The strategic value of Hawaii was evident a quarter-century ago, when I visited Pearl Harbor as a midshipman in the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. The US Navy was building up toward 600 ships; its Pacific Fleet had an overbearing Soviet Far East Fleet to contend with.
The navy could do none of this without island bases connecting the US to maritime Asia, no matter how many gee-whiz warships and aircraft it built.