News Release

March 21, 2001

End security commitments to Philippines, study says
U.S. policy in East Asia should emphasize regional cooperation, not military support

WASHINGTON—The United States should avoid embroiling itself in any parochial disputes over the Spratly islands and should end its security commitments to the Philippines, according to a new study from the Cato Institute.

In "Instability in the Philippines: A Case Study for U.S. Disengagement," Senior Fellow Doug Bandow argues that "Washington's attempt to expand outmoded security ties with East Asia is emblematic of a foreign policy locked in a Cold War time warp." He notes that "America's allies face no external threats that they cannot cooperatively contain. … The greatest danger to those countries are internal-economic and political instability." These, he argues, are not the sort of problem that America is capable of solving.

The recent conclusion of a Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines was widely perceived as a new security guarantee, particularly in the event of a territorial conflict between the Philippines and China, Bandow says. But that has created a perverse incentive for the Philippines to stoke tensions with Beijing and defer any real modernization of the Filipino military, he argues.

Do the Philippines really need U.S. military protection? Bandow thinks not. "Today, no external enemy threatens Philippine independence," he says. "The Russian fleet is rusting in port; Japan has neither the will nor the ability to conquer its neighbors; China is incapable of invading Taiwan, let alone the Philippines." Even the dispute over the Spratly islands "threatens no nation's survival, independence, or even fundamental well-being." China, he says, remains focused on Taiwan and has not demonstrated any interest in shutting down regional commerce through mischief in the Spratlys.

The main problem facing the Philippines is domestic unrest and separatist violence, Bandow says. Although the Pentagon has attempted to justify its military presence as a means of dealing with humanitarian operations, drug trafficking, terrorism and environmental degradation," he says, "there's little the U.S. military can or should do to address any of them."

Bandow concludes that "security commitments and deployments should be based on present, not past, threat environments. World War II and the Cold War are over. Washington should update its relationship with the Philippines and its neighbors to reflect today's world."

"Instability in the Philippines: A Case Study for U.S. Disengagement"