For our security, avoid war — and prepare for it
Credit to Author: RICARDO SALUDO| Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:16:25 +0000
IN September 2016, this writer wrote about securing the Philippines, and called for scrapping the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), but not the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) and the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) (https://www.manilatimes.net/for-a-truly-independent-foreign-policy-scrap-edca/285890/).
So, why did last Thursday’s column call for scrapping the MDT? What happened in the last two years and five months? Plenty.
For starters, the United States escalated its campaign to challenge China’s claim over nearly all the South China Sea and its land features. America brought in allies Britain and France in freedom-of-navigation operations (fonops), like sailing just outside the 12-mile claimed territorial waters of Chinese-built island bases in the disputed Spratlys.
There are now flashpoints in Taiwan and Korea, which were not there in 2016. They elevate the risk of the Philippines being dragged into a major war due to the treaty.
Plus: the current move to review and possibly revise the MDT raises not only the option of scrapping it, but also the risk of a more dangerous, disadvantageous pact being forged. For if the EDCA is any indication, Philippine defense negotiators could very well give Uncle Sam everything it wants, while getting little in return.
First, reduce threats
So, how exactly can the Philippines be secured without the MDT? Three strategies, which were presented by this writer in past columns through the years (https://www.manilatimes.net/duterte-making-nation-secure/366744/).
First, reduce threats. The biggest one is full-scale attack on the country by a US adversary facing bombardment from American forces deployed in the Philippines.
Just think: if President Rodrigo Duterte had not stopped the EDCA rollout, but instead allowed US warplanes use five of our air bases under the agreement, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un might have included them in his threat during the 2017 Korean crisis to nuke the US base in Guam.
And the US Army-funded RAND think-tank report in 2016, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” warned that primary targets of the People’s Liberation Army in a war with America would be “aircraft carriers and regional air bases” (https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pdf).
Those bases would include the five allowed for US use under the EDCA, near the cities of Cebu, Puerto Princesa and Cagayan de Oro, and in major rice-growing provinces of Pampanga and Nueva Ecija.
MDT and EDCA proponents claim they are needed to assert our maritime sovereign rights and defend the archipelago from invasion. They are wrong on both counts.
Despite the defense treaty, the US did nothing when China took over Mischief Reef in 1995 and Scarborough Shoal in 2012, because America has consistently refused to get involved in our territorial disputes.
As for defending the Philippines from invasion, America, Japan, Australia and other nations would come to our aid even without the MDT. Why? Because letting a hostile power take control of the most strategically situated country in East Asia would create a mammoth geopolitical and security nightmare.
MDT or no MDT, America and its allies cannot afford to let the Philippines fall into enemy hands. So, it makes sense for us to scrap the treaty and reduce risks of being dragged into a US war in Asia, while still forging alliances for our defense.
Get ready for war
That is not to say the Philippines should sit back and do nothing for our defense. While allies would fight to stop invasion, they have shown time and again that they won’t get involved in territorial spats. So, we must gear up to assert and defend what’s ours.
To protect our sovereign rights on the high seas, we need A2-AD. That’s anti-access, area denial armaments, urged by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), a Washington defense think-tank, in its report “The Geostrategic Return of the Philippines,” published after the Aquino regime lost Scarborough Shoal in 2012 (https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/154663/2012.04.18-Geostrategic-Return-Philippines1.pdf).
Rather than the frigates favored by the Philippine Navy and presumably its American defense advisers, CSBA called on the US to help its ally acquire maritime surveillance aircraft, anti-ship missiles and air defense systems.
As we have argued before, those A2-AD assets are far more effective in spotting and deterring encroachment in our island territories, as well as our exclusive economic zone (EEZ), 200 nautical miles from our territorial baselines, and our extended continental shelf (ECS), 320 nm out.
Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Uniclos), we have exclusive rights to exploit resources in our EEZ waters and the ECS seabed. Part of our ECS is Benham Rise, an area larger than Luzon off the island’s Pacific coast.
The late former National Security Adviser Roilo Golez, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, also pushed for anti-ship missiles, specifically the BrahMos projectile designed by Russia and India, and made by the latter. Vietnam is buying the BrahMos; its 300-plus-km range covers the entire EEZ, with an 800-km model now under testing.
Golez said 200 BrahMos are enough to deter interlopers. That would cost about P35 billion, including support infrastructure — about the same as the six Hyundai frigates the Navy wants to buy, which are far more vulnerable and far less deterrent than missiles (https://www.manilatimes.net/defend-seas-get-missiles-not-ships/383395/).
Mounted three to a truck, the BrahMos can move where there are threats, while hiding in jungle. If the supersonic projectiles are deployed, even our small patrol boats could confront major warships, with heavy precision firepower defending our navy from land.
Where do we source P35 billion? Budget officials confirmed to Golez that Malampaya royalties, now exceeding P150 billion, can be used to acquire the missiles, since they would secure offshore oil and gas deposits, an energy-related expenditure allowed for funding. And India has offered a billion-dollar credit line for exports to the Philippines.
Along with risk reduction and A2-AD, the third security strategy is multilateral defense. As long as they do not pose offensive threats against China, we can forge alliances with other nations. Indeed, Beijing has not opposed military cooperation between the Philippines and Japan, Australia, and other states. More on this next week.
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