America’s plan to weaponize us can trigger war

THE Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) escalating America’s military deployment in our country with access to at least nine bases of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will continue beyond its initial 10-year period ending April 27 since there is no termination notice from the Philippines or the United States.

EDCA may even be extended to other allies, probably starting with Japan, after the summit that US President Joe Biden will host for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House on April 11 to form a “trilateral structure” for security in Asia.

So what’s ahead as EDCA weaponizes our country for possible war, primarily over Taiwan between China and America, backed by Japan, Australia, Britain and other allies? Former president Rodrigo Duterte summed it up a month after Marcos allowed the US to use nine AFP bases in February last year: They will be America’s “platforms for war” in Asia.

Thus, says Duterte, the following facilities would be the “multiple targets of Chinese missiles once war breaks out between China and the US:” Lal-lo Airport and Camilo Osias Naval Base in Cagayan; Camp Melchor de la Cruz in Isabela; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Cesar Basa Air Base in Pampanga; Antonio Bautista Air Base, near Puerto Princesa; Balabac Island, off southern Palawan; Benito Ebuen Air Base, near Cebu City; and Lumbia Air Base outside Cagayan de Oro City (https://tinyurl.com/bdefa49j).

The US missiles and bases strategy

Here’s what the US Indo-Pacific Command (IndoPacom) in Hawaii has in mind, according to a 2020 memorandum to Biden from top Washington think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS):

“IndoPacom hopes to disperse US forces, including marine and army units, along the first island chain running from Japan through Southeast Asia. In a contingency, these small, mobile teams would support US air and naval operations and hold Chinese vessels at risk with ground-based missile units. It is a sound strategy to counter China’s naval and missile advantages in its near waters.

“But the Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia that might realistically host such assets. So, these plans require saving the VFA (Visiting Forces Agreement) and implementing EDCA.” (https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-alliance-philippines)

What CSIS says about us being the only Southeast Asian nation “realistically” able to host US mobile rocket units also applies to air and naval forces for the US and other allies, as well as intermediate-range missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers — capable of hitting all of China and its surrounding seas.

In 2020 a US Air Force-commissioned study by RAND Corp., another top think tank, said US treaty allies Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand would not host those missiles (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA393-3.html). But that may now change with President Marcos implementing the EDCA stalled by Duterte.

No prizes for guessing why hardly any US allies would host the vast array of air, naval and missile forces Washington needs “to counter China’s naval and missile advantages in its near waters.” Those armaments and facilities would, of course, be attacked.

Thus, while former AFP chief and national defense officer in charge Carlito Galvez Jr. claimed that EDCA bases were “not a cause for concern,” a 2016 RAND study, “War with China: Thinking Through the Unthinkable,” warned that US aircraft carriers and air bases in Asia were priority targets of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) during and before hostilities (https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1140.html).

If the US Agile Combat Employment (ACE) strategy is followed, many more EDCA bases will proliferate across our archipelago. The ACE goal, explained US Air Force Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, commander of IndoPacom air assets, a month after Washington got access to the AFP bases, is “to have jets spread out over many, many islands [so as] to

make the targeting problem for the adversary more difficult — it makes them use more munitions” (https://tinyurl.com/yr72hr6x).

How badly would we be hit? Air and missile defenses being erected in Guam, about 3,000 km from China, will take two years to finish against such advanced armaments already deployed in Ukraine, from swarms of suicide drones to currently unstoppable hypersonic projectiles. EDCA bases and missile sites would be much, much closer to PLA installations and vessels, just 800 to 1,900 km from the Chinese coast, and well in range of many more weaponry.

With the Philippines playing such a crucial role in America’s war operations, probably hosting and servicing the bulk of allied armaments and logistics, we would naturally be the main PLA target and probably the first. Hitting us instead of the US and Japan also avoids provoking them to pulverize China.

Quite simply, we would be cannon fodder.

This is the colossal threat Marcos is bringing 110 million Filipinos at America’s behest, and no amount of foreign aid, investment, and praise can offset the death and devastation facing our beloved Philippines.

When could war erupt?

The other terrifying EDCA question, of course, is when? Expert views on when Beijing might invade Taiwan range from as early as the past decade, mooted in old reports, to 2025 and several years later.

The US Air Force general in charge of global military transport feared hostilities next year due to the fallout from this year’s Taiwan and American elections. Taiwan’s military also believes the PLA would be ready for invasion next year. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. John Aquilino sees a ready PLA in 2027. Worldwide security firm Global Guardian projects an invasion window from this year to 2027 (https://tinyurl.com/5nx4ef6c).

What may prod Beijing to attack sooner is, ironically, the very

US military buildup intended to deter invasion. It will likely not wait till the full EDCA rollout makes the precision-guided Taiwan invasion far more costly.

A year ago, CSIS forecast that the US would run out of precision-guided munitions in just a week of Taiwan fighting with no surge capacity to replace expended or destroyed armaments fast enough (https://tinyurl.com/35pha97t). Hence, Washington has unveiled a long-term plan to gear up its defense industries (https://www.businessdefense.gov/NDIS.html).

No prizes for guessing that the PLA will move before that US strategy gets going.