Comment by tbihl
4 days ago
Diego Garcia is an island of exceptional strategic importance to the West. When it eventually gets granted to a client state of China, that will steadily degrade the effectiveness of bases there. I expect slower movement than the time the UK promised to protect the rights of Hong Kong citizens, but that is a matter of degree.
I am not aware of Denmark giving meaningful control of Greenland to China or Russia, nor or any plans to push the US out: therefore, while I think the principle is worth considering, I find it to be a small concern not worth angering allies over.
Does that answer your statement of confusion?
I don’t see how it relates very well to what I said. I think you’re trying to say the that the Chagos island lease disagreement is as big a deal as threatening to invade a NATO ally.
I disagree.
No, that is incorrect. I disagree that my comment draws that equivalency, not least of all because claiming "as big a deal" is to make a comparison between two radically different concerns between fairly different groups, which could only be lined up against one another in some narrowly scoped way.
I'm saying that losing stable access to Greenland sites would be similar to losing access to Diego Garcia sites, and the threat of the latter is a recent flare-up. And if you're hoping to retreat to fortress America, then Greenland becomes much more important than Diego Garcia.