Comment by BurningFrog
7 months ago
The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.
To a 1925 (99 years ago) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.
7 months ago
The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.
To a 1925 (99 years ago) military force, the Diego Garcia airfield would have had zero importance.
> The lease expires in 2123. The militarily strategic landscape then is pretty much unknowable.
I bet that's what the UK thought about Hong Kong in the late 1800s, but when 1996 rolled around I think they (and many HKers) would have liked a longer-and-99-years lease.
While geography isn't quite destiny, it is fairly important, and having a random rock in a place where there are no other rocks will always be useful IMHO (unless we perhaps develop teleportation).
in 99 years, most of the island probably will be underwater due to climate change.
Further information on 13,000 islands: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17538947.2024.2...
"Of over 13,000 islands examined, approximately 12% experienced significant shifts in shoreline positions. The total shoreline length of these islands approaches 200,000 km, with 7.57% showing signs of landward erosion and 6.05% expanding seaward. Human activities, particularly reclamation and land filling, were identified as primary drivers of local shoreline transformations, while natural factors have a comparatively minor impact. "
The island is certainly in the risk zone, but I think that is also unknowable.
My guess is that by carbon sequestering and/or SO2 injection in the stratosphere, the climate change will be controllable within a few decades.
It's very likely that we're already beyond some of the tipping points, and others are very close[0]. We're basically going into the mitigation phase now by my understanding.
[0] https://www.space.com/climate-tipping-points-closer-than-rea...
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> SO2 injection in the stratosphere
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Piercer#Plot
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And in 299 years the climate may have changed again, as it is wont to do (and has always done).
And 65 million years ago an asteroid detonated with the power of all of the world’s nukes combined, so there is no need to worry about nuclear war.
And timespans are like that for climate too, millions of years not 299
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Is that a subtle attempt to argue that climate is changing on it's own, and not by human agency? Say it if you mean it.
And in 1000 years it will be different again. What’s your point? The fact it has and will always change doesn’t change anything about what’s happening now.
We can choose to mitigate the change or make it worse for ourselves.
I wonder if they would have anticipated its value. I can anticipate a moon base would be valuable in 2123 even though it has little present value.
Considering that 99 years ago both Maldives and India were still colonised (and would remain so for decades), I'm gonna go out on a limb by saying that no, Chagos Islands weren't seen as particularly important back then.
It would have had some value as a coaling or oiling station thought
Why would the worlds superpower need that when they had India?
Q: Is there a reason for making a lease 99 years, rather than - say - 999 years?
Historically 99 years was the longest term for leases in English laws. I don't think that's incorporated in laws any more, but it has just continued as common practice.
You may be right historically, but I don't think it's common practice any more - there are quite a few "virtual freehold" leases of 999 years, and most other domestic leaseholds are 125+ years when they start. When a leashold goes below 90 years its value dips sharply.
999 years is considered a "permanent" lease [1]. 99 years is considered a "more than a lifetime lease" [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999-year_lease [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99-year_lease
So they can renegotiate the terms of the leasing in a reasonable time span?