HONOLULU (KHON2) — On Capitol Hill Hawaii Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono are calling for protections for Hawaii under the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. They’re among a bipartisan group of senators urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to take steps to rectify Hawaii’s exclusion from the treaty, as military threats in the Indo-Pacific region grow.
The treaty was ratified in 1949 before Hawaii was declared a state. Currently, if Hawaii were under attack, it would not be seen as an attack on all NATO countries and therefore would not warrant collective self-defense. Earlier Thursday morning, live on Wake Up 2day we spoke with Senator Schatz.
“It’s the reason that there has not been an attack on a Western European country or the United States homeland with the exception of 9/11 since World War II,” Sen. Schatz said of NATO. “Article 5 was invoked when the United States was attacked on 9/11. This is a really important aspect of our security. The problem is the treaty was ratified in 1949 before Hawaii was a state. We are at a technical level not included in that Article 5 which basically guarantees that if Hawaii is attacked that all of these NATO countries would come to our defense. Now we’ve gotten verbal assurances from a lot of our Western European allies that they would in fact come to the United States’ defense if any part of the United States were attacked but that’s not good enough for us. I was happy to lead a bi-partisan group of senators to clarify that the 50th state is in fact implicated in this treaty. We’re not sure frankly the way forward. We’ve written a letter to the Secretary of State to try to get some assurances from our NATO allies. Re-opening the treaty might be very difficult at the technical level so we’re trying to just make sure we can achieve some side agreements, like an addendum to the treaty to clarify so that if anybody gets any ideas about attacking the United States and the 50th state that they know that all of our NATO allies will come to our defense.”
Senator Schatz’s staff tells KHON2 that due to ethics rules, since the interview took place in his office he was not be able to answer any questions about the 2024 election and Biden. He was asked how the questions surrounding President Biden’s age and communication abilities impact the President’s job in negotiations with the NATO summit in Washington.
“I think NATO is President Biden’s wheelhouse,” Senator Schatz said. “When Russia invaded Ukraine he was able to immediately get on the phone and talk to people whom he already knew as the former Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. I have no doubt that the Secretary of State’s team, the Secretary of Defense team, the White House team has had a successful NATO summit in sort of solidifying and growing support for a rules-based international order. Look there are lots of people who have reservations about militarism and I understand that but we have to understand that NATO has been one of the causes of one of the longest periods of global stability and prosperity that we’ve ever seen.”