[By Guancha Network, Mountain Cat]

According to reports by the U.S. Naval Institute News website (USNI News), the U.S. Navy Department is seeking to lease a temperature and humidity-controlled facility near Subic Bay and Clark Air Base before 2026, with a lease term of ten years, and an area ranging from 19,000 to 33,000 square meters, for use as a storage base in the Philippines. This event may mark the largest material pre-positioning deployment operation by the United States in the Philippines since 1992.

According to the draft rental bidding documents, this new facility will be used for "the storage and maintenance of vehicles and vehicle equipment." The U.S. Navy's preferred indicator is 33,022 square meters, but any area not less than 19,979 square meters meets the minimum standard (the reason for using non-integer areas is unclear). Not long ago, in February this year, the U.S. military leased a naval support warehouse in Subic Bay with an area of approximately 5,300 square meters to support the deployment of the U.S. Marine Corps in the Philippines and the surrounding region. However, the current tender indicates that the current scale is obviously insufficient.

The facility in the photo was rented by the U.S. military in February 2025 for use as an equipment warehouse.

If the project proceeds according to the ideal conditions of the U.S. Navy Department, the scale of the warehouses in the Philippines will be larger than that of the large reserve depot in Tromsø, Norway (which is currently NATO's largest overseas war preparedness materials storage facility), making it the largest overseas warehousing base of the U.S. military. The report also speculated on this, claiming that Subic Bay has recently been a focal point of Chinese intelligence attention, and "Chinese spies" have recorded the U.S. ships entering the bay and the equipment transported for the "Shoulder to Shoulder 2025" exercise.

The U.S. plans to deploy the "Marine Expeditionary Ship Interceptor System" (NMESIS) during the "Shoulder to Shoulder-2025" exercise this year, which includes unmanned vehicle-mounted platforms with NSM anti-ship missiles ("Naval Attack Missile").

The bidding documents mention that the new temperature and humidity-controlled facility must be within 60 miles of the current naval support warehouse and within the jurisdiction of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority or the Clark Economic Freeport Zone. In addition, the bid content also requires that the facility will be equipped with numerous electronic equipment, vehicle, and communications equipment repair workshops. Although the bid does not explicitly mention whether the facility needs to have related terms for ammunition storage functions, the U.S. Marine Corps will deploy ARMAG "High Security Modular Arsenal System," and it is expected that approximately 69 to 100 personnel will work at this facility.

ARMAG is a modular storage unit based on container specifications.

Since President Marcos Jr.'s election, the Philippines' willingness and actions to act as the vanguard of the U.S. "return to the Indo-Pacific" strategy have become increasingly strong. As regional tensions gradually intensify, during this round of U.S.-Philippine military cooperation, more and more U.S. troops are redeploying to the Philippines and participating in regularly held exercises such as "Shoulder to Shoulder." However, due to the simultaneous withdrawal and closure of storage and maintenance facilities when the U.S. withdrew from the Philippines at the end of the last century, in recent years, more and more U.S. troops stationed in the Philippines have faced the situation of relatively lacking infrastructure. Therefore, in recent years, the U.S. has continuously increased investment in military infrastructure in the Subic Bay area and the nine bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement入驻.

The U.S. naval logistics supply facility in Subic Bay photographed in 1983. When the U.S. withdrew from the Philippines in the last century, many facilities were either withdrawn or abandoned.

The report states that if progress is smooth, this lease will enable the U.S. military to store and maintain equipment on Philippine territory on a large scale between 2026 and 2036. However, on the other hand, the bid clearly states that the U.S. Navy does not seek renewal after the lease expires.

This article is an exclusive article of the Observer Network and cannot be reprinted without permission.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7496309498794050083/

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