U.S.-Philippine Coast Guard Patrols: Time To Provoke the Provocateur
.By James Holmes
Reality has set in on both sides of the Pacific with respect to Communist China. The Philippine Star is reporting that joint U.S.-Philippine coast guard patrols will take to the sea by year’s end.
It’s the feel-good story of midsummer.
This news marks the end of a bad era. Manila has stopped flirting with China’s ruling Communist Party the way it did during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. Philippine leaders have accepted they need allied help to guarantee their nation’s territorial integrity, as well as its sovereign rights and privileges under international law.
They do.
For their part U.S. leaders have, at last, embraced two basic strategic realities.
Shared Investments in Sovereignty
First, alliances work best when all of the allies are invested in the common defense. What better way to show you have skin in the game than by sending your sons and daughters in harm’s way? Deploying U.S. coast guardsmen to prowl the Philippines’ territorial sea, contiguous zone, and exclusive economic zone alongside Philippine comrades telegraphs that the U.S.-Philippine alliance is indivisible and resolute. It is a token of good faith in a relationship stretching back over a century.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2023/08/15/us-philippine_coast_guard_patrols_time_to_provoke_the_provocateur_973006.html
