Diego Garcia – Why It’s Key to U.S. Power in Indian Ocean

Did you know that one of the most powerful military bases in the world was built on stolen land—kept hidden in plain sight, isolated in a turquoise lagoon, and erased from civilian maps?

Diego Garcia, the largest island in the British Indian Ocean Territory, is the site of one of the most significant and secretive military bases in the world. Strategically positioned between Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, the Diego Garcia Military Base is a critical node in the global military architecture of the United States. This makes it ideal  to project force across three continents with minimal visibility and maximum reach.

Yet few outside military and diplomatic circles understand how this base came to exist—let alone at what cost. The entire indigenous population of Diego Garcia was forcibly removed, their homeland handed over under a classified agreement between London and Washington during the Cold War.

Today, the island remains under British control despite international legal rulings that question the legitimacy of that claim and demand its return to Mauritius. Still, the U.S. continues to operate the base with full strategic freedom, without civilian oversight, without accountability, and without meaningful scrutiny.

But why does a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean hold such immense strategic value that two world powers—the United States and the United Kingdom—have gone to extraordinary lengths to control it, defend it, and silence debate about it? What happens when a military base becomes more powerful than the country it sits in? And what does Diego Garcia reveal about the future of warfare, sovereignty, and empire?

Diego Garcia: Geography and Colonial Legacy

Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean

Diego Garcia is located in the central Indian Ocean, about 1,800 kilometers south of India and 3,000 kilometers east of the African coast. It is the largest island within the Chagos Archipelago, a chain of over 60 small coral islands that collectively form the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)—a colonial relic that remains under UK control to this day.

Though remote and isolated from major population centers, Diego Garcia’s value lies precisely in its geography. The island forms a natural anchorage in the Indian Ocean, large enough to host long runways, deep-water ports, fuel storage facilities, and extensive radar and satellite tracking systems.

Its position enables U.S. military forces to rapidly reach the Middle East, East Africa, and Southeast Asia—making it a perfect forward operating base for combat aircraft, naval fleets, and surveillance operations. It functions as a logistical linchpin for operations in three major theaters, while remaining out of range of most regional threats.

There are no indigenous settlements, no press, and no civilian infrastructure. Access is strictly restricted to authorized military personnel, and the base operates under a near-total information blackout. This combination of remoteness and strategic access makes Diego Garcia uniquely suited for sensitive missions—ranging from drone warfare and bombing campaigns to submarine deployments and intelligence operations. It is, quite literally, a launchpad for global projection cloaked in oceanic obscurity.

The British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)

The modern status of Diego Garcia is the direct result of Cold War-era colonial maneuvering. In 1965, just a few years before Mauritius gained independence from Britain, London unilaterally separated the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius and established it as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT).

The purpose was to create a legal fiction that allowed the UK to lease the territory to the United States for military purposes without interference from a newly independent Mauritian government. This geopolitical deal came at a devastating human cost. Between 1968 and 1973, over 1,500 Chagossians—the indigenous inhabitants of Diego Garcia and surrounding islands—were forcibly removed from their homes.

The UK government, under pressure from Washington, systematically depopulated the islands, often by denying food shipments, shutting down local infrastructure, and falsely claiming the islanders were merely transient workers. The expelled population was dumped in Mauritius and the Seychelles, with little compensation and no long-term support. Generations of Chagossians have since lived in poverty and legal limbo, fighting for their right to return.

Despite multiple international rulings—including a 2019 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and a UN General Assembly resolution demanding the return of the territory to Mauritius—the UK has refused to cede control. The United States, for its part, has shown no willingness to re-examine its use of the island or its role in the original displacement.

Today, the British Indian Ocean Territory is one of the last remaining examples of active colonial administration by a European power, maintained almost entirely to serve the strategic interests of the United States. The Indian Ocean British territory thus functions not as a sovereign region, but as a military asset—conveniently stripped of a population and governed outside the norms of democratic accountability or legal transparency.

Building a Base: The US-UK Military Agreement

Origins of the US-UK Military Base

The construction of the Diego Garcia base was not simply a bilateral decision. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, amid growing tensions with the Soviet Union and increasing instability in the Middle East and South Asia, the United States sought a reliable military foothold in the Indian Ocean.

The United Kingdom, eager to maintain relevance in global affairs despite its post-imperial decline, agreed to a long-term lease arrangement—one that would place Diego Garcia under U.S. control while remaining a formal part of British territory.

This strategic alignment was formalized through a series of secretive diplomatic agreements between 1966 and 1971. These agreements allowed the United States to construct and operate a US-UK military base on Diego Garcia without parliamentary debate or public scrutiny in either country. The UK provided the land—stripped of its native population—while the U.S. poured billions into building infrastructure.

The U.S. military presence on Diego Garcia began modestly in the early 1970s but rapidly expanded. Initially used as a naval communications and refueling station, the island was soon transformed into a full-scale Diego Garcia naval base.

By the 1980s, during the height of Cold War hostilities, the base supported bomber aircraft, nuclear submarines, and intelligence assets. Since then, it has become an essential platform for rapid-response operations across the Indian Ocean region.

The Nature of the Diego Garcia US Military Base

Today, the Diego Garcia US military base is a highly developed, fully integrated component of American global power projection. Officially known as Camp Justice, the facility covers the entire island and includes two parallel runways long enough to accommodate heavy bombers, a deep-water port that hosts nuclear-capable submarines, massive fuel storage depots, and secure satellite communication stations. The infrastructure is tailored to support extended missions without external supply chains, making the base a critical outpost in times of crisis.

At its peak, the US military base Diego Garcia housed over 4,000 personnel, including Navy, Air Force, and civilian contractors. It has been a launchpad for several major military campaigns—from Operations Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

B-52 Stratofortress bombers routinely deployed from Diego Garcia to conduct long-range bombing missions deep into the Middle East. The base has also supported nuclear submarines, drone operations, and advanced surveillance missions across the Indian Ocean, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Moreover, the island serves as a critical logistics hub for the U.S. Navy’s Maritime Prepositioning Force—a fleet of supply ships stationed nearby that can deploy large-scale military assets to any part of the globe within days. With capabilities ranging from cyber and satellite operations to submarine deployment and aerial refueling, Diego Garcia is arguably one of the most versatile and important forward-operating bases in the entire U.S. military network.

Yet despite its significance, the base operates under a veil of secrecy. It is exempt from many international oversight mechanisms, and its legal status remains murky, given the unresolved territorial dispute between the UK and Mauritius. The base’s physical and strategic isolation ensures minimal transparency while maximizing operational effectiveness—an arrangement that serves both Washington’s military ambitions and London’s geopolitical utility.

Diego Garcia’s Strategic Role in Modern Warfare

Silent Power Projection in the Indian Ocean

Few military installations embody the principle of silent power projection as effectively as the Diego Garcia military base. While it rarely appears in headlines, the island has been at the core of nearly every major U.S. military operation in the broader Middle East and South Asia for the past three decades.

During the Gulf War (1991), Diego Garcia served as the launch point for B-52 bombers delivering precision strikes deep into Iraqi territory. Its runways allowed for long-range sorties without reliance on volatile regional partners.

In the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the island again functioned as a critical airbase, enabling sustained air support and logistics across an otherwise inaccessible battlefield. During the 2003 Iraq War, Diego Garcia housed both combat aircraft and command facilities for coordinating naval deployments in the Persian Gulf.

Its location in the central Indian Ocean—equidistant from the Persian Gulf, the Horn of Africa, and the South Asian coast—gives the Diego Garcia naval base unrivaled access to strategic chokepoints: the Strait of Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, and the Malacca Strait.

These maritime corridors are essential for global trade and energy supply, and their security is vital to both Western and Asian economies. From Diego Garcia, the U.S. can rapidly deploy assets to these hotspots, deter adversaries, and maintain a constant surveillance presence—without having to negotiate with regional governments or risk operating in politically unstable environments.

A Launchpad for Global Dominance

In the 21st century, Diego Garcia has evolved beyond a conventional military base. It is now a hub for high-tech warfare, playing a central role in America’s growing emphasis on intelligence, surveillance, and unmanned systems. As part of a global surveillance grid, Diego Garcia supports satellite tracking, signals intelligence, and secure communications. It provides real-time battlefield awareness across the Indian Ocean region and beyond.

The island has also become integral to drone operations, allowing U.S. forces to remotely monitor and strike targets in East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and South Asia. Operating from Diego Garcia allows drones to avoid contested airspace or unreliable host nations, giving the U.S. both strategic flexibility and deniability.

But perhaps most importantly, Diego Garcia is increasingly viewed through the lens of great power competition—specifically, as a counterweight to China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific. As Beijing expands its maritime footprint through the “String of Pearls” strategy and militarizes outposts in the South China Sea, Diego Garcia offers the U.S. and its allies a stable, unchallenged foothold in the Indian Ocean.

Unlike bases in Japan, South Korea, or the Philippines, Diego Garcia is shielded from domestic political instability or public protest. It is an ideal platform for monitoring Chinese naval activity, deploying submarines, and maintaining air superiority across one of the most contested maritime regions on Earth.

So, What is the Diego Garcia Military Base Really?

Diego Garcia stands as one of the most valuable military assets in the world—a hardened node of U.S. and UK power projection in a volatile region. From this remote island, bombers have launched missions, submarines have vanished into deep waters, and surveillance systems have scanned continents. In the eyes of defense strategists, it is indispensable: a linchpin for operations across the Middle East, Africa, and the Indo-Pacific.

But its strategic value comes with a cost that’s often ignored. The legal challenges, sovereignty disputes, and human rights criticisms surrounding the base raise uncomfortable questions about the price of dominance—and the ease with which human considerations are pushed aside in pursuit of geopolitical advantage.

Today, Diego Garcia is a vital military asset. But to those displaced, it’s a home stolen and a wound that never healed. The superpowers that control it speak of strategy, deterrence, and global reach—but rarely of the people erased to make that possible.