Forget Greenland — securing Diego Garcia should come first

The focus and the fuss have been on Greenland. US President Donald Trump now says a framework is in place for a deal that suits US interests to control this piece of strategic territory.

Meanwhile, Trump is paying attention to a bigger disaster headed America’s way in the Indian Ocean – in a place even less known to Americans than is Greenland.

The British government is rushing through a treaty to transfer sovereignty, spelled ownership, over the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, a small island nation on the western edge of the Indian Ocean.

Why does it matter? America’s only military base in the Indian Ocean sits on the island of Diego Garcia in the Chagos archipelago. The US military operates from Diego Garcia under a 1966 agreement with the United Kingdom.

Diego Garcia is indispensable for US naval and air operations in the Indian Ocean region and projecting power into the Middle East, Africa and into the Asian mainland. It also serves as a logistics base, supports space operations and is a “connector” for US movements from Europe to the Pacific.

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