The quiet arrival of American boots on Bangladeshi soil has raised eyebrows not just in Dhaka but in New Delhi, Colombo, and even Beijing. Intelligence corridors are buzzing with speculation because on September 10, around 120 US Army and Air Force officers quietly checked into Chittagong’s Radisson Blu Hotel. The official explanation was “joint military exercises with Bangladeshi counterparts,” but the unofficial reading is that something bigger is brewing in the Bay of Bengal theatre.
The numbers alone raise suspicion: 85 rooms pre-booked at a five-star hotel, all officers flown in from Dhaka aboard a US-Bangla Airlines flight, yet curiously not a single name entered in the guest register. In a country where bureaucracy thrives on signatures and paper trails, such discretion is not accidental, it is deliberate. Intelligence sources call it “a smoke screen.” What Dhaka has labelled a routine drill looks anything but routine. The timing is critical.
On August 31, Terrence Arvelle Jackson, a decorated 50-year-old US Special Forces Command (Airborne) officer who had been in Bangladesh since April training local soldiers, was found dead at Dhaka’s Westin Hotel. His sudden and unexplained death unsettled the Americans, and less than two weeks later, a new contingent landed in Chittagong under the cover of military cooperation. Coincidence? Intelligence professionals seldom believe in coincidences.
The intrigue deepened on September 14 when an Egyptian Air Force transport plane landed at Shah Amanat International Airport, Chittagong. Egypt, a major American ally receiving $1.3 billion annually in US military aid, has little direct stake in Bangladesh’s military affairs, so its sudden involvement raised alarms in Indian security establishments. Around the same time, aviation spotters confirmed that two US military transport planes—C-130J Super Hercules, one flying under call sign YJ-692—also landed at Shah Amanat International Airport. These aircraft are not casual visitors; the C-130J is a tactical workhorse capable of carrying 92 ground troops, 64 paratroopers, or 19 tons of cargo, conducting airdrops, special missions, and operating from unpaved runways. Bangladesh does not own them. Their presence indicates troop deployment drills, cargo drops, or classified missions. A Bangladesh Army source admitted: “Their presence underscores the scale of American activities now underway.”
Officially, the Americans are there for “joint exercises.” Cox’s Bazar has been floated as the possible location, but the Bangladesh Army has been careful to avoid details. This vagueness contrasts with earlier collaborations like Operation Pacific Angel, largely humanitarian, and Tiger Lightning exercises, which are usually well publicized. For instance, Tiger Lightning-2025, held earlier this year in Sylhet, was openly presented as a bilateral drill with the US Army Pacific Command focusing on peacekeeping readiness and interoperability.
The September deployment is different—it is bigger, quieter, and cloaked in unusual secrecy. Reports suggest that advance teams from Qatar and Thailand were already in Chittagong, indicating a broader multinational dimension. The Egyptian connection adds another twist. Taken together, this looks less like a bilateral drill and more like Washington building a coalition of friendly militaries in the Bay of Bengal, with Dhaka as the new node. The geography explains why. Bangladesh shares a 4,096 km border with India, 271 km with Myanmar, and opens into the Bay of Bengal, making the Cox’s Bazar–Chittagong corridor a strategic hotspot for maritime security, humanitarian relief, and surveillance against Chinese naval activity.
China has invested heavily in Bangladesh, with Belt and Road Initiative commitments crossing $26 billion by 2023, covering ports, roads, energy plants, and telecom. For Washington, pulling Dhaka closer militarily balances Beijing’s dominance. For Dhaka, it is a tightrope: leverage American training and aid while continuing to benefit from Chinese money.
For India, however, the developments in Chittagong are not benign. Nearly 40 percent of India’s trade flows through the Bay of Bengal, and the eastern seaboard houses critical naval assets in Vishakhapatnam. Any American–Bangladeshi military exercise becomes a matter of concern. There are three reasons New Delhi is watching closely. First, the China factor—if Dhaka leans too far towards Washington militarily, it complicates Beijing’s already deep economic hold, creating a tug-of-war in India’s backyard. Second, the Myanmar factor—Cox’s Bazar is adjacent to Rohingya refugee camps and Rakhine State, a volatile zone where any US presence will inevitably spill into the India–Myanmar–Bangladesh triangle. Third, domestic politics in Dhaka—Sheikh Hasina’s government, already under pressure, risks being accused by opposition parties of compromising Bangladesh’s sovereignty by allowing American boots on ground. Dhaka’s silence is telling.
The Bangladesh Army has acknowledged collaborations like Pacific Angel and Tiger Lightning, but has avoided specifics on the September exercise. By keeping details vague, it manages both domestic optics and regional balance. Advertising American deployments too loudly risks domestic backlash and Chinese displeasure; keeping them too quiet invites speculation and suspicion.
The Americans are scheduled to depart on September 20, but the significance lies not in their departure, rather in their arrival. A precedent is now set: large-scale US deployments to Bangladesh can happen discreetly, bypassing public scrutiny. This aligns with Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy of building “lily pads” of access points across the region—small but strategic footholds that allow rapid deployment and influence projection without the political baggage of permanent bases.
For Dhaka, the challenge is extracting maximum benefit from both Washington and Beijing without losing balance. For New Delhi, the question is sharper: does American activity in its eastern neighbourhood enhance regional security by checking China, or does it seed another great-power contest in its backyard? For Beijing, the message is clear—the US is testing new waters in South Asia. What began with 120 officers quietly checking into a hotel in Chittagong has now become a loud geopolitical signal. In geopolitics, whispers matter more than headlines. The whispers from Chittagong today are loud enough to be heard in New Delhi, Beijing, and Washington, and they tell us this: Bangladesh is no longer just a passive bystander in South Asia’s balance of power, it is fast becoming the theatre where the next round of the great game will play out.
