Will the Pacific military buildup prevent — or provoke — a war?

[Boats]

Will the Pacific military buildup prevent — or provoke — a war?
By: Bob Drogin - The Washington Post - 05-01-23
Re: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...ilitary-china/

Photo link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-ap...ized.jpg&w=691
American and Filipino soldiers pose in front of an AC-130J Ghostrider at Subic Bay Freeport Zone on April 23 during a joint military exercise. (Jam Sta Rosa/AFP via Getty Images)

Note: Bob Drogin, a former reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Times, was the newspaper’s Manila bureau chief from 1989 to 1993.

On a steamy morning in November 1992, I watched a Marine honor guard haul down and crisply fold an American flag at Subic Bay in the Philippines, closing down one of the oldest and largest overseas U.S. military bases.

As the last Marines boarded the USS Belleau Wood, a loudspeaker blared “God Bless America” and a bikini-clad woman danced on the pier, a reminder of one of the Navy’s most notorious liberty ports. “Bye bye, GI!,” another woman shouted as the amphibious assault ship sailed into the sparkling bay.

I was back in the Philippines in February when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the Pentagon had gained access to an expanding number of Philippine military bases to store equipment and house American troops on visiting rotations. Austin sounded almost giddy when he announced the arrangement. “It’s a really big deal,” he told reporters.

The United States’ return to the Philippines is a key part of U.S.-led efforts to counter China as it bullies neighbors in the South China Sea — which Austin called the West Philippine Sea, as Filipinos prefer — and threatens to invade Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory.

It’s no coincidence that two of the Pentagon’s four new logistics depots include a Philippine naval base and an airport on the northeast tip of Luzon, only 250 miles from Taiwan. Or that the annual U.S.-Philippine joint military exercises that ended Friday involved 12,200 Americans and were the largest ever. The training including landings on an island close to Taiwan and the first-ever sinking of a target ship in the South China Sea.

The return of GIs is also part of an alarming arms race in the western Pacific. Backed by the Biden administration, allies in Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Taiwan are scrambling to bolster military capabilities and strengthen ties in an effort to deter Chinese aggression — or respond in force if necessary.

In the most dramatic shift, Japan is about to become the world’s third-largest military spender after the United States and China. Sidestepping its pacifist constitution, Tokyo has begun its biggest military expansion since World War II, expected to cost $320 billion over five years.

The Philippine buildup is more modest. But it’s notable for a military that has chiefly focused on battling home-grown insurgents, not fending off the world’s largest armed force. Manila is now buying or being supplied with air defense radar systems from Japan, anti-ship cruise missiles from India, offshore patrol boats from South Korea and ground-to-air missile batteries from Israel. Australia, France and Germany have offered to conduct joint marine patrols. Canada is seeking defense cooperation.

If a war breaks out in the western Pacific, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said recently, “It’s very hard to imagine a scenario where the Philippines will not somehow get involved.”

Marcos, of course, is the son and namesake of the U.S.-backed strongman who ruled and plundered the Philippines for 21 years until he was toppled by the “people power revolution” in 1986 and fled to Hawaii, where he died.

Nearly every Philippine president since sought to loosen ties to the United States. The most recent, the erratic Rodrigo Duterte, disdained the United States as “lousy,” called Russian President Vladimir Putin an “idol” and courted China as a foreign policy partner.

His anti-American strategy didn’t last. Unnerved by China’s seizure of islands and shoals that Manila also claimed, Duterte quietly tacked back to Washington.

Since taking office last June, Marcos has strengthened relations with Washington. In addition to granting access to Philippine bases, he agreed to restart joint U.S.-Philippine maritime patrols in the South China Sea. He also met with President Biden during the U.N. General Assembly last fall and is expected to visit the White House this year, the first for a Philippine leader in more than a decade.

The two countries are also linked by a mutual defense treaty — a deal signed during the Korean War, the last time American troops fought the Chinese. The treaty is one reason military cooperation continued sporadically even after U.S. forces withdrew from Subic Bay and Clark Air Base three decades ago.

After the 2001 terrorist attacks on America, for example, hundreds of Special Operations forces deployed to the Philippines to help chase down al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf militants and other separatist groups. The mission lasted 13 years.

In 2014, Manila signed a pact that allowed the Pentagon to rotate troops and store ammunition, fuel, weapons and equipment at five Philippine military bases. The deal announced by Austin expands that number to nine. U.S. forces occasionally also use Subic and Clark, but they are not part of the arrangement.

The Biden administration’s vast military pivot to the Pacific aims to prevent a war, not provoke one. But relations with China are at an alarming ebb, and the risks of a clash are growing. I saw the stakes of failure when I spent a morning last month at the Manila American Cemetery shortly before I left the Philippines.

With more than 17,000 white marble headstones, and tablets etched with more than 36,000 names of those missing in action or lost at sea during the Pacific campaigns of World II, it is by far the largest of America’s overseas military cemeteries. Officials recently opened a visitors center at the site, saying they hoped people would come to learn as well as mourn.

Surely one of those lessons is the folly of another Pacific war.
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Personal note: When did we decide to be the Big Brother to all Nations around the
world? Because I guess back them - we thought we could fix - the worlds issues?
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In reality we've dug a pretty deep hole in the process and have buried many a
good man or woman during this process.
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It seems we think we are invincible and yet the price we pay is full of graves
who thought we were invincible. The odds are stacked against us of late and
the loss of lives continues.
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The weapons today kill more each day and if it comes to nuclear war there
will be damn few to bury those folks that remain.
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Sure; We've come a long way - but in the process, we've learned little and
our Cemetaries are full of those who tried.
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The World Order is in distress - in turn - we beat the drums even louder.
Contemplation of using weapons of mass destruction will only fill these -
graves even quicker - and leave very few to bury the rest - in the end.
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As we also know we are also killing our very own within our borders and
this is very distressing to say the least! Humanity has gone to hell in a
hand-basket!
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The End of Day's is on the horizon folks, and it seems inevitable.
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