Where Will the Philippines' Defense Fit Into Trump's Rivalry With China?

[By Richard Javad Heydarian]

The impending return of Donald Trump to the White House has, quite predictably, refocused minds across major Asian capitals. On the surface, Manila has been generally upbeat about the direction of bilateral relations, since, as Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose “Babe” Romualdez told me earlier this year, there is robust bipartisan support for expanded strategic cooperation between the two century-old allies regardless of who occupies the White House.

If anything, the Southeast Asian nation expects even greater military aid from the United States under a second Trump presidency: top Republican strategists – from Trump’s former national security adviser (Robert O’Brien) to his incoming secretary of state (Marco Rubio) – have identified the Philippines as a vital “frontline ally” in an intensified great power competition with China.

Despite its outward insouciance, however, the Southeast Asian nation is keenly aware that a second Trump presidency could spell the return of a more unilateralist and transactional American foreign policy in coming years.

Washington is widely expected to press its allies to increase their defense spending and actively share the burden of preserving a US-friendly international order in the face of growing Chinese and Russian assertiveness.

Accordingly, the Philippines has vowed to expand its defense spending and, crucially, recently registered its interest in purchasing state-of-the-art American weapons systems, most notably the Typhon Mid-Range Capability (MRC) missile launcher or “Typhon.” Such acquisitions would certainly please Trump as well as enhance the Philippines’ own deterrence capabilities amid rising tensions in the region.

But the Philippines also runs the risk of getting locked into a US-led regional strategy against China. By hosting advanced missile systems, the Southeast Asian nation could transform into a pivotal player in deterring as well as responding to any major regional contingencies, most especially in the event of Chinese invasion of nearby Taiwan. A primary challenge for the Southeast Asian nation, therefore, is to preserve its strategic autonomy while expanding high-stakes defense cooperation with America in a calibrated fashion.

Historically, the Philippines has been considered the “weak link” in America’s hub-and-spokes alliance network in Asia. Beset by a notoriously corrupt elite, the Southeast Asian nation has lacked the resources and industrial capacity of America’s more capable regional allies, namely Japan and South Korea. Worse, decades-long domestic insurgency in the restive island of Mindanao also created a perverse national security culture in the Philippines, which broadly neglected external security threats well into the opening years of the 21st century.

As if that weren’t enough, the country also elected its first-ever pro-China leader in 2016: former President Rodrigo Duterte notoriously quipped about his country ending up as a “province of China” even as the Asian superpower gobbled up Philippine-claimed resources and islands in the South China Sea.

Nevertheless, the Philippines has steadily modernized its long-neglected navy and air force in the past decade, mainly thanks to the initiative of former president Benigno Aquino III, who took China to international court over the South China Sea disputes following a months-long naval standoff over the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

Surprisingly, current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who ran as an ally of Duterte in the 2022 elections, has largely continued the Aquino legacy on the foreign policy front. Over the next decade, the Southeast Asian nation is expected to allocate up to $35 billion to upgrade its defensive capabilities. It’s also adopting a more proactive maritime security doctrine under the newly announced Comprehensive Archipelagic Defence Concept (CADC), which aims to turn the Philippines into a capable maritime power in the coming decades.

The Philippines’ greatest asset, however, is its geography. At once, it embraces both the South China Sea and the Western Pacific, but, crucially, it also borders Taiwan via the narrow Bashi Channel. Here enters the “Typhon” system, which is capable of launching missiles including SM-6 missiles and Tomahawks over 994 miles, thus placing much of China’s southern military bases within its range in an event of major contingency. The Philippines is an indispensable element of any potential US-led arc of missile defense systems across the First Island Chain, stretching from Okinawa to Taiwan and northern Philippines.

No wonder then, Beijing has vehemently opposed the Typhon deployment to the Philippines earlier this year ahead of the massive Philippine-US Balikatan exercises. It also flexed its muscle by conducting a massive drill in October and launched an inter-continental ballistic missile a month earlier.

After initially equivocating on the precise status of the weapons systems, Filipino officials are now openly expressing their desire to permanently host the much-vaunted missile launcher and, if the price is right, even directly purchase those systems along with other American weaponry. Philippine soldiers practiced operating the missile system during a recent major army war game with their American counterparts.

Acquiring missile defense systems presents a cost-effective means for the Philippines to rapidly enhance its deterrence capabilities. Acquisitions of new fighter aircraft and submarines, for instance, are both expensive and time-consuming. But this comes at a risk, since a Trump 2.0 presidency will likely press frontline allies to toe the line on China.

As a result, it will be much harder for the Philippines too, similar to its Southeast Asian neighbors, “hedge” in between competing superpowers. Elbridge Colby, a key architect of Trump’s National Defence Strategy, has publicly argued that “[h]alf-measures are dangerous … hedging doesn’t make sense because you are too important [as a frontline ally to America]” amid an intensified great power rivalry in Asia.

Thus, the Philippines may end up inadvertently sacrificing its strategic autonomy in coming years in its bid to enhance its own deterrence capability. Much will depend, therefore, on whether the Marcos Jr administration can pull off an optimal deal with Trump 2.0 to prevent the Philippines from ending up as a pawn on a great power chessboard.

Richard Javad Heydarian is a Manila-based columnist, academic, and author. He has written for the world’s leading publications, including The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and is a regular contributor to Aljazeera English, Nikkei Asian Review, South China Morning Post, and the Straits Times. 

This article appears courtesy of The Lowy Interpreter and may be found in its original form here.