The US chose Diego Garcia over better-positioned Indian Ocean islands because of its isolation

Evidence

Barber first thought of the Seychelles and its more than one hundred islands before exploring other possibilities in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In and around the Indian Ocean alone, there were Phuket, Cocos, Masirah, Farquhar, Aldabra, Desroches, Salomon, and Peros Banhos. After finding all of them to be “inferior sites,” Barber settled on “that beautiful atoll of Diego Garcia, right in the middle of the ocean.” Its isolation made it safe from attack, yet it was still within striking distance of a wide area of the globe, from southern Africa and the Middle East to South and Southeast Asia. — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 171

Categorization

• XREF: Diego Garcia’s selection echoes the archipelago strategy foreshadowed in earlier chapters on Pacific island bases.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 171