This North American state is not covered by NATO. What if you were attacked by a foreign power?

Sweden became NATO’s latest member earlier this month, joining the security alliance’s 31 nations, including the United States. Well, 49 of the 50 United States.

Because, due to a geographical and historical peculiarity, Hawaii is not technically covered by the NATO pact.

If a foreign power attacked Hawaii—for example, the U.S. Navy base at Pearl Harbor or the Indo-Pacific Command headquarters northwest of Honolulu—members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would not be required to defend the Aloha State.

“It’s very strange,” says David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum think tank in Honolulu, adding that even most Hawaiians have no idea that their state is technically adrift in the alliance.

“People tend to assume that Hawaii is part of the USA and, therefore, is covered by NATO,” he says.

But, he admits, the clue is in the name of the alliance itself – the 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 United States, which reaches the North Atlantic Ocean on its eastern coast.

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

The exception is provided for in the Washington Treaty, the document that created NATO in 1949, a decade before Hawaii became a state.

Although 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 such self-defense.

“An armed attack on one or more parties shall be deemed to include an armed attack on the territory of either party in Europe or North America,” says Article 6. The article also says that any island territory must be located in the North Atlantic, north of the Tropic of Cancer.

A US State Department spokesperson confirmed that Hawaii is not covered by Article 5, but said that 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 that any change to the treaty that includes Hawaii is unlikely to achieve consensus because other members have territories outside the limits established in article 5.

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

NATO did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

Hawaii, Guam, Taiwan and North Korea

Some experts say times have changed in the decades since the signing of the Washington Treaty — and argue that the current political situation in the Indo-Pacific may require an overhaul.

This is because US military bases in Hawaii could play a vital role in both countering North Korean aggression and supporting any potential defense of Taiwan.

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the autonomous democratic island as its territory, despite never having controlled it. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made the “reunification” of Taiwan a key part of his global goal of “rejuvenating” the nation by 2049.

While Chinese leaders have said they hope to take control of the island through peaceful means, they have not ruled out the possibility of doing so by force – and have stepped up military intimidation of the island in recent years.

The Taiwan Relations Act obliges Washington to provide weapons to defend the island and US President Joe Biden has suggested that he would use US military personnel to defend it in the event of a Chinese invasion (although White House officials have stated that US policy of leaving this issue ambiguous has not changed).

A 2022 war game scenario conducted by the Center for a New American Security showed China attacking US command and control facilities in Hawaii as part of its war to conquer Taiwan by force.

John Hemmings, senior director of the Indo-Pacific Foreign and Security Policy Program at the Pacific Forum, says Hawaii’s exclusion from NATO removes “an element of deterrence” regarding the possibility of a Chinese attack on Hawaii as form of support for a possible campaign against Taiwan.

Hawaii’s exclusion lets Beijing know that NATO’s European members potentially have a kind of “escape valve” when it comes to defending US territory in a hypothetical situation, he says.

“Why shouldn’t we make that deterrent available to us?” says Hemmings. “Why would we leave that out if it could stop (China) from invading Taiwan?”

Hawaii’s strategic importance also has deep historical significance for the United States. “This is where Pearl Harbor happened. This is where we were attacked, which led to World War II and-by the way-this is also where we helped liberate France,” he says.

“For Americans, there is a direct link between this state and our involvement in World War II and, ultimately, our help in contributing to victory over the Axis (the alliance between Nazi Germany, Japan and Italy )..”

Hemmings also advocates including Guam, the American Pacific island territory about 3,000 miles further west than Hawaii, in the NATO umbrella.

The island, which has long been a focal point for North Korean saber-rattling, is home to Andersen Air Force Base, from which the United States can launch its B-1, B-2 and B-2 bombers. 52 across the Indo-Pacific.

Hemmings compares Guam’s exclusion from NATO to the way the US left the Korean Peninsula outside the line it drew in the Pacific to stop the Soviet Union and China from spreading communism in January 1950. Five months after it was drawn the so-called Acheson Line, began the Korean War.

“The adversary feels emboldened to carry out a military conflict and we end up having a war anyway,” says Hemmings.

Santoro, from the Pacific Forum, also says that Guam should be included within the scope of NATO. “Strategically, Guam is much more important than Hawaii,” he says.

“Coalition of interested parties”

Other analysts argue that if a hypothetical attack were to take place in Hawaii or Guam, the deep and lasting ties that unite the US and its democratic allies would be substantially more significant in the countries’ decision-making than a technical detail in the NATO treaty.

In the event of an attack, “I would expect (…) the United States to try to bring together a coalition of interested parties involving primarily – but certainly not exclusively – regional allies,” says Luis Simon, director of the Center for Security Research, Diplomacy and Strategy from the Brussels School of Governance, Belgium.

Simon cites the alliance’s strong and immediate response after the September 11 attacks, the only time in its 74-year history that NATO activated the collective self-defense mechanism provided for in article 5.

“But Washington chose to channel its response through a coalition of interested parties and not through NATO Command,” he says. “I suspect we would see a similar reaction in the event of an attack on Guam or Hawaii, with the US wanting to maintain full military control over (the response) and diplomatic flexibility.”

Simon also says that he does not see clearly, on the part of NATO members, a commitment to the USA and the alliance.

NATO is a cornerstone of the transatlantic democratic community. The United States and other NATO members have spoken out in favor of unprecedented unity among the alliance in the face of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. And NATO has also toughened its common rhetoric on China in recent years, promising to address what it describes as the “systemic challenges” that Beijing poses.

“Personally, I have no doubt that they would be willing to provide different forms of assistance in the event of an attack against the sovereign territory of the USA, including individually and through multilateral bodies such as the European Union or NATO”, he states.

*Jennifer Hansler contributed to this article