Tiny island, big problems

This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on [Bloomberg]( This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on web readership. [Losing This Tiny Island Would Be a Huge Problem for the US Navy]( — James Stavridis Source: Pictures from History/Universal Images Group Editorial When I was a young Navy officer in the early 1980s aboard a Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser, the USS Valley Forge, we pulled into an uncommon location for a port visit: the tiny atoll of Diego Garcia, in the heart of the Indian Ocean. I was the operations officer, in charge of topside maintenance, communications, navigation, signals intelligence and supervision of the combat information center. And it didn’t take me long to realize why we were there: Diego Garcia was and remains an extremely important military facility shared by the US and UK. Diego Garcia is the largest island of the British Indian Ocean Territory. But it is also claimed by the Indian Ocean state of Mauritius, which lies some 1,300 miles to the southwest. Now the two countries are in final negotiations of a vital deal that would turn sovereignty over to the Mauritians but — most important — allow the US-UK base to remain. Diego Garcia is only a dozen square miles or so in size and sits just below the equator. For decades, it has been one of the last overseas land areas claimed by Britain (along with Gibraltar, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and a handful of others). How important is Diego Garcia to American security and military prominence today, and what can we learn about the future of overseas basing from its example? Read the [whole thing](. [Where Is JD Vance? Right Where He Needs to Be]( — Nia-Malika Henderson [The Supreme Court Won’t Save Musk’s DOGE Plans]( — Noah Feldman [Texas Asks If Index Funds Are Illegal]( — Matt Levine [India’s Cities Are Mired In a Cycle of Mediocrity]( — Andy Mukherjee [Welcome to the Post-American New World Disorder]( — Marc Champion [The Wrong Oil Price Is Truthfully a Problem for OPEC+]( — Javier Blas [$8 Billion for Intel Won’t Fix America’s Chip Problem]( — Bloomberg’s editorial board [South Korea’s Martial Law Recalls a Scary Past]( — Karishma Vaswani [Chinese Billionaire Li Shufu Reshuffles His Car Collection]( — Chris Bryant More From Bloomberg Opinion - [Bitcoin just hit $100,000](. But before celebrating, John Authers says, maybe you should take a closer look. - X Broadcast: [Breaking down the latest jobs data]( with Jonathan Levin, Allison Schrager and Mark Zandi - Anti-DEI influencer Robby Starbuck is taking credit for [Walmart’s decision to roll back its diversity efforts](. But this time, it’s not all about him, says Beth Kowitt. Hungry for more weekend reads? [Sign up]( for Bloomberg News’ Weekend Edition newsletter for [big ideas and open questions]( in the fascinating places where finance, life and culture meet. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](