Trump calls Duterte’s bluff

PERRYSCOPE
Perry Diaz

Two weeks after reports that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has threatened the U.S. that he will terminate the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the two countries, U.S. President Donald Trump reacted by saying he didn’t mind that the Philippine government terminated the agreement. “We’ll save a lot of money.  You know my views are different from other people.  I view it as, ‘Thank you very much, we’ll save a lot of money,’” he said.  After notification of the termination, VFA will end. 

Trump’s reaction is typical of his mindset about military alliances.  He believes that the U.S. has been giving away billions in military expenditures to its allies for not much in return.  He thinks it’s not good business.  A case in point is the 29-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which he says the U.S. is shouldering too much of the cost while the other member countries aren’t contributing much.  

He has threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the alliance although he knows that it would weaken America’s standing as a world superpower.  But he doesn’t care about that.  All he cares about is money being spent to protect other nations.  He is an isolationist, thinking that the U.S. can stand on its own against anyone in the world. 

Of course nobody would agree with him.  But Trump the president is Trump the businessman whose track record of six bankruptcies involving five companies that went under speaks of his narrow-minded views of how to make deals.  He aims for short-term profit to save money at the expense of building long-term relationship and equity. 

Mutual Defense Treaty

Duterte is no different from Trump.  He, too, doesn’t look at long-term relationship and equity.  He transacts business to gain immediate profit regardless of the consequences.  In the case of the termination of VFA, he didn’t seem to have thought about the repercussions of severing the Philippines’ alliance with the U.S. 

It’s not just about stopping American forces from being deployed in Mindanao to help in the war on terrorism, it’s about a relationship where both countries benefit from each other’s strengths.  It’s like a relationship between two brothers where the older brother is stronger than the younger. 

 Their relationship is based on “mutual defense” where one brother will come to the aid of the other if attacked.  But in the case of the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), it is designed for the U.S. to defend the Philippines from attack, not the other way around because the Philippines – with no warships and warplanes -- doesn’t have the means to come to the defense of the U.S. if attacked. 

But without the VFA, the MDT and two other agreements – the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (MLSA) -- would most probably be junked. 

Simply put, getting out of VFA would make EDCA and MLSA virtually useless.  EDCA, after six years, remains inoperable since it has never been fully implemented.  MLSA is used to allow U.S. forces on training engagements to turn over military equipment and ammunition expeditiously to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).   But with VFA gone, that would also end the turnover of military equipment used in VFA training exercises.

As Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin had said, “Scrapping the VFA may also dilute U.S. commitment to other pacts, affect trade relations and make it more difficult for the Philippines to access millions of dollars in U.S. defense aid.”

With the termination of the VFA, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said that the MDT would now be reduced to a mere paper treaty. 

“There’s no more intelligence information sharing in our fight against domestic and foreign terrorist acts, no more U.S. military aid and financing that accounts for a good 52% of what they extend to the whole Asia-Pacific region,” he said.

“That may not include other intangible economic benefits and security from external threats in the West Philippine Sea, as well as humanitarian aid in times of disasters, epidemics and other crises,” he added.

War with China

 So, what will happen after the VFA is scrapped and China attacks the Philippines?  Since American forces will no longer be stationed or deployed to the Philippines, how would Duterte react if Chinese President Xi Jinping threatens again to go to war with the Philippines if Duterte wouldn’t accede to Xi’s demands to explore the Spratly Islands and the much larger and richer Benham Rise in the Philippine Sea?

 Lacson and two other senators filed a resolution asking Duterte to reconsider his plan to scrap the VFA. But Duterte has already made his final decision.  It’s unfortunate though that he based his decision to terminate the VFA on the U.S. government’s cancellation of the visa of former Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief, close personal friend, and now senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa. 

It seems like it was a knee-jerk reaction to a slight.  However, one has to look at Duterte’s hatred of the U.S. as the main reason why Duterte terminated the VFA. The visa issue seems like it’s the last straw that broke the camel’s back.  But by doing so, Duterte has achieved his desire to steer the Philippines to align strategically – and eventually, militarily -- with China before his term ends in 2022, which was what he’s been promising since taking office.

But the question is:  How would a Philippines aligned with China affect and impact the geopolitics of Asia -- specifically, Japan, South Korea, and Australia – who have all mutual defense treaties with the U.S.?

Satellite surveillance

It’s a known fact that a very important aspect of the U.S.’s defense alliances is information sharing among them.  Australia is the site of Pine Gap, the commonly used name for a U.S. satellite surveillance base located in central Australia, which is operated jointly by the U.S. and Australia. 

Officially known as Joint Defense Facility Pine Gap (JDFPG), it is partly run by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), and U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).  It is a key contributor to NSA’s global interception effort.

Since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the rise of the War on Terror in 2001, Pine Gap has seen a refocusing away from mere nuclear treaty monitoring and missile launch detection, to become a vital war-fighting base for US military forces.

One of the station's primary functions is to locate radio signals in the Eastern Hemisphere, with the collected information fed into the US drone program.  This was confirmed by an NSA document from 2013, which says that Pine Gap plays a key role in providing geolocation data for intelligence purposes, as well as for military operations, including air strikes. (Source: Wikipedia, “Pine Gap”)

The location is strategically significant because it controls U.S. spy satellites as they pass over one-third of the globe, including China, the Asian parts of Russia, and the Middle East.  In other words, once a missile is launched from any of these places, Pine Gap is instantly alerted and the missile is tracked, which provides the U.S. with valuable information to intercept it.

Since the Philippines is within the range of Pine Gap’s satellite surveillance, China’s seven bases in the artificial islands in the Spratly Archipelago are within reach of the U.S.’s cruise missiles deployed in the area and can strike any of the bases within 30 seconds. 

 While this would provide the Philippines with security umbrella, it is not enough to stop Chinese invasion.  However, it would certainly keep the Philippines safe from Chinese missile attack.  So, next time Xi threatens Duterte with war, Duterte can dare say, “Go ahead, bro. Make my day.”

At the end of the day, Duterte might have been sorry for threatening to scrap the VFA. Trump took it took as a bluff.  But Trump did not only take the bluff, he raised the ante. (PerryDiaz@gmail.com)