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Comparative Strategy

ISSN: 0149-5933 (Print) 1521-0448 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ucst20

The Philippines and the United States: A short


history of the security connection

Adrian E. Cristobal & A. James Gregor

To cite this article: Adrian E. Cristobal & A. James Gregor (1987) The Philippines and the United
States: A short history of the security connection, Comparative Strategy, 6:1, 61-89, DOI:
10.1080/01495938708402703

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01495938708402703

Published online: 24 Sep 2007.

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The Philippines and the
United States: A Short History
of the Security Connection
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Adrian E. Cristobal
Regent, University of Philippines
Quezon City, Metro Manila

A. James Gregor
Institute of International Studies
University of California
Berkeley, California

Abstract The history of the security relationship between


the Philippines and the United States began with the occupa-
tion of the archipelago by American forces at the conclusion of
the Spanish-American War of 1898. Bases were established in
the Philippine Islands and the general conviction by U.S. de-
fense specialists was that they served strategic purposes. None-
theless, there was little preparation undertaken for their
adequate defense. As a consequence, the inhabitants of the
Philippines suffered Japanese occupation during World War II.
The subsequent liberation brought still more havoc. Many Fil-
ipinos became convinced that the security relationship with the
United States was characterized by neglected responsibilities
and general indifference on the part of the leadership in Wash-
ington. Since the mid-1960s a significant minority of Filipinos
have objected to the U.S.-Philippines security arrangements.
That minority exercised considerable influence in the anti-
Marcos movement that culminated in the "February Revolu-

Comparative Strategy, Volume 6, Number 1


0149-5933/87/010061-00$03.00/0
Copyright © 1987 Crane, Russak & Company, Inc.

61
62 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
tion" bringing Corazon Aquino to power in 1986. At the present
time, the future of the security relationship between the United
States and the Philippines is uncertain. The Aquino administra-
tion is under considerable pressure from the domestic political
left and Filipino nationalists to terminate the relationship and
have the U.S. forces vacate the bases that remain on Philippine
soil. How Washington manages its general relationship with the
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Aquino government could very well determine the future of the


U.S. military facilities in the archipelago as well as the general
security relationship between the two countries.

The history of the Philippines intersected with that of the United


States at what was perhaps the most fateful moment in modern
history. The singularly modern form of imperialism—so im-
pressively analyzed by John Atkinson Hobson in his semi-
nal study of 19021—had already crested. By that time, Africa had
been parceled out—divided and subdivided—by the major Euro-
pean powers. Similar aggression had taken place in Asia. En-
gland, France, and Holland had imposed their control over vast
stretches of South and Southeast Asia—and czarist Russia had
extended its dominance over the immense reaches of Siberia and
the Northeast. The United States of America, only lately having
come of age with the industrial development that followed the
Civil War of 1861-65, made its tardy appearance as an imperialist
power with the annexation of Hawaii and the outbreak of the
Spanish-American War of 1898.
In retrospect, it seems reasonably clear that the assay into
international power politics by the United States at the turn of
the century was neither well-conceived nor wholeheartedly un-
dertaken. The effort was sustained by a temporary and unstable
coalition of domestic forces that provided only episodic and fitful
support. In fact, perhaps the only coherent feature of the U.S.
imperialist enterprise was provided by the intellectuals of the
period. Among them, it was Alfred Thayer Mahan, president of
the U.S. Naval War College in 1886 and an admiral in the United
States Navy, who supplied the turn-of-the-century rationale for
American imperialist undertaking in the Caribbean and, ul-
timately, in the West Pacific.
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 63
A. T. Mahan and the Rationale of Imperialism
By the end of the 1880s, Mahan had put together a conception of
the role of sea power in the history of nations that led to the
recommendation of a major shift in U.S. foreign policy. For a
quarter of a century after the termination of the Civil War in the
United States, Mahan argued, U.S. policy had remained confined
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to narrowly domestic concerns, to the'exclusion of significant


international enterprise. In his judgment, Americans were more
preoccupied with their personal welfare and the exploitation of
the rich resources of the North American continent than they
were with the historic responsibilities imposed upon them by the
realities of international power politics.2
In 1890, Mahan published his major work on the role of sea
power in the history of nations. The impact of that work was
almost immediate. It is evident, in retrospect, that the work
addressed itself to issues that engaged the interests of significant
persons and corporate entities in the continental United States.
By that time, there were business interests who imagined that the
rapid development of manufacturing in the United States had
exhausted the potential of the domestic market. As a con-
sequence, they sought foreign supplements to that market. In
addition, there were financial interests who imagined that the
continental United States could no longer effectively absorb the
available investment capital generated by rapid domestic eco-
nomic expansion. At the same time, it was clear that the United
States Navy sought some rationale that might improve its access
to federal funding. Since the end of the Civil War, the U.S. Navy
had languished. After 1865 both the military and merchant fleets
of the United States had been markedly reduced in size and
effectiveness. As a consequence, by the end of the century, the
officers of the fleet felt alienated and frustrated.
It was at that point in time the work of A. T. Mahan made its
appearance. As a "navalist," Mahan advocated the importance
of a large and powerful navy and thus appealed to an articulate
military constituency. He also insisted that a modern nation must
be prepared to embark upon overseas expansion—following the
growth of modern industry and commerce—if it is not to lapse
64 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
into decline and senescence. The appeal of such an argument to
vital industrial and financial interests was evident.
Mahan argued that the development of America's domestic
industry would drive the nation more deeply into international
commerce. That commerce, in turn, required the construction of
substantial sea power if the United States was not to be content to
permit its well-being to become the responsibility of foreigners.
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For Mahan, the expansion of a nation's industrial capability


entailed the sale of commodities on the international market.
Sale on the international market necessarily involved shipping.
Shipping required the free and ready use of the sea-lanes of
communication. The use of those sea-lanes necessitated the po-
tential to resist any armed efforts at interdiction.3 In turn, it was
recommended that overseas bases be acquired to afford the ships
of the line access to coaling, support, and repair facilities along
strategic trade routes. In effect, what Mahan advocated was the
internal development and the overseas military expansion of the
United States. He advocated the acquisition of overseas bases
along the shipping lanes that were being used, or that might be
used, by the merchant fleet of the United States.
Mahan's immediate concern was with the trade routes to the
south of the continental United States. He anticipated that the
construction of a canal through Central America would inevita-
bly alter the commercial and strategic importance of the Carib-
bean.4 As long as the Caribbean was a terminus of trade, he
argued, the presence of Spain in the region might well be toler-
ated. But if the interocean canal was to be constructed, making
the Caribbean a major sea passage that would connect the east
coast and the west coast of the United States, Washington could
hardly allow Madrid to control the circumstances that so clearly
influenced the well-being of the United States.
The war against Spain in 1898 provided the occasion for the
resolution of these difficulties. As a consequence of that war, the
United States seized Puerto Rico, gained access to Cuba, and
eliminated Spain as a serious competitor in the Caribbean. The
Caribbean became a U.S. preserve. The construction of the canal
through the Isthmus of Panama could be pursued under circum-
stances that assured U.S. security control as that control was
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 65
understood by Mahan and those influential Americans who
heeded his counsel.

The United States Encounters the Philippines


At the same time that the issue of the Caribbean was being
resolved, the Spanish-American War created special problems
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for both the United States and the Philippines. While Spain was
being defeated in Santiago and at San Juan Hill, Commodore
George Dewey, half a world away, had already defeated the aging
Spanish fleet in Manila harbor. U.S. Marines ultimately came to
occupy the capital of the Philippines, and Washington was com-
pelled to deal with the issue of the disposition of the Spanish
colony in the West Pacific.
It is clear that at the end of the conflict with Spain there had
been no U.S. consensus concerning the resolution of the Philip-
pine problem. Filipino revolutionaries under the leadership of
Emilio Aguinaldo had effectively defeated the Spanish forces in
the islands and sought independence for their people. Many
Americans agreed and advocated a total withdrawal of U.S.
forces from the archipelago. Even Mahan and his closest sup-
porters, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, remained
undecided. President William McKinley himself remained inde-
cisive until negotiations began at the end of 1898. Ultimately, the
decision was made that saw the control over the islands pass
from Spain to the United States.
Actually, Americans were so divided over how to deal with the
sovereignty of the Philippines that the Treaty of Paris was con-
firmed by a margin of only a single vote in the Senate. Alfred
Thayer Mahan, the architect of the "new outward oriented for-
eign policy" that seemed to sanction expansion into the Pacific,
was himself unsure. An advocate of overseas naval bases, he
seems to have suggested that Manila harbor and its immediate
environs might be held by U.S. forces as a coaling station and the
remainder of the islands be accorded their independence. At
another point he apparently decided that the entire island of
Luzon was required for U.S. security, providing a defense in
depth for the projected naval base.
66 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
McKinley's decision to assume responsibility for the entire
archipelago seems to have been motivated by at least two consid-
erations: (1) It was reasonably clear that several of the "Great
Powers" were prepared to seize control of the islands had the
United States withdrawn; and (2) there was a conviction in the
American business community that a "vast China market" ex-
isted that awaited U.S. export products and that a "coaling sta-
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tion and support facility" in the Philippine islands was necessary


to secure access to the critical trade routes between the western
United States and the major ports of Imperial China.5
For Mahan, enthusiasm for control of the Philippines came
relatively late. That it did come late is somewhat curious. A
pattern had begun to reveal itself in the foreign policy behavior of
the United States some time before the Spanish-American War.
In the early 1890s, the United States had shown considerable
interest in the Hawaiian Islands, and Mahan himself had already
alluded to an increasing tension between the "East and West" in
the Pacific and to the consequent necessity of establishing
"bases of operations" in the region that might provide for for-
ward defense.6 As early as 1897, Theodore Roosevelt had written
to Mahan about the "danger from Japan" that threatened major
Western interests in the Pacific.7
All of this, it would seem, should have suggested something
about the strategic importance of the Philippines. Nonetheless, it
was only after the Philippines had been secured as a colony that
Mahan seemed prepared to acknowledge the military importance
of the islands. He spoke of the "unwilling acquisition of the
Philippines" as a major strategic responsibility thrust upon the
United States by God. (At critical points in their history, Amer-
icans seem disposed to identify the interests of the United States
with plans fashioned in heaven.)8
In point of fact, by the time of the Spanish-American War, the
Japanese had given ample evidence of an aggressive expan-
sionism. The end of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 found the
Japanese military in control of Formosa (Taiwan)—astride the
two major sea-lanes of communication in the region, the Bashi
Channel and the Formosa (Taiwan) Strait. A reflection on those
circumstances, rather than insight into God's purposes, seems to
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 67
have convinced Mahan that the security interests of the United
States and "Christian civilization" required the establishment
and maintenance of bases in the Philippines.9
Once the decision had been made that the Philippines con-
stituted a major strategic concern with respect to U.S. interests
in the Western Pacific, justificatory arguments in support of the
decision made their appearance with considerable regularity and
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impressive insistence. In that regard, perhaps the most compel-


ling arguments in support of the Philippine-U.S. security rela-
tionship were made by Homer Lea in 1909.

Homer Lea and U.S. Strategy in the West Pacific


Homer Lea, at best, was a curious historical figure. Already a
confidant of Sun Yat-sen and a lieutenant general in an all-but-
nonexistent "Chinese Revolutionary Army" at the age of twenty-
six, Lea was to go on to write two major works on military
strategy that were to influence the leaders of both the American
and Japanese military.10
When Lea's The Valor of Ignorance appeared in 1909, Lieuten-
ant General Adna Chaffee, former chief of staff of the United
States Army, provided a laudatory introduction. Upon reading
the book, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, chief of the British Gen-
eral Staff, commissioned Lea to write a review and critique of
Great Britain's strategic options, and Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm
invited Lea to assess the evolving military situation on the Euro-
pean continent. The Valor of Ignorance was, indeed, a remark-
able book.
In retrospect, Lea's most impressive performance was in his
having taken the measure of the plans of the Japanese military
high command. Before the close of the first decade of the twen-
tieth century, Lea identified the clear intent of Japan's foreign
policy in East Asia. In Lea's judgment, the marriage of rapid
industrial development and the traditional martial virtues of the
Japanese had created an aggressive and expansive power in the
Pacific. Having defeated its continental competitors in the Sino-
Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, Lea argued, the Japanese
faced only Britain and the United States in the Pacific. For their
68 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
part, the forces of the British Empire were restricted largely to
South and Southeast Asia, while those of the United States were
expanding across the Pacific in a trajectory that would bring
them into fateful contact with the Japanese.
In Lea's judgment, it was certain that Japan, in order to estab-
lish its security and predominance in the Pacific, would extend
itself northeast to the Aleutians, east to Hawaii, and southeast to
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the Philippine Islands. That expansion would ensure Japanese


access to essential raw materials as well as control over the
critical waterways of the entire region. Japan's industrial base
would be assured of having the resources necessary to sustain
the nation's war-fighting capabilities, and its defense perimeter
would be pushed beyond the mid-Pacific to the western coast of
the United States. The Japanese heartland would be assured a
defense in strategic depth.
Given its intentions, Lea identified the United States as the
principal object of Japan's aggression. By 1909 he anticipated a
strategic plan, which would be initiated in the relatively near
future, that would see the Japanese launching an undeclared war
against the United States in the Pacific. Lea predicted that the
armed forces of Japan, in the course of that war, would strike
quickly across the reaches of the Pacific to invest Guam, Midway,
the Aleutians, and, most significantly, the Philippines.
Lea pointed out that the Japanese conquest of the Philippines
"would more than double the territorial extent of Japan, a well as
the empire's natural resources." But however important that
might be, Lea continued, the critical significance of the archi-
pelago rested in

the strategic worth that [those] islands [possessed] for Japan in their
dominion over Asia and Asiatic hegemony. . . . The Philippine Is-
lands bear the same strategic relationship to the Southern Asian
coast as the Japanese islands do to the Northern, with the exception
that the Philippines have the additional strategic value of command-
ing all shiproutes from Europe to the Far East.11

Lea was so certain of the accuracy of his assessment that he


even outlined what the Japanese wartime plans for the future
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 69
invasion of the Philippine archipelago would be. Those plans
would involve ship transport of Japanese assault and maneuver
forces to the island of Luzon. Those forces would undertake two
landings, one at Lingayen Gulf in the north and the other, in the
east, at Polillo Bight. That strategy would put the Japanese forces
in a position to close a giant pincer on the capital city of Manila,
confining U.S. and Filipino forces to the exposed plains of central
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Luzon between rapidly closing jaws. Lea anticipated that the


Japanese conquest of Manila, and the islands in their entirety,
would involve a very short campaign.12
In fact, those were precisely the plans that the Japanese high
command pursued in the invasion of the Philippines more than
three decades later. Invasion forces, in three transport echelons,
did land at Lingayen Gulf, north of Manila, and the second
landing was made at Atimonan on Lamon Bay—only a few miles
from Polillo Bight. As a consequence, U.S. and Filipino forces
were compelled to fight, as Lea had anticipated, in the com-
paratively open terrain of central Luzon with the Japanese forces
enjoying every advantage. Very quickly the defenders were
driven to isolated pockets on Bataan and Corregidor. With the
fall of Luzon, the defense of the archipelago collapsed. The
campaign was of remarkably short duration.13
Homer Lea had anticipated all this before the advent of World
War I. Moreover, his views had earned respect and a general
acceptance among those responsible for U.S. interests in the
West Pacific. In the late 1920s, Douglas MacArthur, serving as
department commander of U.S. and Filipino troops in the Philip-
pines, discussed the growing threat of Japanese expansion in the
West Pacific with Manuel Quezon, who was then serving as
leader of the Philippine community, in terms much the same as
those used by Homer Lea more than a decade earlier. By 1934, as
chief of staff, MacArthur broached, once again, the subject of the
defense of the Philippines with President Franklin Roosevelt.
MacArthur informed the president that the Philippines were
under threat but were defensible in principle. That defense, how-
ever, would require sufficient manpower, munitions, and training
facilities, as well as substantially enhanced logistical ca-
pabilities.14 It was as clear to MacArthur as it had been to Homer
70 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
Lea that the Philippines were "the Key that unlocks the door to
the Pacific."15 Like Lea, MacArthur anticipated that the Jap-
anese would employ their merchant fleet and their naval forces to
extend their control over Guam, Midway, the Aleutians, and, if
possible, the Hawaiian Islands. As a consequence, he argued for
an adequate defense budget for the defense of the Philippines—a
budget that was never forthcoming.
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In assuming control of the Philippines Archipelago, the United


States committed itself to its security. Before the end of the first
decade of the twentieth century it had become clear what that
security would entail. The major military advisers of the United
States appreciated the fact, very early, that the islands would be
under threat from Japan. By the early 1930s it was evident that
such a threat was very real and that U.S. interests were deeply
involved. Nonetheless, the United States did very little to pro-
vide for an adequate defense of the islands or the security of its
own concerns.

The Lessons Learned


The history of U.S. involvement in the Philippines constituted a
painful learning experience for Filipinos. The United States had
unilaterally assumed the responsibility for the physical security
of the Philippines in the Treaty of Paris in 1898. U.S. authorities
had been made aware of the threats to both that security and U.S.
interests as early as the first years of the twentieth century. That
counsel had been unequivocally accepted by the military lead-
ership of the United States. For all that, the United States Con-
gress failed to appropriate, and the United States executive failed
to insist upon, the funds that would have made a defense of the
Philippines at all feasible.
Worse than that, when the war did come to the Pacific, the
leadership in Washington made the calculated decision to pro-
vide for the defense of Europe at the expense of the peoples and
nations of the Pacific. The consequence was that the relatively
meager military forces of Imperial Japan were allowed to occupy
the vast territories extending from Southeast Asia through the
Marshall Islands, the Gilberts, New Guinea, Wake, Guam, and
the Indonesian Archipelago, as well as the Philippines.
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 71
The Philippines were required to endure the incredible priva-
tions of Japanese occupation. When forces were finally provided
for the reconquest of the islands, that reconquest involved a
devastation equaled only in a very few places in Europe. Manila,
in the course of its "liberation," was reduced to rubble. Perhaps
as many as a quarter of a million Filipinos, almost all civilians,
died in the retaking of the capital of the Philippines by the Allied
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forces.
Even that loss was not the end. At the very height of the
campaign to reconquer the Philippines, the United States high
command withdrew fighting and transport forces from the area in
order to assist activities being conducted in Europe.16 In effect,
even in the final hour of their torment, Filipinos were required to
sacrifice once again in the pursuit of a strategy that either ne-
glected their interests or subordinated them to those of Euro-
peans.
Nothing seemed to change at the successful conclusion of the
conflict. The Philippines, no less than Europe, had been devas-
tated by enemy occupation, enemy exactions, and the subse-
quent reconquest by Allied forces. The loss of life and the
destruction of property in the Philippines were among the heav-
iest suffered by any belligerant during World War II.
Knowledgeable Filipinos understand full well what had trans-
pired. They understood that there had been articulate and impor-
tant interest groups in the United States that had sought
permanent military bases in the Philippines in order to protect
U.S. national interests as well as afford access to East Asian
markets. Admiral Mahan, and those he supplied with his argu-
ments, had engineered a relationship with the Philippines that
served U.S. interests eminently well.17 What was missing was a
will, or an ability, to provide for the adequate defense of the
islands against perfectly predictable aggression.18
As a consequence of neglect or the result of conscious policy,
the Philippines were abandoned to the invasion of the Japanese
in 1941. The subsequent counteroffensive by the Allied forces
exacted massive destruction. Public utilities, piers, docks, plants
and warehouses, offices, and both government and private build-
ings, including churches, schools, museums, and theaters, were
all consumed in the general devastation. General Dwight
72 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
Eisenhower, in visiting Manila in May 1946, lamented that "with
the exception of Warsaw, this is the worse destruction I have ever
seen." 19 Not only had the security relationship with the United
States failed to protect the Philippines against the predictable
aggression from Japan, but the effort to undo that aggression
inflicted further, more grievous devastation on the unfortunate
islands.
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At the conclusion of the conflict, the United States, through its


responsible representatives, promised that assistance would be
forthcoming that would provide for the "full repair of the ravages
of war." In fact, compensation for only 52.5 percent of the prewar
value of the destroyed properties was" provided, and then only
two years after the termination of hostilities. The Philippines had
suffered because of an indisposition on the part of the United
States to honor its security obligations, and then had suffered
once again after the destruction visited on its population by a
failure of the United States to provide adequate compensation for
losses suffered by the population.20

The Consequences
Following the termination of the war in the Pacific, and as a
consequence of these experiences, there developed among a
substantial minority of Filipinos serious reservations concerning
any security relationship between the Philippines and the United
States. Perhaps the most articulate and persuasive spokesman
among those who entertained those reservations was Senator
Claro M. Recto, now identified as the "father" of modern Philip-
pine nationalism.
Recto lamented the fact that although the United States recog-
nized the critical importance of the Philippines in terms of Amer-
ican interests in the West Pacific, U.S. officials failed either to
provide for the defense of the islands or to compensate for losses
suffered by those islands as a consequence of that negligence.21
Many Filipinos who had fought against the Japanese, either at
the time of the invasion or during the occupation, failed to
receive even minimum compensation. 22 The inevitable con-
sequence was disillusionment with the United States and a mea-
sure of alienation.
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 73
Given the history of the security relations between the Philip-
pines and the United States, it is comprehensible that an appre-
ciable number of Filipinos entertained serious reservations
concerning the reestablishment of those relations after the grant
of Philippine independence in 1946. After the defeat of Japan,
representatives of the United States made eminently clear that
Washington still considered the archipelago to be of critical
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strategic importance. After the end of World War II, bases in the
Philippines would still be required not only to ensure the security
of critical lines of communication in the entire West Pacific, but
also to allow for rapid deployment and forward projection of U.S.
military forces to contain aggressive communist elements in the
unstable Southeast Asian quadrant.23
Because Americans remained convinced of the strategic im-
portance of the archipelago, unrestricted U.S. access to island
bases became, in effect, a precondition for the grant of Philippine
independence. According to the subsequent bases agreement,
the armed forces of the United States were accorded privileged
access to sixteen military bases, wide-ranging use of the com-
munications infrastructure of the islands, and essentially sov-
ereign control over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers
of Philippine soil.
Still smarting under the recent experiences suffered during and
immediately after World War II, an articulate minority of Fil-
ipinos objected to the security relations so established. Not only
did they object to what they considered the violation of the new
nation's sovereignty in allowing the United States unrestricted
access to the bases, but they warned their compatriots that a
military association with the United States would make inevita-
ble Philippine involvement in any conflict that broke out between
Washington and any other regional or global power. It was not at
all clear to these critics that Philippine involvement would serve
Philippine interests or that the United States could or would
effectively defend the islands.24
By the mid-1960s, Filipino arguments against the security rela-
tions with the United States had begun to take on a fairly co-
herent and standard content. It was maintained that whatever the
importance of the Philippines to the United States, American
priorities would favor Europe. U.S. security relations with the
74 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, involved an
automatic engagement clause that ensured U.S. commitment to
the nations of Western Europe in the event of armed aggression
against them. The security treaty with the Philippines, signed in
1951, on the other hand, entailed no more than a recourse to
"constitutional processes" in the United States should the archi-
pelago be subject to foreign aggression. The critics of the Philip-
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pine-U.S. security arrangements argued, in essence, that the


United States persisted in its overriding preoccupation with the
safety and integrity of Europe—even at the expense of its East
Asian allies.
Thus, according to the Filipino critics, even though the United
States made clear its conviction that the Philippine archipelago
was of critical security concern with respect to the economic and
military interests of the Western democracies, Washington could
not assure the Philippines any more protection in the event of
foreign aggression in the post-World War II period than it could
at the time of the Japanese invasion in 1941. The Philippines were
expected to host U.S. armed forces that were prepared to engage
an enemy in the service of American interests—but the Philip-
pines could not invest any confidence in the readiness of the
United States to afford secure protection.
By the end of the 1960s these arguments had become standard
fare among a significant number of well-intentioned and patriotic
Filipinos.25 The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism,
the Socialist Party of the Philippines, and the Kabataan
Makabayan movement of patriotic Filipino youth all advocated
an abrogation of the mutual security arrangements and the Phi-
lippine-U.S. bases agreement.26
Among the more radical, the doubts about the security ties to
the United States were transformed into a component of a gen-
eral "anti-imperialist" argument that conceived the relationship
between the United States and the Republic of the Philippines as
one of "exploitative victimization"—with the "international cap-
italism" emanating from the United States responsible for the
"neocolonial" underdevelopment, poverty, and oppression that
afflicted the islands. The security relations between the two
countries constituted only part of the machinery of exploita-
tion.27
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 75
What had originally begun with Senator Recto as a calculated
concern with Philippine national interests and a relatively simple
recommendation of independence in foreign and defense policy
had become, by the early 1970s, an acerbic anti-American ra-
tionale. Recto had argued that Philippine interests counseled
peace, and he urged caution in entering into security relations,
but he was equally prepared to recognize that if war proved
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inevitable in Asia, the Republic of the Philippines should be an


ally of the United States.28 By the early 1970s, however, much of
the opposition to the U.S. military presence in the Philippines
took on an entirely different character. In the view of the latter-
day Filipino opposition to the security relations with the United
States, not only is it in the interests of the Philippines to entertain
reservations concerning military ties with the United States, but,
in addition, the ties represent a modern form of "slavery" that
condemns Filipinos to poverty, malnutrition, cultural and politi-
cal oppression, and economic underdevelopment.29
As the Philippines entered into the martial law period with the
proclamation of a national emergency in 1972, many of those
politicians and intellectuals who opposed the "neocolonial" rela-
tionship between the Philippines and the United States gravi-
tated toward the anti-Marcos United Nationalist Democratic
Organization (UNIDO)—which was to become the largest non-
communist anti-Marcos organization in the archipelago. Thus
men whose views on the "exploitative" character of U.S. rela-
tions with the Philippines were very well known became ranking
members of UNIDO. Former Senators Jose Diokno and Lorenzo
Tanada gave expression to anti-American sentiments that be-
came increasingly representative of the pronouncements of the
nonradical opposition to Marcos.30 Both were advocates of the
abrogation of the Philippine-U.S. bases agreement and a termina-
tion of the bilateral security ties that made the island nation part
of the defense perimeter of the United States.
Ultimately, these ideas penetrated the ranks of UNIDO so
thoroughly that the demand for the "removal of all foreign
troops" from Philippine soil became part of the very constitution
and by-laws of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization
(article 2, section 2). Moreover, that demand arose among the
remaining nonradical anti-Marcos groups. In December 1984,
76 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
when a "unity platform" was forged in order to unite UNIDO
and the other major organizations opposed to President Ferdi-
nand Marcos, it contained the insistence that "foreign military
bases on Philippine territory must be removed" as one of its
planks.31
The meeting that produced the unity platform had been con-
vened by Corazon Aquino, Jaime Ongpin, and Lorenzo Tanada.
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The program incorporated in the platform, including the sever-


ance of security ties with the United States and the termination
of the Philippine-U.S. bases, was solemnly affirmed by Corazon
Aquino, now president of the Republic of the Philippines, as well
as every major leader in the noncommunist anti-Marcos opposi-
tion.
On the occasion of the articulation of the unity platform,
former Senator Salvador Laurel, now vice-president, prime min-
ister, and foreign minister of the Philippines, refused to sign. But
he had already committed himself to the abrogation of the Philip-
pine-U.S. bases agreement in May 1983.32
Thus, by the time the Philippines entered into the political
crisis of February 1986 that culminated in the collapse of the
Marcos administration, all the major figures of the noncom-
munist opposition had affirmed their principled opposition to the
Philippine-U.S. bases arrangement. For all that, the security sit-
uation in Southeast Asia had become so complicated that neither
U.S. nor Philippine interests could be captured in simple slogans
or appeals to "solemn principles."

The Security Environment


What the successor government in Manila must contend with are
massive changes in the general security situation in Southeast
Asia that followed the U.S. withdrawal from the conflict in Viet-
nam. The victory of the communist forces were followed quickly
by increasing friction between the People's Republic of China
(PRC) and its former client, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
By the end of the 1970s, the two countries were involved in
armed conflict.
In November 1978, immediately prior to the Sino-Vietnamese
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 77
war of 1979, Hanoi had entered into treaty relationship with
Moscow. With the Chinese attack, Hanoi requested and received
substantial Soviet military and economic aid. The Soviet Union
put substantial portions of its merchant and combatant fleets at
the disposal of Vietnam. Millions of tons of civilian and military
cargo were shipped to Vietnam from Eastern Europe. At the
same time, Soviet naval forces began to utilize the facilities built
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by the United States at Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War.
By 1983, the Soviet military presence in Southeast Asia had
become quite formidable. Anywhere from twenty to thirty Soviet
naval combatants now use Cam Ranh Bay on a regular basis. At
least four submarines, both conventionally and nuclear powered,
together with cruise-missile-capable cruisers and destroyers, use
the bases. They utilize the supplemented piers, the hardened
submarine pens, and the underground storage tanks. Two very
large floating drydocks have been moved into the bay, and mas-
sive electronic navigational and surveillance equipment now
functions in the area. The on-station vessels at Cam Ranh have
been supplemented by port calls from the Soviet aircraft carrier
Minsk, the 28,000-ton nuclear-powered missile-capable cruiser
Frunze, and the destroyers Osmotritelny and Strogy. The aircraft
carrier Novorossiysk has been transferred to the Soviet Pacific
Fleet as well, and it is available for service in Southeast Asia.
In Southeast Asia the Soviet Union has put together all the
necessary elements of a tactical naval warfare strategy: the abil-
ity to launch preemptive antiship and antisurface cruise-missile
strikes from aircraft and surface vessels and torpedo strikes
against Western alliance shipping and combatants—augmented
by land-based air cover and command and control capabilities,
as well as substantial amphibious potential.33 In April 1984, as
though to confirm the effectiveness of the buildup, a Soviet-
Vietnamese joint amphibious exercise was undertaken south of
Haiphong. Vietnamese landing ships and frigates were joined by
a Soviet naval infantry battalion transported by the amphibious
assault ship Aleksandr Nikoleyev, escorted by the Minsk and
other major Soviet combatants.34
At the end of 1983, Soviet forces in Vietnam were significantly
supplemented by ten nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-16 Badger me-
78 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
dium-range bombers. The 1,500-mile combat radius of the
Badger puts Soviet strike forces within range of the capitals of
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Phi-
lippines. The Badgers complement the force of Tupolev Tu-142
Bears, already on station in Vietnam, whose mission is long-
range reconnaissance and targeting for nuclear and conventional
missile attacks. These air assets are afforded land-based air cover
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in the form of a contingent of modern Mach 2 + MiG-25 Foxbat


air interceptors and fighters.
Not only has Cam Ranh become the largest overseas naval
base available to Soviet forces, but its facilities have also been
integrated into the battle plans of the Soviet forces in the Pacific.
In April 1985 units from the Southeast Asian bases participated
in Soviet naval exercises south of Okinawa in the Philippine
Sea.35 The Novorossiysk, one of three Soviet Kiev-class carriers,
was supported by three 10,000-ton .Kara-class missile cruisers, a
6,000-ton Kresta-class missile cruiser, and two Krivak-dass de-
stroyers. The exercise involved a satellite link for in-course mis-
sile targeting correction, the use of vertical-takeoff-and-landing
aircraft, and the employment of sophisticated electronic counter-
measures against Western alliance capabilities.
For the first time since the end of World War II, there is a
credible challenge to the Western alliance's control of the sea in
Southeast Asia. The Soviet Pacific Fleet is now the largest fleet in
the Soviet Navy, and its units can be redeployed readily to bases
in Vietnam where they threaten the critical sea-lanes and the
major choke points in the South China Sea and adjacent waters.
About 75 percent of Japan's total fossil fuel imports pass through
the Straits of Malacca, Lombok, and Ombai in Indonesian waters
and then follow the shipping lanes through the cluttered South
China Sea. Eighty percent of Singapore's oil imports, as well as
95 percent of South Korea's, 90 percent of Taiwan's, and 65
percent of the Philippines', pass through the same waters. Should
Soviet power become so overwhelming that U.S. counter-
capabilities are no longer conceived as sufficient to assure those
countries of secure passage, the East Asian allies of the anti-
Soviet confederation might well be neutralized.
In effect, the U.S. military presence in the Philippine Islands
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 79
has taken on special strategic significance over the past decade.
That much had been acknowledged by former President Marcos.
In renewing the bases agreement with the United States in 1983,
Marcos maintained that the arrangement between the Philip-
pines and the United States could not be abrogated "without
disrupting the present basis of international relations which has
certain strategic utility for the stability of [Southeast Asia] and,
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to a certain degree, of the whole world."36


It seems evident that the U.S. military presence in the region
serves to deter misadventure and provides some sense of se-
curity to the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN—Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore,
and the Philippines).37 Since 1980, the United States has sought
to restore confidence in American determination to offset grow-
ing Soviet capabilities in the region. The "swing strategy," for
instance, which anticipated sending Seventh Fleet elements to
Europe in the event of crisis there, has been abandoned. Wash-
ington's military planners have thereby confirmed Asia's impor-
tance in the strategic calculus of the United States. In that
context, the bilateral security ties between the Philippines and
the United States have taken on a significance they have never
had before.

The Philippine Stake in the U.S. Military Presence


The Marcos administration's support for the security treaty and
the bases agreement with the United States emanated largely
from a recognition of their international importance in sustaining
regional and global peace, but the Philippine-U.S. security rela-
tion serves specifically Philippine interests as well. As a case in
point, since 1956 the Republic of the Philippines has been in-
volved in a potential territorial dispute over the sovereignty of
some of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.38 Almost
simultaneously with the expression of Philippine interest, coun-
terclaims to the islands were advanced by the Republic of China
on Taiwan, the Republic of Vietnam, the People's Republic of
China, and France. Even the Netherlands seemed prepared to
enter its own claim to the region.
80 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
Since that time, the Chinese on Taiwan have established a
garrison on the island of Itu Aba (T'ai-p'ing tao), Beijing has
pointedly included all the Spratlys in its official Declaration on
the Territorial Sea, and the communist government of Hanoi has
announced that the islands are part of "the inalienable territory
of the Fatherland."
In April 1972 the islands in the Spratlys claimed by the re-
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public of the Philippines were officially designated part of Pal-


awan Province. Seismic and aeromagnetic surveys were begun,
and test drilling was undertaken about 100 miles east of the
islands. Since that time oil in commercial quantities has been
produced by wells on the Reed Bank and in the Nido complex on
the continental shelf off Palawan.39
Throughout this period the conflicting territorial claims in the
region have continued to generate friction. Finally, in January
1974, the armed forces of the PRC undertook an amphibious
invasion of the Paracel Islands in order to establish Beijing's
sovereignty over them in a territorial dispute very much like that
involving the Spratlys. In fact, had the forces of the PRC been
able to project land-based air cover over the Spratlys from
Hainan, there is little doubt that Beijing would have made an
effort to seize them as well.
The PRC has been very insistent about the inalienability of its
sovereignty over the islands in the South China Sea "tem-
porarily" lost to the "Motherland." The Spratlys are prominent
among them. They have appeared as "sovereign Chinese territo-
ries" on every map produced in the PRC since 1949. Although
Beijing has announced its readiness to "negotiate" with Manila
concerning the "final disposition" of the islands, in April 1983
the prime minister of the Philippines felt called upon to warn all
claimants that any attempt to seize those islands in the Spratlys
under Philippine jurisdiction would be "considered an assault
against the Republic of the Philippines."40 In May 1984, Beijing
in turn dispatched a naval squadron to conduct exercises near
the islands, eight of which remain garrisoned by Filipino troops.
For its part, Hanoi has reasserted its own claim to the Spratlys.
Hanoi radio recently exhorted the Vietnamese to be prepared to
"consolidate the Spratly archipelago into a stalwart steel fortress
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 81
to defend the Fatherland's sovereignty."41 Since the claims of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam are now supported by Soviet arms,
they are not to be taken lightly.
As the armed forces of the PRC have increased their ability to
project themselves over the extent of the South China Sea, and as
Soviet aircraft and vessels have become increasingly com-
monplace throughout the region, the potential for conflict has
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risen dramatically. In the Tonkin Gulf both Vietnam and the PRC
have conflicting claims. In the Gulf of Thailand, Thai maritime
claims conflict with those of Vietnam and Kampuchea. Indonesia
occupies the Natuna Islands, but its exclusive economic zone
overlaps with that of Vietnam and the PRC, and the farthest
claims of Beijing in the South China Sea overlap with those of
Brunei. It seems evident that in such an environment the pres-
ence of U.S. forces reduces the risk of conflict. The Soviet Union
has shown itself to be risk averse, and the PRC has been loath to
commit major military equipment to any undertaking that threat-
ens heavy losses. Given Philippine involvement in an environ-
ment as hazardous as that of the South China Sea, the presence
of U.S. air and naval forces has much to recommend it as a
deterrent to misadventure in the region.
The prevailing realities of the situation in Southeast Asia could
hardly fail to impress thinking Filipinos. Thus Salvador Laurel's
decision to support the demand for immediate abrogation of the
Philippine-U.S. bases agreement42 began to sound more than a
little quaint. The entire notion that there should be a loosening of
security ties to the United States sounded more like pique than
international statesmanship.
By the beginning of 1986, however, it was difficult to see how
the nonradical anti-Marcos opposition in the Philippines could
back away from the explicit commitments it had made con-
cerning the abrogation of the Philippine-U.S. bases agreement43
without sacrificing much of their political credibility. By the time
of the fateful election campaign of February 1986, many of the
principal leaders of the anti-Marcos opposition had burdened
themselves with postures in terms of Philippine-U.S. security
relations that were almost indistinguishable from those of the
radical left.44
82 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
The first response made by the leaders of the noncommunist
anti-Marcos opposition when faced with the actual prospect of
accession to power was to disclaim their publicly affirmed com-
mitments. Early in the course of the presidential campaign, for
example, both Salvador Laurel and Corazon Aquino attempted
to vacate their "sacred" pledges to see "foreign troops" expelled
from the Philippine Islands and "security ties with foreign
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powers" abandoned. At first, they appeared to be following the


counsel of their more "Machiavellian" political advisers. In order
to preempt U.S. resistence, the "moderates" had been counseled
by their advisers to "forego, at least tactically, radical orienta-
tions."45 The strategy was to "get rid of Marcos" first, "before
tackling the Americans."46
It appears that all this posturing was overtaken by events. One
of the key factors that lead to the collapse of the Marcos govern-
ment was the defection of two critical members of the Marcos
military and security establishment: Minister of National De-
fense Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel Ramos. With their
defection they drew off sufficient force to render Marcos no
longer capable of governing the Philippines. To the now tri-
umphant anti-Marcos opposition they brought not only political
victory but an abiding belief in the importance for the Philippines
of the security ties with the United States. The viability of the
armed forces of the Philippines is predicated on the security
relationship with the United States. General Ramos, a graduate
of West Point, has long been favored by the U.S. Department of
State and major representatives of the U.S. military as a profes-
sional who could restore the integrity and combat readiness of
Filipino forces.
With the entry of Juan Ponce Enrile into the cabinet of the
Aquino administration and Ramos' accession to the post of chief
of staff of the armed forces of the Philippines, all talk of abrogat-
ing the Philippine-U.S. bases agreement and severing security
ties with the United States takes on a totally unreal quality. As
irreplaceable members of the Aquino administration, both men
will be in a critical position to shape security and defense policy.
Should Enrile and Ramos prove capable of maintaining their
positions in the new government, U.S. security interests should
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 83
be insulated from the demands made by the left-wing radicals so
abundant in the Manila environs and so prominent in the ranks of
the anti-Marcos nonradical opposition. Both will argue that the
Philippine-U.S. security relationship enhances the security of the
Philippines, ASEAN, and the international community as well.

Washington and Its Relationship with Manila


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Given the role played by the Republic of the Philippines in the


international and regional balance of power, its stability has been
a matter of critical concern to policymakers in Washington.
Unfortunately, this critical concern has not always been trans-
lated into coherent and effective policy.
Since the turn of the century, Americans have been keenly
aware of the strategic importance of the Philippine Islands—and
yet, in the interwar years, funds for the adequate defense of the
islands were not forthcoming. Filipinos bore the tragic con-
sequences. However compelling the arguments of Alfred Mahan
or Homer Lea, however convinced the military might have been
concerning the importance of the archipelago to U.S. and world
interests, it was painfully evident to Filipinos that the Congress
of the United States responded to other priorities.
In the present circumstances, every agency of the United
States government has made clear that there is no reasonable
substitute for the U.S. military bases in the Philippines.47 Every
political, financial, logistical, and strategic calculation confirms
as much. Neither Alfred Mahan nor Homer Lea made arguments
more compelling than those now acknowledged as true by every
competent strategist and military planner in the United States.48
For all that, Filipinos have always felt that the United States has
never been prepared to translate that acknowledgement into the
kinds of security and aid commitments undertaken with other
nations. The U.S. bases in the Philippines are the largest U.S.
bases outside the continental United States. And yet the United
States has negotiated agreements with Spain and Turkey, for
example, that have involved more compensation than the Philip-
pines ever received for the U.S. use of the bases on its soil.
Filipinos have been prepared to accept something less than gen-
84 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
erous compensation for the use of the bases on Philippine soil
simply because many of them have understood the security
relationship between themselves and the United States to be
something of a partnership with benefits accruing not only to the
United States but to the islands as well. Nonetheless, the Amer-
ican attitude has been somewhat cavalier, with an evident dis-
regard of Filipino sensibilities.
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The Philippines has now entered into an extremely critical


period of its national life. For the foreseeable future, the island
republic will suffer only marginal economic growth while popula-
tion continues to expand at one of the highest rates in East Asia.
Governmental institutions have been impaired by a protracted
political conflict that culminated in a total collapse of what had
been a well-ensconced and durable administration. Reconstruc-
tion of the political system will try the competence and initiative
of an administration composed of many untried leaders, doc-
trinaire enthusiasts, survivors of the pre-martial-law system, and
former functionaries of the Marcos regime. To accomplish the
tasks before it, such a government will require massive moral and
material assistance from the United States.
Unless the new government of the Philippines can meet the
current challenge, the more radical members of the now tri-
umphant anti-Marcos movement might prevail—and the latent
anti-Americanism so prominent in the posturing of that move-
ment during its long years of struggle could influence policy. It is
in the best interests of the United States (and all those Asian
countries dependent upon the United States for their security)
that the present government of the Philippines be successful in
its enterprise and that it constitute itself as an administration of
"national unity." As such, it will be able to attract and utilize the
best talent available among the functionaries of the Marcos ad-
ministration. Defense Minister Enrile and Chief of Staff Ramos
would only be two such functionaries among many. Such persons
would provide for continuity and increase the prospects of sta-
bility. They would deflate a great deal of the rhetoric that
prompted misgivings among Americans.
There can be no question that such a government of "national
unity" will be exposed to enormous cross pressures. There will
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 85
be many in the anti-Marcos camp who will object to the presence
of functionaries who served in the Marcos administration. Their
objections will be couched in the familiar hyperbole common to
the literature produced during the long years of struggle against
Ferdinand Marcos. To many, their objections will appear per-
suasive.
If it is in the best interests of the United States that a govern-
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ment that involves the most credible members of the former


administration survive and prosper, it is essential that a policy of
substantial support be formulated and implemented as soon as
possible. The new provisional government will enjoy the cred-
ibility generally accorded new starts. It is conceivable that for-
eign investors will once again be attracted by the potentialities of
the Philippines. With more adequate funding and the professional
leadership provided by General Ramos, the military could em-
bark on more effective anti-insurgency efforts during the difficult
interim period before the economy begins to evince positive
growth.
With luck and a great deal of U.S. support, it is conceivable
that a government of national unity under the leadership of
Corazon Aquino might be able to survive the next few months
and perhaps the next few years. The situation is very volatile, and
the risks are many. But the Philippines are so important to the
strategic interests of the United States and the anti-Soviet na-
tions of the world that a positive policy of moral and material
assistance to the islands recommends itself. To do anything less
could well constitute a failure of policy as monumental as that
which exposed the Philippines and all of Southeast Asia to the
horrors of Japanese aggression in the 1940s.
With the departure of Ferdinand Marcos, the major obstruc-
tion to the formulation and implementation of a coherent policy
for the Philippines has been removed. With the incorporation of
Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos into the successor govern-
ment, a great many of the reservations justly entertained by
Americans concerning the defense and security policies of an
Aquino administration have been reduced. For the time being,
the circumstances are more auspicious than either Americans or
Filipinos had any right to expect. It is equally evident that time is
86 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
of the essence. A failure of U.S. policy at this point in time could
be very expensive to the United States and its security partners
everywhere. Needless to say, that failure would be very costly for
the Philippine people as well.

Notes
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1. J. A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (Ann Arbor: University of


Michigan, 1967).
2. A. T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783
(1890; 15th ed., Boston: Little, Brown, 1898), pp. 39ff.
3. A. T. Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect: Studies in International
Relations Naval and Political (Boston: Little, Brown, 1902), p. 42; see
William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman: University of
Oklahoma, 1981), chap. 3.
4. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, pp. 33-34, and A. T. Mahan,
"Strategic Features of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico," The
Interest of America in Sea Power, Past and Present (London: Sampson
Low & Marston, 1898), pp. 271-314.
5. See James C. Thomson, Jr., Peter W. Stanley, and John Curtis
Perry, Sentimental Imperialists: The American Experience in East Asia
(New York: Harper & Row, 1981), chap. 8; and Mahan, Retrospect and
Prospect, p. 34.
6. An article by A. T. Mahan, "A Twentieth Century Outlook,"
appeared in Harper's Monthly in September 1897 in which he alluded to
the coming conflict between the "teeming multitudes of central and
northern Asia" and the "representatives of civilization."
7. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power, pp. 185-186.
8. A. T. Mahan, "The Philippines and the Future," The Independent,
52 (March 22, 1900), p. 698.
9. A. T. Mahan, "The Relations of the United States to Their New
Dependencies," Engineering Magazine, January 1899, reprinted in
Lessons of the War with Spain and Other Articles (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1899), pp. 245-246, 249.
10. For a brief biography of Lea, see John Clark Kimball, "Homer
Lea—Interloper on History," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 98, no.
4 (April 1972), pp. 62-67.
11. Homer Lea, The Valor of Ignorance (New York: Harper & Broth-
ers, 1909), pp. 194-195.
12. Ibid., pp. 251-254.
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 87

13. See Douglas MacArthur, Reminiscences (New York: McGraw-


Hill, 1964), pp. 123-124.
14. Ibid., pp. 102-103.
15. Ibid., p. 112.
16. Ibid., p. 244.
17. See the discussion in Mamerto S. Ventura, United States-Philip-
pine Cooperation and Cross-Purposes: Philippine Post-War Recovery
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and Reform (Quezon City: Filipiniana, 1974), pp. 7-9, notes 22 and 31;
see also the discussion, pp. 12, 13, 16, and 20.
18. Ibid., p. 42.
19. See The Philippines (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
State, Publication 5508, Far Eastern Series 66, 1954), p. 5.
20. Ventura, United States-Philippine Cooperation, p. 107.
21. See, for example, the discussion in David Bernstein, The Philip-
pine Story (New York: Farrar, Strauss, 1947), and the comments by
David Joel Steinberg, The Philippines: A Singular and Plural Place
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), p. 59.
22. See Emilio Aquinaldo and Vicente Pacis, A Second Look at
America (New York: Robert Spelier & Sons, 1957), pp. 227-229.
23. See the discussion in Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The United
States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism (Philadelphia:
Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1981), pp. 59-61.
24. See the discussion in Emerenciana Y. Arcellana, The Social and
Political Thought of Claw Mayo Recto (Manila: National Research
Council of the Philippines, 1981), chap. 4.
25. See the arguments in The Benitez Papers on Neutrality, edited by
Conchita Liboro de Benitez (Manila: de Benitez, 1972).
26. See the relative political pronouncements in Jose Veloso Abueva,
Filipino Politics, Nationalism and Emerging Ideologies: Background
for Constitution-Making (Manila: Modern Book, 1972), pp. 143, 162-
163, 169-170.
27. Characteristic expression of these arguments is found in Ale-
jandro Lichauco, The Lichauco Paper: Imperialism in the Philippines
(New York: Monthly Review, 1973).
28. Arcellana, Thought of Recto, p. 106.
29. Lichauco, Lichauco Paper, pp. 109-111.
30. See the sentiments expressed in The State of the Nation After
Three Years of Martial Law, September 21, 1975, edited by Jose Diokno
and Lorenzo Tafiada. (San Francisco: Civil Liberties Union of the
Philippines, 1976).
31. For the full text of the "unity platform" see Veritas (Manila),
88 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
January 6, 1985. For a more ample discussion of the positions enter-
tained by the "moderate" anti-Marcos opposition, see A. James
Gregor, Crisis in the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public
Policy Center, 1984), chap. 4.
32. William Branigin, "As Talks Approach, Philippine Opposition to
the U.S. Bases Grows," International Herald Tribune, May 5, 1983.
33. Richard D. Fisher, Jr., Moscow's Growing Muscle in Southeast
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Asia, Asian Studies Center Backgrounder (Washington, D.C.: Heritage


Foundation, April 4, 1984).
34. Richard D. Fisher, Jr., Brewing Conflict in the South China Sea,
Asian Studies Center Backgrounder (Washington, D.C.: Heritage
Foundation, October 25, 1984).
35. "Soviets Staged Mock Attack Against U.S. Navy," Washington
Times, April 19, 1985, p. 5A.
36. Ferdinand Marcos, "Genesis of RP-U.S. Relations," Bulletin
Today (Manila), June 2-3, 1983.
37. See Sheldon W. Simon, The ASEAN States and Regional Se-
curity (Stanford, Calif: Hoover Institution Press, 1982), pp. 137-139.
38. See an account of the claims in Marwyn S. Samuels, Contest for
the South China Sea (New York: Methuen, 1982), pp. 81-83.
39. Simeon G. Silverio, Jr., "Palawan Oil Discovery: The Big
Payoff," Asian Business Outlook, 4, no. 3 (March 1979), pp. 16-22.
40. Sheilah Ocampo-Kalfors, "Easing Toward Conflict," Far East-
ern Economic Review, April 28, 1983, p. 38.
41. Foreign Broadcast Information Service, Asia and Pacific, May 2,
1984, p. K14.
42. William Branigin, "Opposition to U.S. Bases in Philippines,"
San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 1983, p. F-5.
43. A. James Gregor, How the Marcos Opposition Challenges the
United States, Asian Studies Center Backgrounder (Washington, D.C.:
Heritage Foundation, July 2, 1985).
44. Leif Rosenberger, "Philippines Communism and the Soviet
Union," Survey, 29, no. 1 (Spring 1985), p. 142; see p. 131.
45. As quoted, Marites Danguilan-Vitug, "U.S. Seen Favoring Mili-
tary Coup," Business Day (Manila), January 30, 1985.
46. See Maximo Soliven, "Will Cardinal Sin Become the 'First Com-
munist Pope'?" Mr. & Mrs. (Manila), November 11, 1983, p. 22.
47. See Alvin J. Cottrell and Robert J. Hanks, The Military Utility of
the U.S. Facilities in the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown
University, 1980); Larry A. Niksch, Philippine Bases: How Important
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 89
to U.S. Interests in Asia? (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research
Service, August 1, 1980).
48. See, for example, A. James Gregor, The Key Role of U.S. Bases in
the Philippines, Asian Studies Center Backgrounder (Washington,
D.C.: Heritage Foundation, January 10, 1984); Herbert S. Malin,
"Myths and Realities About U.S. Bases in RP," Philippine Daily Ex-
press (Manila), March 27, 1983, p. 5.
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