Battlegrounds w/ H.R. McMaster: International Perspectives

An absolute pleasure to hear what HR has to say on all things geopolitical/warfare, I just wish he’d run for president. Please? Please General?

1/22/2025, Ep 73, Philippines: America’s Ally & Strategic Archipelago. The Philippines told us to close Subic, Cubi Pt & Clark and get out by the end of 1992. The joke at the time, was that all the Filipino Senators that voted for the US to get out of the Philippines, all had green cards in case things got bad. I was a GS-11 civilian mariner (and an O-3 former SWO navy reservist) on a navy MSCPAC ship in Subic. It seemed like the Filipino government was playing with fire & it was obvious the PRC would take advantage of them without the US around & we would be back (I should have written an article for Proceedings). But they were big boys; we were holding them back, and they didn’t want or need our help. I remember Olongapo City Mayor Brown resigned to become the Subic Bay Port Commissioner because it would be more lucrative position than mayor; and his wife became the mayor because it was still a lucrative enough position to keep in the family. It cost the US taxpayer a lot of money to close the bases, redistribute our assets to Guam, Singapore, Japan, Hawaii the west coast. And now (because of the Filipino government’s ineptness & greed), more US taxpayer money to come back to reestablish bases to defend the Philippines. The US taxpayer, who paid the old & new bills is also providing an additional $500M of military aid. Perhaps the US should have let the Philippines live with their original decision - that they did not need the US military to protect them against the PRC. We didn’t have bases in the Philippines when the PRC constructed military islets (because the Philippines didn’t want us there). But now that the US military is back - did the Filipino government (or the Brown family) reimburse the US taxpayer to remove & reestablish US military presence? All-in-all its just another brick in the ($36T national debt) wall. Sounds like waste, fraud & abuse at the highest level.

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Hey General…care to editorialize on Trump’s recent comment about General Milley? After all you used to work for the man.