Firstly nobody's seriously talking about independence of the BIOT yet, simply for the islanders having a right to return. The US also has an important military

Firstly nobody's seriously talking about independence of the BIOT yet, simply for the islanders having a right to return. The US also has an important military base in Guam, but somehow over 100k people manage to live there. There's plenty of land left on the island where these people can live, they're not demanding independence or that the military base have to leave. My comment was made in the context that even if the BIOT were to become independent, this doesn't sound like a big deal for the military base. It's very likely that if that were to happen the US could simply offer them the same deal that the independent Marshall Islands and two other island republics have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association#Military_provisions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association#Mi...