🇲🇭 Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands is a Pacific nation of 42,000 people spread across 29 coral atolls and 5 islands, with a GDP of about $260 million. The country's history is inseparable from nuclear testing — the US detonated 67 nuclear bombs here between 1946 and 1958, including the 15-megaton Castle Bravo test on Bikini Atoll, the largest US nuclear explosion ever. Bikini Atoll remains uninhabitable. The Marshall Islands has the world's largest shark sanctuary and one of the largest tuna fisheries. The country has a Compact of Free Association with the US, providing financial assistance in exchange for military access.

US Compact payments (about $70 million annually), fishing licenses, and copra are the main revenue sources. The Marshall Islands has the world's third-largest ship registry after Panama and Liberia. Subsistence fishing and agriculture are the primary livelihoods for most residents. The country is entirely dependent on imported fuel and most food. Climate change threatens the very existence of the nation — most land is less than 2 meters above sea level.

The Bikini Atoll nuclear tests were so famous that the two-piece swimsuit was named after them — French designer Louis Réard chose the name because he expected his design to be as explosive as the bomb tests. The Marshall Islands' stick charts — navigational maps made of palm fronds and shells representing ocean swells — are one of the most sophisticated indigenous navigation systems ever developed.

The Marshall Islands faces a double existential threat: the legacy of nuclear contamination and rising sea levels. The Compact renegotiation with the US is critical — without it, the country has no viable economic model.