The slide into bankruptcy protection by venerable Hawaiian Telephone Co., or Hawaiian Telcom as it is now known, is likely not much of a surprise to anyone who was following this drama closely.

Consider: A legacy company with a declining client base, bound by iron chains of regulatory rules and obligations and saddled with a huge debt load accumulated as the company was passed from one ownership to another. Not a recipe for easy success.

It's likely the company will rise from these ashes. After all, the day is still far off when no one needs the services of a land-based, universally acceptable communications company.

But the struggles of the telephone company (and you might add in the failure of Aloha Airlines before it) adds fresh energy to an ongoing and as yet unresolved political debate in Hawai'i. The debate is this: Can tiny, isolated Hawai'i ever honestly expect to go it alone in any substantial field of endeavor?

For example, is food security, or a stable food-based agricultural industry really possible in a world where California, Mexico and other regions can grow produce at a scale we can only imagine?

Energy independence is an excellent goal, and certainly the more we can operate independent of imported oil, the better off we will be. But does anyone imagine that the day will come when Hawai'i floats serenely in the sea, powering all of its transportation, production and power out of its own internal resources?

The practical reality is that much of Hawai'i's fate has been determined from the outside almost from the beginning. Hawai'i's successes and failures have almost always rested on decisions made in New York, California, Tokyo or somewhere else.

At a smaller level, the institutions that we rely on, including our banks, our hotels — that is the visitor industry — our news media and more are controlled by powers and forces beyond our shores.

There is a popular political argument that it is very important for "local" people, that is, people with roots and heart in Hawai'i, to maintain a strong and even controlling voice in politics. The political system is one of the few places where people from here can call the shots and make the decisions, the argument goes.

But maintaining political power is pointless if the real decisions, like it or not, are made elsewhere. So there's the challenge: Can our political system find a way to guide our state in a manner that ensures outside forces will take our interests in mind and place them first as they go about planning our destiny?

Jerry Burris' column appears Wednesdays in this space. See his blog at blogs.honoluluadvertiser.com/akamaipolitics. Reach him at jrryburris@yahoo.com.