Rear Admiral Benjamin Nicholson led a team of Joint Region Marianas officials for his first sit-down meeting with CNMI Governor Arnold Palacios amid increased geopolitical tension and training in Micronesia.

"We want to make sure the governor was fully aware of the exercises we are planning to do," the officer stated. Joint Region Marianas met with Governor Palacios on Saipan to discuss increased activity in the region.  "And have a better understanding of how our forces in Guam can springboard from there to go to other places and come to the CNMI in defense of the CNMI, if necessary, but obviously to do training which is what we do quite a bit of," added Nicholson.

The visit also comes amid the governor's pivot away from the China market and his ask of the military to support the CNMI financially as a result.  "The governor asked me if we can have some more ships visit Saipan and we are looking at that and I can't give you the specifics but I think we got some things lined up here for not too far in the future," he said.

"We have a pretty significant military population on Guam and we have been on a campaign to encourage that population to tour throughout the region."

But that increasing interest has also led to community concerns about environmental and cultural impact.  "For the military exercises, we go through an extremely extensive process to ensure that we minimize any impact to the environment," he said.

"On the tourism side...we emphasize all the time with our military members and their families that are based out of Guam that when they visit a place the only thing they should leave behind are there footsteps," he said.