US missile system in PH provoking Cold War II, arms race in Asia
WHILE the Marcos administration and Congress have been engrossed in pinning down a 38-year-old Chinese Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator, hunting down a religious leader and undertaking operations to demolish the Duterte charisma, the Philippines has become so much of a US puppet that a US mid-range missile system has been installed here, putting the country dangerously in the middle of an arms race in Asia.
I am referring to the US Typhon missile system in place at the aprons of the Laoag International Airport. While the system is designed to launch and target with its state-of-the-art radar equipment the mid-range SM-6 missiles, it can also do so with Tomahawk missiles which have a 1,000 range that could reach China. The missile system was brought into the country by the US military in April purportedly merely as part of combat exercises with our troops and to test if the system could be transported to the country by a US transport plane.
But even that early, the US Army Pacific characterized it at the time as a “landmark deployment,” marking “a significant milestone for the new capability while enhancing interoperability, readiness and defense capabilities in coordination” with the Philippines.
While the government claimed at the time that it would be moved out in September, recent reports by Reuters and The Associated Press quote unnamed US and Filipino officials saying that they “have agreed to keep the US mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines indefinitely to boost deterrence despite China’s expressions of alarm.”
National Security Adviser Eduardo Año was quoted as saying that there “are no plans to pull it out.” He added: “For now, we need the… Typhon missile launcher for our training and upgrading the capabilities of our armed forces,” apparently forgetting that the Philippines has no missiles that need the launcher, and it would be far in the future for the country to afford the P1 billion cost of four missiles to be put into it.
Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. said he wants the Typhon to stay “forever” in the country.
Nobody
Told that the Chinese foreign ministry had expressed concern about the plan to keep the system in place, Año angrily said: “Nobody can dictate to us on what to do.”
Astoundingly, Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. portrayed the Typhon installation as the country’s equivalent of the missile systems of advanced countries. On the sidelines of the defense exposition at the World Trade Center, he shrugged off objections by other countries’ demands for the immediate dismantling of the missile system in the country.
Teodoro said that if other countries feel uncomfortable with the Philippines bolstering its defense capability, they should lead by example and dismantle their ballistic missiles and nuclear armaments.
“It seems to me that before other countries interfere with the creation of our credible defense posture, they should first stop their illegal activities, get out of the West Philippine Sea, take away their ballistic capabilities and destroy their nuclear arsenal,” he said, taking a swipe at China, whose vessels remain in contested areas in the South China Sea. Astonishingly, Teodoro is saying that the single Typhon missile system is his country’s deterrent to the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force, the world’s largest land-based missile arsenal with 3,000 rockets of different ranges. “We will do what needs to be done to create a credible deterrent posture,” he added.
Alarm
Analysts claim that China not only expressed alarm but has acted to express its distress over the deployment: It launched the other day an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean. It was a strong message for the US and the Philippines to remove the Typhon missile system, as China usually tests their ICBMs in its deep interior areas.
On September 25, the Chinese military’s Rocket Force “launched an ICBM… carrying a dummy warhead to the high seas in the Pacific Ocean at 08:44 on September 25, and the missile fell into expected sea areas,” the Chinese defense ministry said in a statement.
An analyst told Agence France-Presse such tests were very rare. “This is extremely unusual and likely the first time in decades that we’ve seen a test like this,” said Ankit Panda, Stanton senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
A post in the social media platform X, by one Damien Symon, using debris-warnings that China released, mapped the ICBM’s path as passing just 80 kilometers from Laoag airport where the Typhon missile system is installed. I don’t think that is coincidental.
The Typhon installed in Laoag demonstrated the US brazenness in getting President Marcos to do what it wanted. The Typhon missile system was installed at the civilian Laoag International Airport in Ilocos Norte (Marcos’ home province), 400 kilometers from Taiwan.
EDCA
The airport is not even among the nine sites the Philippines had designated under the 2012 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that could be used by the US military as its forward base to pre-position its war materiel.
The installation of the Typhon system in Laoag therefore sets a precedent that the Americans can use any site — even our international airports — as their temporary military bases, wherever and whenever.
In an article in the South China Morning Post, Zhu Feng, executive dean of Nanjing University’s School of International Studies, said the United States’ moves were reminiscent of the Cold War.
“[The US] is deploying missiles in the Philippines now, and it could possibly [deploy weapons] to [treaty allies] South Korea and Japan in the future, and it is essentially provoking a new cold war in the Asia-Pacific region,” he said.
Indeed, the US has such a tight hold on the Marcos administration, that the Philippines is the only country in the world that has agreed to have a Typhon missile system installed its territory, although the US is reportedly negotiating with Germany, its main vassal in Europe, and with Japan, its main vassal in Asia, to have such systems in their countries.
What we are seeing is a government clueless about what’s going on in the world that would have a serious impact on our country as a target of China’s missiles. It is obsessed solely in making sure it remains in power when its term expires in 2028, even if over a devastated, barren country.
Shouldn’t the Congress have some say on Marcos’ belligerent foreign policy, which so far as resulted in the loss to China of two shoals and which conceivably would have the roof fall over their heads?
Facebook: Rigoberto Tiglao
X: @bobitiglao
Website: www.rigobertotiglao.com
The post US missile system in PH provoking Cold War II, arms race in Asia first appeared on Rigoberto Tiglao.
US missile system in PH provoking Cold War II, arms race in Asia
Source: Breaking News PH
No comments: