U.S. can not afford to lose Diego Garcia

Excerpt

Unless something changes, the land under one of America’s most strategic military bases will be owned by Mauritius, a country with deep and growing ties to China. Just as concerning, American access to that site will depend on whether Britain promptly pays its bills every year for the next century. This is a bet the United States cannot afford to make.

The base, Diego Garcia, is known more colloquially as the “Footprint of Freedom.” Strategically located on the atoll of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, it ranges from Africa, the Middle East and into the broader Indo-Pacific. It can house and launch strategic bombers and reload submarines, and it has a deep-water port for aircraft carriers. It’s a crucial American footprint in one of the most economically and strategically dynamic locations on the planet. It has proved its importance repeatedly, including during the Gulf War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The atoll of Diego Garcia is part of the Chagos Archipelago, and it belongs to Britain. For now.

Hundreds of years ago, the Chagos Archipelago was mostly uninhabited. Then, as French and British colonists brought in slaves and workers, a distinct Chagossian population developed, with its own language and culture. The British colonial administration for Chagos was in Mauritius.

Alexander B. Gray, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, served as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the White House National Security Council (2019-2021). Cleo Paskal is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.