Clever branding for a risky bet? Marcos Jr.’s statement in his interview with the Indian news website Firstpost in New Delhi is not only naïve, but it borders on strategic foolishness and idiocy. His confidence that the United States will defend the Philippines “should it face security challenges” dangerously outsources the country’s sovereignty and survival to a superpower with a long, documented history of abandoning allies when their utility expires, or the geopolitical cost becomes too high. In other words, Washington’s security commitments are elastic. They are ultimately contingent, durable only while U.S. politics, costs, and interests align.
Note, Vietnam’s collapse in 1975 after U.S. aid evaporated, the 2019 abandonment of Kurdish partners in Syria when Turkey objected, and the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, chaotic and credibility‑shredding, are reminders that America’s “friends” are instruments, not ends. Each example warns that convenience‑based partnerships unravel when costs rise or politics sour.
Iraq supplies a double lesson. First, the U.S. spurred uprisings against Saddam in 1991 and then watched as they were crushed. Second, the 2003 invasion justified by discredited WMD claims destroyed institutions, fueled sectarian warfare, and opened space for ISIS, delivering neither democracy nor stability. Similarly, look at what’s happening in Ukraine at the moment.
Applied to Manila, the “ironclad” line creates three concrete problems:
1. Legal Ambiguity: The Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) is not a blank check. It requires “constitutional processes,” and its application to gray-zone coercion, water cannons, ramming, and blockades remains murky. Betting national survival on whether Washington will risk or wage a direct war against China over Scarborough or Ayungin is a wager on U.S. polling and presidential calculations, less a strategy than mood tracking.
2. Strategic Self‑infantilization: Dependence cedes leverage precisely when the country needs strategic autonomy, resiliency, and bargaining power. A defense posture built on the hope that someone else will show up is not deterrence; it’s wishful thinking. When a country ties its fate to a superpower’s priorities, its choices shrink to theirs.
3. Escalatory Optics: Expanded EDCA access by the U.S. makes the country a launchpad and forward base for U.S. military projection in the Asia Pacific. This posture also hardens perceptions in Beijing, eroding any ambiguity about neutrality and inviting countermeasures that increase the risk of escalation, crisis, or coercion.
Conclusion
Lessons learned? U.S. policy is transactional and interest‑driven; moral rhetoric is the gift wrap, not the gift, and does not determine action. By all means, appreciate the speeches of U.S. presidents, but don’t mistake them for guarantees; prepare for help, but do not depend on it; welcome partners, but do not mistake them for guardians; welcome cooperation, but retire the fantasy that an “ironclad” catchphrase can cover the bill for our own defenses. The more adult policy would treat sovereignty as a practice, not a slogan, and would put an end to the Philippines’ role as a proxy battleground for the U.S.
Source: The Lobbyist
https://www.thelobbyist.biz/perspectives/article-details/prime%20insight/betting-on-washington-jeopardizing-philippine-sovereignty
