No, but I thought it was funny someone likely from the West tried to use that argument when I suggested the idea of a weapon deployment next door might make you uneasy
Philippines in the 1990s have elected to kick out the Americans from their bases in the country. Back then, there was strong nationalist sentiment against American troops being stationed. Fast forward to twenty years later, many Filipinos have been blaming the past government with hindsight that they should have let the Americans stay because China took the opportunity to camp in an shoal within the Philippines’ legally recognised maritime borders. If the Americans had remained, China would not have been so bold to violate other country’s borders.
That’s the problem with realpolitik. If it’s not one country or entity, another would prey on the weak. That’s might be a poor analogy considering what I would say next but the point stands. And the American bases, it’s not like US unilaterally set up bases in hundreds of locations across the world. There is given permission by these countries hosting military forces. Of course, nation states still being tribalistic and only after their own interests, others feel it is an affront to see such bases next door. Even the nuclear missiles about to be set up in Cuba in the 1960s, Cuba invited the Soviet Union to do so, not that the Soviet Union unilaterally decided to set up the nukes in the island. Cuba and Soviet Union have mutual interest. The former needs a deterrent to prevent another American inteference, while the latter wants leverage on the US to be convinced remove the missiles from Turkey.
