Contain cost of hosting military

As the drumbeat intensifies, it’s hard not to rally to the cause and fight for Hawaii’s portion of the military-industrial complex, estimated at $8.8 billion yearly in expenditures to the islands. Maintaining that heady economic level, as well as Hawaii’s pivotal position as restrategizing occurs across the Asia-Pacific, remains crucial — but beware of overeager lures that shortchange other priorities for the permanent local population.

To wit: Renewed plans to resume controversial live-fire training at Makua Valley raise concerns, as does Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s magnanimous offer of state land and capital to develop housing initiatives for additional troops to minimize Pentagon investment.

The military already has much acreage throughout the state, much of it on Oahu via sites such as Pearl Harbor and Camp Smith, Hickam and Bellows, the Army’s hubs at Fort Shafter and Schofield Barracks, and Marine Corps Base Kaneohe; on Hawaii island, at the 132,000-acre Pohakuloa Training Area; on Kauai, at the Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands.

So really, given Hawaii’s chronic and ongoing struggle to house our own working-family, needy and outright homeless populations, the state seems overly generous at the expense of its own homegrown problems.

To be sure, Hawaii’s longstanding push and pull with the U.S. military is heightened in this post-Sen. Dan Inouye era.

At Tuesday’s annual Hawaii Military Partnership Conference hosted by the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, Adm. Harry B. Harris, head of U.S. Pacific Fleet, called Hawaii the "gateway" to America’s re-balance to the Pacific — but cautioned that the state cannot take its key role for granted.

Indeed, recalibration will be occurring toward a stronger state-military-business partnership, as the dominoing will enter Hawaii’s private sector.

Of the $8.8 billion in annual military spending here, new data from the chamber shows, $2.4 billion is in contracts for construction, supplies and services, generating some 102,000 local jobs.

Just this week, contractor BAE Systems said it may lay off up to 172 employees at two Army bases here with the Feb. 28 expiration of a Department of Defense contract providing support services at Schofield Barracks and at Pohakuloa.

So it’s evident that reconfiguring will be vital down the food chain as military strategies shift — which they are — including:

» The planned relocation of 2,700 Marines to Hawaii from Okinawa by 2026, which has prompted the housing question.

» Hosting this summer, for the first time in its 43-year history, the biennial Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) war games, which will include China and Brunei among the 23 participating nations.

This underscores a global power evolution, with the U.S. dealing with an increasingly assertive China and a nuclear-armed North Korea.

Hawaii is rightly proud of our troops, so support for the U.S. military services here must continue to be robust. Hawaii troops have been an integral part of U.S. fighting history, including from World War II through Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Our location is strategically invaluable.

Still, striking a war-and-peace co-existence here cannot mean surrendering what’s special and sacred to Hawaii.

At Makua Valley, pushback can be expected from environmentalists and Native Hawaiian activists against reopening the 4,190-acre site for live-fire practice after nine years.

In separate, candid interviews less than three years ago, two Pacific Army commanders had said Makua might not be needed for such use given expansion at Pohakuloa — and that was a welcome position.

A cautionary tale lies in the most dramatic case of military impact here: on Kahoolawe, the 45-square-mile "Target Island" used by the military from 1941-1968 to test various munitions. Today, decades later, most of Kahoolawe remains imbedded with unexploded ordnance and it is considered, literally, a mine field.

For Hawaii’s military-related interests, the federal fiscal situation looms large, as do shifting geopolitical defense strategies. So it is crucial to not become complacent — but it’s just as crucial to not sell our land, people and resources short.