PHILIPPINES VITAL TO U.S. STRATEGIC INTERESTS

When the US agreed to close its military bases in the Philippines two decades ago few strategists would have predicted that by 2008 the Philippines would once again represent a vital element in the West’s strategic positioning in South East Asia.
Until July 1946, the Philippines was an American colony indebted to G.I.’s for expelling the Japanese from its soil in World War. It is comprised of more than 7,000 islands and has a population of close to 89 million, much of it English speaking. The majority religion is Roman Catholicism though Islam is on the rise. Most Filipinos look westward because of deep cultural links with the US and with Spain that ruled the Philippines for 300 years. During the Cold War, the US had a substantial US military presence in the Philippines in the form of Clarke Air Base and the Subic Naval Station, but that came to an end in 1991 because of growing public disenchantment about foreign troops on Filipino soil. The country’s Senate voted by an overwhelming majority to refuse to ratify a treaty that allowed the US to operate bases on its territory, drawing stiff criticism from Washington.
For US military planners, and Filipino generals who opposed the Senate decision, it was a severe body blow because the Philippine islands were ideally positioned to monitor a potential threat from China. They were also within reach of the world’s two largest Muslim populations, Malaysia and Indonesia though that seemed less of an issue in the years before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. However, post 9/11 the presence of Islamic terrorists on islands such as Mindanao offered a glimmer of hope for the re-opening of links between the Pentagon and the government of the Philippines. The Bush White House was told by military planners that if the US could help the Philippine government with its growing terrorist threat that would go a long way to forging a new partnership with wider strategic objectives. Within the hierarchy of the Filipino military there was also a yearning for a closer link with the US and a growing debate about how that could be achieved. Those discussions thousands of miles apart took place during what turned out to be an opportune time. In the Pentagon, there was an acceptance that the era of massive bases of the type that had once led to anti-US sentiment was over and a new arrangement was possible. Previously, opposition to a US military presence had also arisen because soldiers, who committed crimes such as rape, could not be prosecuted under local laws, a situation that pertains today in Iraq. Fortunately, by 2002, Pentagon thinking was that the US would benefit strategically and politically from small bases that could be expanded in the event of an emergency. In tandem with that beliefe was an awareness that the time had come for America and its allies to transform their militaries into more mobile forces that could be moved across the globe at short notice and reach out from forward operating platforms.
Pentagon planners found a clever way to build those platforms so they would not attract public opposition of the kind the US military previously experienced in the Philippines and at various times in Japan. The planners began by devising joint training exercises, using the Philippines as a testing ground for their strategy, since that country was suddenly looming large in the minds of generals who were watching a fast expanding Chinese military and the rise of Islamic terrorism. America’s ally, Australia also pointed to the importance of the Philippines in terms of keeping a constant eye on militant Islam given that over 300 million Muslims lived in South East Asia within easy reach of the Philippines.
In November 2002, the US and Philippine governments agreed that a changed environment post 9/11, allied to an increasingly belligerent Chinese navy in the South China Sea, required closer relations. They signed an MLA – Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, which in effect allowed the US to use Philippine territory as a “platform for military operations in the region.” In return, the US agreed to spend a considerable amount of money creating what the Pentagon called Cooperative Security Locations, meaning areas for joint training exercises. For Pentagon planners, those would represent forward operating bases for highly mobile military units supported from the sea and air. By its very nature, the agreement cleverly produced an alternative arrangement to the types of huge bases that had been the focus of too much critical attention in the 1970s and 80s. In military parlance, the new centers became known as forward or advanced operating bases.
Since 2002, tens of millions of US dollars have been devoted to building “joint centers” on remote islands where Special Forces Teams from both countries carry out training exercises. Money has also been used to create deep harbors for US warships and runways for huge transport planes, all of which has been carried out under the heading of Cooperative Security Locations. The sudden return of the US military to the Philippines was depicted by the White House as a necessary step in the war on terror. In particular, it was pointed out that the Al Qaeda leader Ramzi Yousef, who was involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing had met the leaders of the terror group, Abu Sayyaf on Mindanao and had discussed plans for assassinating the Pope when he visited Manila. According to the Pentagon, in 2002 Abu Sayyaf took orders from Osama Bin Laden and had as many as 1,000 fighters operating throughout the Philippines with support from local Muslims. By 2008, several Abu Sayyaf leaders had been hunted down and killed and the number of fighters in its ranks was said tobe 300 or fewer. The group never posed the threat the Pentagon and White House proclaimed it would but its presence enabled the US to transform its relationship with the Philippines and to wrap that country into the West's strategic plans for South East Asia. Today, military strategists in Washington and in other western capitals are happy that the Philippines are once again a forward operating platform. Without the Philippines, the only alternative would be Australia, which is much too far away to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan or a Chinese military take-over of islands in the South China Sea that Japan claims sovereignty over. In the Philippines, there has been little criticism of the renewed role of the US military though neighboring countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have taken a different view. They have steadfastly refused to allow US troops to be stationed on their soil, a policy also adopted by Singapore and Thailandm both of which are not openly hostile to the United States. None of that matters while the US and its allies have the Philippines in play in what could crucially be the vital cog in western strategy in South East Asia in the next decade.