Re: "offers to connect and secure small island nations"
All you have to do is build a few naval bases on such islands so that, if you need to send a ship to one that doesn't have a base, there's one nearby. Countries like that idea because it enables them to send ships to places they don't have agreements with just as quickly, which is why the largest countries or ones that used to have empires have large collections of bases in other people's countries and in some cases, islands with little or no native population whose entire purpose is to be naval and air bases far from the country itself.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
