US-Philippines joint patrols, some troop stationing plans; stationing the A-10s at Clark is clearly aimed at Scarborough Shoal.
Also love this last line: “The pressure is building up from the Senate and within the Pentagon towards an explicit American guarantee that Scarborough Shoal falls within the Philippine-U.S. mutual defense treaty, thus providing a pretext for a more robust American pushback,”
Also love this last line: “The pressure is building up from the Senate and within the Pentagon towards an explicit American guarantee that Scarborough Shoal falls within the Philippine-U.S. mutual defense treaty, thus providing a pretext for a more robust American pushback,”
US to rotate more aircraft, troops through Philippines
MANILA, Philippines — The U.S. is deploying nine aircraft and hundreds of U.S. troops and special operators to at least seven bases in the Philippines as part of a new, regular presence there, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced Thursday.
The first dispatch of forces, totaling about 275 people, will be pulled from the roughly 5,000 U.S. troops now in the Philippines as part of the bilateral Balikatan annual exercise, which ends Friday.
Additionally, the Defense Department announced that the U.S. and Philippines have twice conducted joint patrols in the disputed South China Sea, once in March and once in April, and said it plans to continue regular joint patrols in the future.
The 275 servicemembers will remain in the Philippines through the end of the month, but are expected to be replaced by follow-on personnel.
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Up to 75 Marines will be assigned to Camp Aguinaldo in greater Manila, headquarters of the Philippine armed forces, where they “will support increased operations in the region and will enhance our combined [command and control] capabilities,” according to the fact sheet.
The rotating forces also will include 200 airmen who will operate out of Clark Air Base, a former U.S. Air Force installation about 60 miles north of Manila on the main Philippine island of Luzon.
The U.S. based about 20,000 personnel at Clark prior to the base’s closure in 1991, after it suffered catastrophic damage from Mount Pinatubo’s eruption. Then in 1992, the U.S. Navy left Subic Bay — once among the largest overseas U.S. bases — after the Philippines rejected a new lease.
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The 200 U.S. airmen will deploy from various bases in the Pacific to support five A-10C Thunderbolt II attack aircraft from the 51st Fighter Wing at Osan Air Base, in South Korea; three HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters from the 18th Wing at Kadena Air Base, Japan; and a MC-130H Combat Talon II special operations aircraft.
Defense officials would not specify where the Talon was based. The Talon specializes in delivering and extracting special operators into contested areas and has a suite of sensors that can be used to support rescue and humanitarian missions.
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“For the Philippines, we expect the U.S. Forces to help us in our maritime awareness,” Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said. “With the presence here it will deter uncalled for action by the Chinese.
U.S. Stationing Warplanes in Philippines Amid South China Sea Tensions
MANILA—The U.S. will start stationing warplanes in the Philippines this week as the vanguard of a major deployment to the Southeast Asian country as Washington and its allies mount a coordinated response to Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea.
The U.S. and the Philippines began joint patrols of the South China Sea last month, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Thursday on a visit to the Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally that is among the five governments whose territorial claims overlap with China’s in those waters.
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“In the South China Sea, China’s actions…are causing anxiety and raising regional tensions,” Mr. Carter told reporters at the Philippines’ presidential palace, where he met President Benigno Aquino III. The U.S. deployment is designed “to tamp down tensions here” and wouldn’t provoke a showdown with Beijing, he said.
China’s Defense Ministry strenuously objected, saying the latest U.S.-Philippines military cooperation would exacerbate tensions. It said the joint-patrol plan “promotes the militarization of the region” and called the strengthened military alliance and joint exercises “the embodiment of Cold War thinking and not conducive to peace and stability in the South China Sea.”
The U.S. and the Philippines have been holding 10 days of joint drills that end Friday. Mr. Carter said five American A-10 Thunderbolt ground-attack jets, three H-60G Pavehawk helicopters and one MC-130H Combat Talon special forces infiltration aircraft will remain behind at Clark Air Base north of Manila along with 200 crew members.
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Since the start of the U.S. “pivot” to Asia early in the Obama administration, the Pentagon has moved to beef up its presence in the region to counter China’s rising military power, including with additional personnel, ships and aircraft. U.S. officials have said that by 2020, 60% of the Navy’s ships and aircraft will be deployed to the Pacific, up from about half before the rebalance.
“We’re sending our most advanced warfighting platforms to the region, including multi-mission ballistic missile defense-capable ships, submarines, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft,” a Navy spokesman said.
The Air Force has deployed three B-2 Spirit bombers this spring with plans to integrate with other nations’ air operations in the region. “This deployment will ensure bomber crews maintain a high state of readiness and crew proficiency and will provide opportunities to integrate capabilities with key regional partners,” an Air Force official said.
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The U.S. last year resumed performing what it termed freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea to challenge China’s claims. But those patrols won’t count for much if the U.S. fails to prevent China from fortifying Scarborough Shoal, said Gregory Poling of the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a U.S. think tank.
In recent days, the Obama administration has faced calls from Sen. John McCain (R., Az.) and others to offer explicit guarantees to defend the Philippines in the face of Chinese assertiveness.
“The pressure is building up from the Senate and within the Pentagon towards an explicit American guarantee that Scarborough Shoal falls within the Philippine-U.S. mutual defense treaty, thus providing a pretext for a more robust American pushback,” said Richard Javad Heydarian, a regional-security specialist at Manila’s De La Salle University.
