-35 fighter jets to bolster its forces in the region, a pair of Venezuelan planes flew over an American warship in a move that the Pentagon described as “highly provocative.”
All evidence suggests that a broader military operation could be in the offing. Last Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to continue the attacks and said regional governments “will help us find these people and blow them up.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, asked whether the end goal is regime change in Venezuela, told Fox and Friends that the Pentagon is “prepared with every asset that the American military has” should Trump choose to move forward with such an operation.
The rapid escalation seems to have put Congress on the back foot. While many lawmakers moved quickly to condemn Trump’s attacks on Iran earlier this year, strikingly few members of Congress have shown the same level of enthusiasm when it comes to Venezuela.
Responsible Statecraft reached out to 19 congressional offices about the campaign but only heard back from Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), who simply shared a statement asking a series of questions about the goals and legality of the strike. (Smith later used stronger language, accusing Trump Thursday of trying to start “a war with Venezuela.”)
A smattering of other lawmakers have put outstatements condemning the strikes. Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) lamented that Trump launched the campaign without congressional authorization and called on Congress to act in order to avoid a new “forever war.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for his part, told Newsmax that “it isn’t our policy just to blow people up.” But Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)—all of whom often rail against presidents for starting conflicts without consulting Congress—have so far stayed silent on the issue.
This relative quiet contrasts sharply with the outrage expressed by legal experts, who have loudly rejected Trump’s claim that he has the right to blow up alleged drug traffickers in order to defend the United States from “narco-terrorists.” As Andy McCarthy of the National Review noted, Trump is taking the position that a boat operated by a designated terror group is “functionally the same as a hostile foreign naval force that is in the act of conducting an armed attack against the United States”—a “controversial claim, to put it mildly.”
“When you see the premeditated killing of another person outside of an armed conflict, there’s a term for that, and that term is murder,” former State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told NPR, noting that the administration has failed to establish that the U.S. is at war with the organizations it is now bombing. “This is not an appropriate use of lethal military force.”
The Trump administrationsought to legally justify the strikes in a notification to Congress in which it argued that the threat from drug trafficking has reached a “critical point” that can only be resolved using “military force in self-defense.” But the brazen nature of the strikes has even drawn some criticism from within the Trump administration. An anonymous senior Pentagon official told the Intercept that the attack amounted to an illegal execution of civilians. “The U.S. is now directly targeting civilians,” the official said. “Drug traffickers may be criminals but they aren’t combatants.”
This week could offer an indication of whether lawmakers are willing to take steps to rein in the rapidly escalating standoff in the southern Caribbean. Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) has introduced an amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act that would block funds for any use of military force “in or against Venezuela.” In a statement on X, Casar emphasized that “Only Congress has the power to declare war.”
If the proposal makes it through the Rules Committee, then lawmakers will be forced to take a side on the issue. In the meantime, most members of Congress appear content to take a back seat as Trump tests his ability to bring the war on terror to the Western Hemisphere.
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Top photo credit: Pacific Island Forum, Special Forum Economic Ministers Meeting, March 2025 (Flickr/Pacific Island Forum)
Pacific Island leaders are pushing back against the rising geopolitical jousting between big powers in their region by barring international development partners, including the U.S. and China, from their annual summit this week.
Beginning Monday, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele will host this year’s five-day meeting of leaders from the 18 Pacific Island Forum member countries, including Australia and New Zealand, in his country’s capital, Honiara. On the agenda will be topics of regional concern, from development and security to climate change and governance.
Twenty-one global partners, including the U.S., United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, China and Japan, will be absent, although the World Bank and United Nations agencies will attend as observers. The move is designed to prevent interference by external players intent on bolstering their broader geopolitical ambitions.
"It is necessary to ensure engagement is conducted through a robust, transparent and strategic mechanism that reflects our priorities, protects our sovereignty and strengthens our collective voice globally,” Manele explained in a recent press briefing.
There has been a lot of media speculation about what exactly triggered the sudden announcement, given that international partners have attended leaders’ summits since the 1990s, with attention focused on the diplomatic tussle between China and Taiwan for standing in the region. Last month media reports alleged that Chinese officials had pushed for the Solomon Islands government to exclude Taiwan, which is diplomatically aligned with Tuvalu, Palau and Marshall Islands, from the Forum summit.
At last year’s leaders’ meeting in Nuku’alofa, Tonga, Chinese diplomats pressed for removing all references to Taiwan in the summit’s final communique. And, while denying their intent to interfere in this year’s summit, Chinese embassy officials declared that Taiwan is not a country and has “no qualification or right to participate in Forum activities whatsoever.”
Yet, while Manele’s announcement last month was made with a united Forum front, public statements subsequently suggested that not everyone necessarily agreed. The partner ban was supported by Palau’s President Surangel Whipps Junior and Samoa’s leader, Fiame Naomi Mata’afa. In concurring, Crown Prince Tupouto’a ‘Ulukalala’ claimed the outcome followed “a rich and robust discussion and was reflective of our collective maturity and solidarity as a region.”
Yet Papua New Guinea and New Zealand expressed misgivings, while the United States and Australia voiced support for the participation of all global partners. Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, wrote to Manele encouraging him to rethink the move to “avoid the unintended consequence of distancing partners at a pivotal time” of development needs.
Yet the Pacific leaders’ concerns are not unfounded. The intensifying war of one-upmanship between the U.S. and its allies on the one hand and China on the other for strategic control in the Pacific is growing. It was accelerated by the extensive China-Solomon Islands security pact announced in 2022, which includes a provision for the Pacific nation to call on Chinese police and military forces to maintain social order.
It was a development that provoked the U.S., Australia and New Zealand to launch myriad aid and security countermoves. The Biden administration invited Pacific leaders to Washington summits in 2022 and 2023, where promises were made to strengthen economic and climate change assistance and provide more than $1 billion in additional aid funding. Some U.S. embassies were reopened in Pacific Island countries, augmented last month by the opening of a new FBI office in Wellington, New Zealand.
But the rash of executive orders issued by Trump this year dealt a blow to U.S. soft-power relations to the Pacific Islands. His hefty new trade tariffs on developing Pacific Island countries — 32% imposed on Fiji, 22% on Vanuatu and 10% on Papua New Guinea — generated less than favorable reactions.
“If the U.S. market becomes more difficult due to this tariff, we will simply redirect our goods to markets where there is mutual respect and no artificial barriers,” PNG’s Prime Minister James Marape warned in April.
“The U.S.’ seeming erosion of the international rules-based order and the multilateral system will be of concern to Pacific Island leaders who rely on and invest heavily in the multilateral system to advance their key interests,” Joel Nilon, Senior Pacific Fellow at the Pacific Security College at the Australian National University, told RS. Leaders of Tonga, Solomon Islands, Cook Islands and Palau wrote a letter to Trump expressing their concerns about his policy turns in April.
Before USAID was drastically downsized in January, Washington spent $3.4 billion on aid assistance to the region annually. Even then, it has trailed behind Australia, New Zealand and Japan in the magnitude of development assistance it provided to the region.
At the same time, however, the U.S. has retained the Biden administration’s rhetoric about the region’s geopolitical importance. “America, as the leader of the free world defending American interests, is going to need to make sure we’re focused properly on the Communist Chinese and their ambitions in the Indo-Pacific and around the world,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared in February, as Admiral Samuel Paparo of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command visited Australia to strengthen defense ties.
In the same month, Chinese naval vessels conducted unprecedented maneuvers in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.
The decline of U.S. assistance and its relative disinterest in Pacific perspectives, particularly regarding climate change, could have long-term implications for its assumptions about the region’s support for its plans to counter China’s own ambitions. Its diminished status as a development partner is already giving China plenty of gaps to fill. In May, China hosted its annual China-Pacific Islands Foreign Ministers Meeting for the first time in China, where it showcased a swathe of climate-related projects for Pacific countries.
A preoccupation with beefing up U.S. military and intelligence presence in the region will not by itself build strong, trust-based bilateral relationships with the region’s key players. This obsession has minimal currency with Pacific Islanders and “is very much perceived by leaders as a major distraction from their real security concerns,” Nilon emphasised, notably climate change, the risks of natural disasters, and development challenges, as well as transnational crime, border and cybersecurity.
Over the next year, the Pacific Islands Forum will review and redraft its future engagement strategy with donor countries. And before the 2026 leaders’ summit takes place in Palau, when partner dialogue meetings are expected to resume, there is an opportunity for the U.S. administration to also rethink its strategic approach. Ultimately Pacific Islanders desire a new script with America listening and consulting in a genuine, reciprocal and consistent long-term partnership.
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