Capt. Jonathan Furlong,
a U.S. Army diver based in Hawaii, has deployed all around the Pacific and Asia. But no country or mission he’s been to has been like his current assignment in Palau, where’s he’s been
deployed for the last six months as a member of the Army’s Civic Action Team.
“It’s really cool just going out to project sites, or doing community events and recognizing people you know, and having conversations and building actual relationships and friendships with them,” he said in a video call from the island nation. “That’s just something I haven’t experienced in other places that, welcoming mentality from the locals to the point where we’re building actual friendships … whenever you go drive into town, you’re going to at least see five people that you know and just have a conversation with them about how their day is going.”
The team has been working on a series of projects across Palau, which spans 340 islands and has a population of less than 20,000 — but has come to be a site of major strategic competition between the U.S. and China, and is playing an increasingly critical role in American military commanders’ Pacific planning. With it being a small nation, Furlong and his team have had lots of face time with the leaders of the country.
“For other previous engineering or dive missions I’ve been on, like, maybe you meet with the mayor or the manager of the port, or, I think I met one governor prior to this,” he said. In
Palau, the team works directly with the team of
President Surangel Whipps, including National Security Coordinator Jennifer Anson.
“Every Monday, we’ll brief her on what we have going on for that that week,” Furlong said. “It’s really cool to have that access, because they’re the leaders of the country, they’re the ones who know what they need and what they want. So
it’s not like we’re trying to guess, like, ‘oh, like, what do we think is going to be good for Palau.’ They tell us.”
Before going into government service, Anson was a judo fighter who competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics and continues to coach Palauan youngsters in her spare time. Furlong said “she’s invited me to a few of her judo classes. I was a gymnast growing up, so I taught the kids gymnastics and parkour. So it’s like a neat thing, you never expect yourself to be doing kids outreach events with the
national security coordinator of a country.”
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Palau is known for its
pristine reefs, beaches and jungles and has built much of both its reputation and economy around ecotourism. In recent years to maintain both, the country seeks to develop its communities as it faces threats from illegal and unreported fishing from outsiders.
“One of (Whipps’) top
priorities is environmental preservation, not only for tourism but also for their reefs,” Furlong said. “Their reefs are really important to them for fishing and also for coastal protection from storms and things like that. And, you know, pollution plays a big role in that. So they take waste management and recycling very
seriously.”
Among the biggest project the Army CAT team is working on is a new access road on the island of Koror leading to a waste management center. Furlong explained that the current access road is “the same road for one of their docks, so it gets gets pretty crowded, and it’s not big enough for bigger (garbage) trucks to get in, essentially. So once it’s complete, there’ll be a direct access point to this solid waste management plant to allow those bigger trucks to get in there.”
The team is building on previous work the Palauan government did in partnership with Navy engineers and is working to finish it in partnership with the Palau Department of Public Works.
“They’re the ones that came up with the design, provide the materials and we provide the labor, the construction expertise and the equipment,” Furlong said. “We really try to augment and not replace, like the local systems that are in place here.”
Palau has a long history of having its affairs dictated by outsiders — including the United States.
During World War II, Palau was the scene of vicious fighting between American and Japanese forces and
after the war it became a “trust territory” administered by the United States. In 1978 it formally sought
independence and in 1981 approved a new constitution and became the Republic of Palau. A year later it signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States, giving the U.S. military use of its waters and airspace in return for development aid and a commitment that America would defend it from outside threats.
As tensions have mounted between China and Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing regards as a rouge province, tiny Palau has become the scene of increasing political intrigue.
The U.S. military has plans to upgrade Palau’s main harbor so American warships can enter the Pacific island nation’s narrow channels and dock there, as well as looking to establish new radar stations to watch China and “pre-positioned” equipment stockpiles in the event of a major Pacific conflict. Meanwhile, China has been working to assert its
influence through deep financial investments in the islands, and has frequently sent its fighing fleet and research vessels into its waters, which Palauan officials have accused of illegal fishing and espionage.
As tensions boil and the U.S. and China develop new missiles and other weapons for a potential Pacific conflict, many islanders fear their homes could again
become battlegrounds.
Whipps, who favors closer ties with the United States and is a defiant backer of Taiwan, is serving his second term as president after being reelected in 2024 in a tight race against his brother-in-law, former Palauan President Thomas Remengesau. Whipps has accused China of attempting to thwart his reelection and alleged the Chinese government has in some cases worked directly with Palauan politicians critical of the U.S. military’s increasing involvement in Palau.
War already has deeply touched Palau, even since World War II. The U.S. military actively recruits from the country, and many Palauan have fought and died far away from their island homes in America’s wars, including the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army CAT team has partnered frequently with the Palau Veterans Association, inviting veterans to work out together on the anniversary of 9/11 and visiting the grave of each one buried in Palau.
“We went around to every grave site of a Palauan veteran, and we placed a Palau flag and U.S. flag, and then after that did like a picnic for all the Gold Star family members here in Palau,” Furlong said. “It’s cool, because a lot of them will come and work out on camp and share their old war stories or things like that with the team. And it’s really cool to see them bond, especially during when we were placing all those flags, just the stories that Palauans have about their relatives or their brothers and uncles that served.”
