Islands: The United States as a Networked Empire
Islands: The United States as a Networked Empire
This chapter discusses the implications of the US-held island territories—spread across the globe—as manifestation of the power nodes of a network of “information, communication, and military systems.” It brings into focus how US power is rooted in the vast—but almost “invisible” to a majority of US citizens—network of island territories and possessions such as the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, Micronesia, and Palau. The residents of these islands are treated as second-class citizens by the US administration, bereft of such constitutional rights as the full protection of the US law or fedral voting rights. Being home to captial-intensive and low-labor-intensive technologies, these island territories have helped America emerge as a postcolonial, postimperial global power.
Keywords: United States, island territories, power nodes, federal voting rights, capital-intensive technologies
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