Friday, August 09, 2024

Is the US planning on re-establishing a naval base in the Philippines' Subic Bay?

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It is not going to be possible for the US to rebase at Subic Bay. The entire area has been redeveloped heavily. None of the previous infrastructure from Subic Bay Naval Base remains. Naval Air Station Cubi point was turned into a civilian international airport. Some of the old housing still stands, used as rentable vacation airbnb’s. The old Enlisted Barrack is now a hotel. Aside from that that's all that remains.

Not many know but the USN is already using facilities at Subic Bay for fueling, supply, rearming and short repair work. The USN pays for a significant portion of the Rivera Warf. The MSC aka Military Sealift Command utilized Rivera as a forward supply point for replenishment ships. The USN uses Rivera for re-arming of missiles, fueling and supply. The Rivera Warf is in bad shape though. Some of the buildings have been torn down, some actually have collapsed. The vast majority of the rest of Subic is de-militarized and privately owned. Alava Pier is still there and this was the long and famous lineup where you would find USN destroyers parked in the old days, however the pier is in bad shape and derelict now.

Note the AKE dry cargo replenishment ship at the bottom of the warf and the USN Burke-class destroyer to the right of the war.

Today.

1974

Politically things have gotten better for the relation ship of the US and PI military, especially since that maniac Duterte left office a couple years ago. The current PI administration is much warmer to the US and this will only increase due to the problems PI has with China.

That being said, I don’t think the USN will do much more than it already is at Subic Bay. That doesn’t mean however that the USN won’t utilize other locations in PI. While I don’t think there will be any leasing of a base officially, this would be prohibitively expensive in the present day, co-basing is entirely possible.

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