Let's deter China by building depth in the Pacific.
America should absolutely accept Palau's offer for a Pacific base:
US President Donald Trump has made a hash of relationships with America’s allies and partners. Or so say the parts of the US foreign policy community for whom Trump is Lucifer in human form.
But Tommy Remengesau, president of the Western Pacific island nation of Palau, appears not to have gotten the word. When US Defense Secretary Mike Esper visited in August this year, Remengesau asked Esper to set up bases in Palau and to use them.
And he reportedly put the offer in writing in a hand-delivered letter: “Palau’s request to the US military remains simple – build joint-use facilities, then come and use them regularly.”
I mentioned this offer a couple months ago:
The Republic of Palau is offering the United States military base options. I've long been an advocate of getting more baskets in the western Pacific to oppose China. But China is also active in this arena.
And a year ago, I was looking at this more broadly:
Let's pay attention to the Freely Associated States in the Pacific lest we have to island hop through them again if the Chinese gain footholds. Really, as Chinese ability to project power grows, we need more baskets for our increasingly expensive eggs.
Secretary of Defense Esper seems on board the idea in general. Let's hope he makes Palau's offer reality. As that initial author suggests, it doesn't have to be a big base to avoid being a nearly non-existent place:
[A Defense Department spokesman's remark] that the Department of Defense’s “focus is on access to places from which to operate, not necessarily new permanent bases.”
This brings to mind the “Places not Bases” fad of the late 1990s. The idea was that the US didn’t need actual bases anymore since the Cold War was over, America faced no real enemies and there was a “peace dividend” to be collected. However, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said it right: “Virtual presence is actual absence.”
If you’re not there all the time, you’re not serious. Small is fine, but it must be permanent.
The Pentagon does not seem to understand that a military base need not have a Pizza Hut restaurant and a nine-hole golf course. Indeed, in Palau’s case, a hundred of the right Americans – the sort who joined the military for adventure on the edge of empire – can accomplish all sorts of things.
If China starts a war, it will surge with its initial advantages of force and surprise. Let's make sure we don't have to fall back to Hawaii before pushing back in earnest. Let's get those bases while we can do it cheaply in blood.
UPDATE: I moved a paragraph before the map to after the map to make sure the first link gets the credit for the map.
