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2 IN THE
DRAGON'S LAIR US prowls for China
in the Philippines By Herbert
Docena
Since the closure of its military
bases in the country in 1991, the United States
has incrementally regained, transformed and
deepened its military presence and intervention in
the Philippines. The manner in which the US has
attempted to re-establish basing in the
Philippines illustrates its attempts to radically
overhaul its global offensive capabilities to
become more agile and efficient while overcoming
mounting domestic opposition to its presence
around the world.
The objectives with
which the United States has sought to achieve this
in the Philippines - a country that is firmly
within what US analysts and strategists call "the
dragon's lair" - point to the
emerging US strategy toward
what it has officially identified as the one
country with "the greatest potential to compete
with the United States" - China. In this strategy,
the Philippines, by virtue both of its location as
well as its political disposition towards the US
relative to its neighbors, plays a crucial role.
Basing without bases After
George W Bush came to power, the US began to
attempt in earnest to implement what its
proponents bill as the most comprehensive
reconfiguration of its global military presence
since World War II. The underlying rationale is
clear: the positioning and forms of US military
bases of the past - built as they were for the
Cold War - no longer suffice for the present. The
US overseas basing must therefore be transformed
so as to enable the US military to become leaner
and meaner, quicker and more agile.
In the
Philippines, as in a growing number of places
around the world, the one persistent constraint
for both the US and Philippine governments,
however, has been the long-standing domestic
sensitivity to US bases in the country. This
opposition was actually an important - if not the
decisive - factor in the decision to close the
bases in 1991 and in the adoption in the
post-Ferdinand Marcos 1987 constitution of
provisions banning foreign military bases in the
country.
As it has embarked on the project
of transforming its global presence, the US has
also sought to adapt to and undermine domestic
opposition to its bases. In this, the US
military's reconceptualization of its global
military presence - no longer as merely a
collection of physical structures but as a global
"posture" - is illuminating. By posture, explained
US Under Secretary of Defense Douglas J Feith, "We
are not talking only about basing, we're talking
about the ability of our forces to operate when
and where they are needed."
Thus,
recognizing that the local political situation is
not yet ripe for the re-establishment of the kind
of large military bases it once had in the
Philippines, the United States has instead moved
to achieve this ability in various other ways.
Recurring deployments The United
States has been deploying a growing number of its
troops, ships and equipment all over the
Philippines ostensibly for training exercises,
humanitarian and engineering projects, and other
missions. In 2006 alone, up to 37 military
exercises were scheduled - up from around 24 in
the preceding years. As many as 6,000 US troops
are involved, depending on the exercise.
Although packaged as on-and-off temporary
programs to train US and Filipino troops, such
exercises are seen as an alternative way for the
US military to secure access to the Philippines.
"The habitual relationships built through
exercises and training," former US Pacific Command
head Admiral Thomas Fargo noted in March 2003, "is
our biggest guarantor of access in time of need."
He continued: "Access over time can develop into
habitual use of certain facilities by deployed US
forces with the eventual goal of being guaranteed
use in a crisis, or permission to preposition
logistics stocks and other critical material in
strategic forward locations."
As US troops
come and go in rotation for frequent and regular
exercises, their presence - when taken together -
makes up a formidable forward presence that brings
them closer to areas of possible action without
need for huge infrastructure to support them and
without inciting a lot of public attention and
opposition. As the US National Defense Strategy
states, "Our posture also includes the many
military activities in which we engage around the
world. This means not only our physical presence
in key regions, but also our training, exercises,
and operations."
Along with troops, an
increasing number of ships have also been entering
the country's territorial waters and docking at
various ports with growing frequency. Such ship
visits are also seen as ways to establish
presence. As the US Congressional Budget Office
has pointed out, "[T]he Navy counts those ships as
providing overseas presence full time, even when
they are training or simply tied up at the pier."
Dual-use infrastructure Apart
from the troop deployments and ship visits, the US
has also been constructing an increasing number of
structures and facilities that could be useful for
the US military when the contingency arises -
while at the same time allowing it to buy
political support from the national and local
governments. In various parts of the country,
especially in the southern regions of Mindanao,
the US has been engaged in a flurry of
construction activities, building or renovating
airports, piers, wharves, roads and other
infrastructure.
In General Santos City,
for example, the US constructed a deep-water port
and one of the most modern airports in the
country, connected to each other by one of the
country's best roads. Why the United States was so
intent on financing and building this modern
airport in a small city where relatively few
passenger or cargo planes land could not be
explained if not for its potential military use.
In Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija, where US troops
routinely go for exercises, the airport has been
renovated and its runway strengthened to carry the
weight of C-130 planes. In Sulu, the US is
renovating the airport, upgrading roads, and
building ports that can berth huge ships.
All this is consistent with a US Air Force
(USAF)-funded study which recommended having more
deployments to have more infrastructure. By
increasing deployments, notes the study, the
United States can get into arrangements that
"include measures to tailor local infrastructure
to USAF operations by extending runways, improving
air traffic control facilities, repairing parking
aprons and the like".
Cooperative
security locations The US is also
establishing in the Philippines a new category of
military installations it calls "Cooperative
Security Locations" (CSLs).
As part of the
innovations introduced in the ongoing revamping of
the global US network of bases, CSLs refer to
facilities owned either by host-governments or
even by private companies that are to be made
available for use by the US military as needed.
According to the Pentagon, these CSLs are to be
run and maintained by either host governments or
private contractors and are as useful for
prepositioning logistics support or as venues for
joint operations with host militaries. While
intended to be small so as not to attract
attention, they could be expanded to become larger
bases when necessary.
In August 2005, the
US Overseas Basing Commission, the official
commission tasked to review US basing,
categorically identified the Philippines as one of
the countries where such CSLs are being developed
by the US in the region. The Philippine
government, however, has refused to disclose the
locations and other details about these CSLs.
Base services without basing The
US has obliged the Philippines to provide it with
a broad range of locally provided services that
would enable it to launch and sustain operations
from the Philippines when necessary.
In
November 2002, the US and Philippine governments
signed the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement
(MLSA), which researchers with the US
Congressional Research Service describe as
"allowing the United States to use the Philippines
as a supply base for military operations
throughout the region".
The MLSA obliges
the Philippine government to provide the US with
logistical supplies, support and services during
exercises, training, operations, and other US
military deployments. These supplies include food,
water, petroleum, oils, clothing, ammunition,
spare parts and components, billeting,
transportation, communication, medical services,
operation support, training services, repair and
maintenance, storage
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