Hawaii is only U.S. state not covered by NATO defense agreement

Sweden became the newest member of NATO earlier this month, joining 31 nations in the security alliance, including the United States.

Well, make that 49 of the 50 United States.

Because, in a quirk of geography and history, Hawaii is not technically covered by the NATO pact.

If a foreign power attacked Hawaii — say the U.S. Navy’s base at Pearl Harbor or the headquarters of the Indo-Pacific Command northwest of Honolulu — the members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not be obligated to rise to the Aloha State’s defense.

“It’s the weirdest thing,” says David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum think tank in Honolulu, who added that even most Hawaii residents have no idea their state is technically adrift of the alliance.

“People tend to assume Hawaii is part of the U.S. and therefore it’s covered by NATO,” he says.

But, he concedes, the tip-off is in the alliance’s name – North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Hawaii is, of course, in the Pacific and, unlike California, Colorado or Alaska, the 50th state is not part of the continental U.S. that reaches the North Atlantic Ocean on its eastern shores.

“The argument for not including Hawaii is simply that it’s not part of North America,” Santoro says.

The exception is spelled out in the Washington Treaty, the document that established NATO in 1949, a decade before Hawaii became a state.

While Article 5 of the treaty provides for collective self-defense in the event of a military attack on any member state, Article 6 limits the geographic scope of that.

“An armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America,” Article 6 says. It also says any island territories must be in the North Atlantic, north of the Tropic of Cancer.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed that Hawaii is not covered by Article 5 but said Article 4 — which says members will consult when “the territorial integrity, political independence or security” of any member is threatened — should cover any situation that could affect the 50th state.

The spokesperson also said any treaty amendment to include Hawaii would be unlikely to gain consensus because other members have territories outside of the boundaries set in Article 5.

For instance, NATO did not join founding member the United Kingdom’s 1982 war with Argentina after Argentine troops invaded the Falkland Islands, a disputed British territory in the South Atlantic.

NATO has not responded to a CNN request for comment.

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