There may also be an issue with the long-term viability of the Philippines as well; the Muslim insurgency in the south isn’t going away, and if we’re tightly intertwined with the government we could be drawn in to it to prop them up. Guantanamo Bay is the result of building castles on sand...
Huh? ...Guantanamo Bay was created by nature. It’s off the coast of Cuba.
My carrier went there twice after leaving the shipyards to conduct shakedown trials and pilot carrier qualifications.