The Office of Insular Affairs is a unit of the United StatesDepartment of the Interior that oversees federal administration of several United States possessions. It is the successor to the Bureau of Insular Affairs of the War Department, which administered certain territories from 1902 to 1939, and the Office of Territorial Affairs (formerly the Division of Territories and Island Possessions and then the Office of Territories) in the Interior Department, which was responsible for certain territories from the 1930s to the 1990s.
Some ambiguity exists regarding the role of the Office of Insular Affairs in relation to some of the technically independent states of the Pacific. The United States typically prefers to deal substantially with former US trust territories such as the Republic of Palau and the Republic of the Marshall Islands through the Office of Insular Affairs, rather than through the State Department. This raises the question as to whether from a de facto perspective the US Government truly regards these small countries as independent, despite their nominal and de jure status as such.
In addition, the territorial claim [1] by the Republic of the Marshall Islands on Wake Island leaves a certain amount of ambiguity regarding the actual or hypothetical role of the US military, responsible under agreement for the defence of Marshallese territory, in the event of any strategic crisis or hostilities involving Wake. The Atoll was formally annexed by the US in the 19th century and is still administered by the Office of Insular Affairs at the US Department of the Interior.
