Commentary
The revelation that communist China has an expanding base in Cuba is a direct threat to U.S. national security for five major reasons.
First, what is true in real estate is also true in intelligence collection: location matters. The base offers China the ability to collect intelligence some 90 miles from U.S. shores, which provides China with a permanent intelligence collection vector over much of the eastern United States that China had lacked. This includes important bases, including the Navy’s King’s Bay port for half of the U.S. ballistic missiles submarine fleet, critical U.S. Air Force Bases at Eglin and Tyndall, and Central Southern, and Special Operations Command bases at MacDill Air Force Base and Miami. The Chinese base increases the burden on the U.S. intelligence community and military. It requires that U.S. intelligence and the military adopt measures to negate the ability of bases to collect intelligence against them….