Renato Cruz De Castro*

During the 2022 presidential elections, most Filipino voters picked Mr. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as their 17th president. Upon assuming the presidency, he laid out his agenda for a balanced or middle-of-the-road foreign policy. He planned to generate practical benefits from the Philippines’ relations with the U.S. and China. He wanted to promote economic cooperation with China while, at the same time, reviving the Philippines’ security alliance with the U.S. He designed a foreign policy gambit with an apparent division of labor: a) on the one hand, Beijing providing Manila with the market for the Philippine exports and the public investments for the government’s infrastructure projects; and b) On the other hand, Washington extending security guarantee that could balance Manila’s close economic ties with Beijing, and deter Chinese coercive behavior in the South China Sea.

President Marcos’ initial agenda of seeking a balanced or middle-of-the-road strategy in managing the country’s relations between the U.S. and China reflected the foreign policy dilemma of every Philippine president since the beginning of the 21st century. This predicament required a striving for the elusive and delicate balance in managing the Philippines’ relations between its distant formal treaty ally, the U.S., and an expanding and aggressive power in the country’s backyard, China. From 2001 to 2009, then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo sought a balance by fostering a close security relationship with the United States to address the Philippines’ domestic security concerns. At the same time, she encouraged trade and investment ties with an economically emergent China. The Aquino Administration, however, disregarded the search for the elusive equilibrium in managing the country’s relations with China and the U.S. Confronted by an expansionist China at the Philippines’ maritime doorstep, the West Philippines/South China Sea, the Aquino Administration pursued a balancing policy toward this emergent northeast Asian regional power. During his six-year term, the Philippines challenged China's maritime expansion by relying on three primary instruments—force modernization, enhancing the country’s alliance with the US, and applying international law, specifically the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS).

President Aquino’s successor, Rodrigo Duterte, also overlooked the need to pursue the delicate equilibrium in Philippine relations with the U.S. and China. Instead, he adopted a policy of appeasement toward China. This policy was characterized by his open and direct contempt for the Philippine-U.S. alliance, his patronizing pronouncements on China, and his willingness to accept Beijing’s preferred methods of managing the South China Sea dispute, such as direct bilateral negotiations and joint development, were diametrically at odds with the conventional design and trajectory of 21st-century Philippine foreign policy on these critical issues. Nevertheless, four years into its six-year term, despite the short-lived Philippines-China rapprochement, the Duterte administration balanced Chinese maritime expansion and coercive behavior in the South China Sea by building up the AFP’s capabilities and by seeking greater clarity in the scope of American security obligations, as defined in the 1951 Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), from the Trump administration.

In December 2022, after months of pursuing a balanced relationship between the U.S. and China, President Marcos Jr. announced that his administration would bankroll the expensive Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) shift from its seven decades of focusing all its attention and resources on internal security to external/territorial defense. He made this decision in the face of Chinese coercive actions and expansionist activities against the Philippine Navy (PN), the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and ordinary Filipino fishermen.[1] China’s maritime expansion and coercive actions against the Philippines made President Marcos realize the AFP needed to transition from a military geared for mere constabulary functions to one configured for territorial defense. Consequently, he approved the funding and implementation of the revised AFP force modernization program, which entered its third horizon or phase from 2023 to 2028.

The Marcos Administration is cognizant that the AFP could never develop any strategic parity with China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) despite its substantial financial outlay to the program. This is why President Marcos found it expedient to prioritize the development of dynamic, vibrant, and close security relationships with the Philippines’ only formal treaty ally, the U.S. On February 2, 2023, Filipino and U.S. defense officials announced that U.S. forces would be allowed access to four additional Philippine military facilities under the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). These additional four EDCA sites would provide U.S. forces with a strategic vantage point from which they could launch rapid and decisive military operations in case of an armed confrontation between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, more than 250 miles north of Luzon or the South China Sea. [2]

President Marcos’ two strategic decisions, modernizing the AFP while enhancing the Philippine-U.S. alliance by allowing greater U.S. strategic access to Philippine territory, indicated the return of the Philippine policy of hard balancing towards China. This is reminiscent of the early part of the second decade of the 21st century, when the late President Aquino III pursued a policy of hard balancing that challenged China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea. However, the Marcos Administration’s renewed hard-balancing policy toward China is more comprehensive, systematic, expensive, and ambitious than the Aquino Administration’s. The Marcos administration’s renewed hard balancing policy entails building up the Philippine military’s external defense capabilities, enhancing its alliance with the U.S. by increasing American strategic presence in the Philippines, and fostering security arrangements with other American allies like South Korea, Japan, and Australia. And, more significantly, formulating and implementing the Philippines’ first grand strategy since it became an independent republic in 1946, the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC).

The Marcos Administration’s formulation and implementation of CADC resulted from two developments: a) China’s maritime expansion in the West Philippine/South China Sea; and b) the AFP’s push for force modernization. The Philippines is an archipelagic Southeast Asian state confronted by China’s expansion into its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea. This stems from China’s expansionist agenda in the South China Sea, based on its geographic proximity, historical baggage, the implications of the constantly changing dynamics of Chinese comprehensive power and naval power, and clout over maritime Southeast Asia. Secretary Teodoro points out that “the Philippine position on the West Philippine Sea is not a function of Sino-American strategic rivalry. Instead, it is caused by the overreach of the Chinese Communist Party, of which the most glaring evidence is the nine, ten, or eleven-dash line that has no basis in international law.”[3]

The AFP’s push for its force modernization program is another factor behind the Marcos Administration’s decision to formulate and implement CADC. This is premised on the Philippine military’s deep belief that the Philippines should build its defense capabilities in response to China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. From AFP’s perspective, Manila, no matter what the state of its relations with Beijing, should build its surface fleet combatants, improve its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, and construct more military facilities in the strategic border areas adjacent to vital sea lanes of communication.[4] The AFP is convinced that capability buildup should be part of the Philippines’ overall strategy vis-à-vis China.[5] The AFP’s push for force modernization is premised on an entrenched institutional view that capability-building should be part of the Philippines’ overall external policy toward an expansionist China. This gave the Philippine military a vested interest in a hard-balancing policy toward China.

In January 2024, Secretary Teodoro announced a new defense concept of the Philippines called the “Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CADC).”[6] The idea is premised on the assumption that, as an archipelagic country, the Philippines’ land security mass is limited while the population is increasing, causing the need for resources to expand exponentially. He admits, “…this is fundamentally important to the Philippines as a small archipelagic country because we have limited resources, we need international trade routes, we need the resources in our 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone to guarantee our food security and to guarantee our food security and energy security and to guarantee…”[7] CADC provides the following measures: a) transforming the country’s security paradigm; b) strengthening the AFP’s overall military capabilities; and c) leveraging its alliance with its ally, the U.S., and like-minded security partners.

As the Philippines’ first grand strategy, CADC envisioned the AFP projecting its capabilities into [maritime] areas of the Philippines that must be protected and preserved. Secretary Teodoro explains: “We have the Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept, where we will not be a land-centric defensive concept, but we must focus on deterrence to include areas in the EEZ. So that is a major change from internal security to territorial defense…”[8] This would require the Philippine military to boost its maritime domain awareness, connectivity, intelligence capabilities (C41STAR), and area denial and deterrence capabilities in the marine and aerial domains.[9] Secretary Teodoro declared, “CADC will allow the Philippines to address its ongoing maritime security challenges and enable the AFP to address contemporary threats to Philippine territorial integrity and sovereign rights.”[10] Furthermore, he adds, “CADC, which aims to broaden the depth and scope of defending the Philippines from attacks across all domains. This can be achieved by developing our defense capabilities and utilizing resources to build a credible deterrent posture or forward defense covering the country’s exclusive economic zone…”[11] He underscored that this defense concept is multidomain, multi-threat, and is aimed at enabling the AFP to develop a credible deterrent force to ensure that Philippine diplomacy does not become appeasement.[12]

According to the DND, the CADC aims to address the Philippines’ strategic vulnerabilities and enhance the AFP’s capability to address national interests through specific long-term plans. The AFP’s urgent need is to develop its Maritime Air Defense (MAD) Capabilities that should be directed and focused on the Philippines’ maritime and air domain, where the country has sovereign rights to exploration, extraction, and preservation of the aquamarine environment and resources accorded by international law.[13] An adequate and credible Philippine MAD expected to protect, defend, and secure against foreign intrusion, extraction, and exploitation, and to support law enforcement operations against transnational crimes within the country’s 200 nautical miles EEZ and 350 nautical miles continental shelf. Teodoro notes, “Our mission is obvious: to create a credible deterrent posture and defensive posture to build up our deterrent capabilities.”[14] CADC aims to project AFP’s capabilities up to the Philippines’ EEZ and expand the country’s strategic depth to enhance the defense of its archipelagic territory.[15] Secretary Teodoro explains this impact on Philippine defense policy: "We have the Comprehensive Defense Concept, where we will not be [operating] a land-centric defensive concept, we have to focus on deterrence to include areas in the EEZ. It is a major change internal security to territorial defense for the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”[16] The AFP can only implement the CADC through Joint Force Development, which entails the synergistic employment of naval, air, and ground forces to establish credible posture against aggression from foreign and domestic threats.[17] This would require the Philippine Army (PA) and the Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) to acquire short-range, more sophisticated, long-range interceptor missiles to intercept Chinese cruise missiles, advanced bombers, and fighter planes. The PA and PMC could also be armed with mobile launchers and airship cruise missiles to prevent Chinese control within and outside the Philippine archipelago. Ground forces can also be equipped with rocket-based torpedoes to deter submarines operating along the coast and within archipelagic waters. Philippine ground forces could also contribute to naval mine warfare. PA and PMC units could play a significant role in laying mines along vital Philippine straits that connect the South China Sea to the Pacific Ocean and within the archipelagic waters. By assuming greater responsibility for denying the PLAN and the PLAAF the air and sea control it needs to mount an effective naval operation along the Philippine coast and EEZs, ground troops could free the PN and PAF to perform the missions they can accomplish, such as maritime interdictions and air strikes against targets at sea.

Secretary Teodoro admitted that CADC’s implementation requires the AFP to increase its joint military activities with the Philippines’ only treaty ally, the U.S., and the country’s security partners such as Japan, Australia, and even South Korea. He acknowledged that the Philippines “will exercise these partnerships to the full, and it is within our unquestionable right to do so as a sovereign country.”[18] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Lieutenant General Brawner echoes the same policy direction when he said: “We also have to gain the support of our international allies, and partners, countries that are like-minded with us.”[19]

CADC recognizes and requires the urgency of strengthening the Philippines’ alliance with the U.S. and security partnerships with other American allies as vital to the AFP’s preparation for deterrence and even armed conflict. The Philippines is undertaking a major force modernization program and, more significantly, pursuing alliance formation and forming coalitions to constrain Chinese maritime expansion in the South China Sea. The Philippines needs to rely on its superpower ally and several security partners. This would enable the Philippines to leverage against China’s pervasive and preponderant economic and military power, which the Philippines, despite the AFP modernization program, cannot possibly match. The CADC enjoins the Philippines to allow greater American strategic access to its territory and, in the process, to link its force modernization in the arrangement. It is also imperative that the PN and the PCG conduct periodic Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activities (MMCA) with American, Japanese, and Australian naval forces to establish a defense posture securing the country’s maritime territories, particularly the EEZ.[20] Moreover, with American assistance, the CADC calls for the Philippines to integrate its battle networks and strengthen its air and sea capabilities to offset the PLA’s efforts to destabilize the region’s military balance.[21] This also requires the Philippines to host a rotational deployment of the Littoral U.S. Marine Corps Regiment equipped with drones, Naval Strike Missiles, and the U.S. Army’s mid-range Typhon Missile system in Northern Luzon. The two allies aim to develop their Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2/AD) posture to confine China’s growing power projection capabilities within the first-island chain.[22] Relying on its strategic location near Taiwan, the Philippines must leverage its alliance with the U.S. to maintain and enhance American integrated deterrence in the face of increasing Chinese military power in the Indo-Pacific region.[23] Secretary Teodoro pointed out Taiwan’s significance in Philippines-U.S. defense planning when he admitted, “For us, we will have to anticipate, naturally, reactions on both sides. And that probably is also the convergence that the One Theater brings, that we can share contingency planning on both sides of Taiwan to secure our areas.”[24]

During his first official visit to Manila in late March 2025, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth impressed upon his Philippine counterpart, Secretary Teodoro, the Trump Administration’s urgency in deterring China’s irredentist ambitions against Taiwan and other parts of the Indo-Pacific region. Secretary Hegseth observed that the Philippine-U.S. alliance reflects strength in the face of China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific and demonstrates a commitment to peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region. He then announced that Manila and Washington should work together toward reestablishing military deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region.[25] In his meeting with Secretary Teodoro, he negotiated with his Filipino counterpart to formulate a robust agenda for the Philippine-U.S. alliance to reestablish strategic deterrence and the realization of Peace through Strength in the Indo-Pacific region.[26]

The two allies agreed on the following measures aimed at developing the alliance’s extended deterrence, namely:[27] 1) Deployment of additional advanced and strategic American capabilities, including the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) into the Philippines; 2) Holding advanced bilateral Special Operations training in the most northern part of the Philippines near Taiwan, the Batanes Islands; 3) Publishing a bilateral defense industrial cooperation vision statement; and 4) Launching a bilateral cybersecurity campaign.

In 2022, President Marcos experimented with a middle-of-the-road approach in his foreign policy. He fostered closer economic ties with China while reviving the country’s alliance with the US. Unfortunately, internal and external factors complicated his plan to seek an equilibrium between the Philippines’ relations with China and the US. The Philippine government’s concern over growing Chinese coercive actions against AFP units and Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea and the public expectations of a strong government response make a balancing policy challenging for the Marcos administration to pursue. Unsettled by China’s expansion and aggressiveness in the South China Sea and around Taiwan, it strengthened its security ties with the US, financed the third horizon of the AFP modernization program, and implemented the CADC, the Philippines’ first grand strategy since it became an independent republic in 1946.

The Philippines’ adoption of CADC as a grand strategy in the face of China’s maritime expansion has two implications. On the one hand, the nine Southeast Asian states are pursuing cost-free diplomatic strategies such as leveraging, hedging, and compensating to avoid costly armed conflict. On the other hand, the Philippines is funding, re-equipping, modernizing, and fostering alliances and security partners to help prepare the AFP to be more agile, flexible, and responsive to better address emerging security challenges confronting the Philippines in a fluid and potentially dangerous Indo-Pacific region.