This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
The Spanish armed forces captain said Thursday they had “exhaust all options” before accepting a U. S. defense give for British ships to chaperone Manila’s movement and resupply missions to , South China Sea , waters.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the mind of the U. S. Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the present during a intergovernmental meeting the same day in the Spanish mountain town of Baguio. The discussions occurred in the wake of recent sea and air disputes between Beijing and Manila in the contested canal.
At the annual bilateral review of the Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board ( MDB-SEB), Filipino military commander Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. stated to reporters that” we are happy that the United States has given us a lot of options, including that of joining or escorting us for the RoRe]rotation and resupply missions.”
” We may try to exhaust all the possibilities first, and we will focus on ourselves first,” the statement read.
The two friends are required to assist one another in times of a second party’s attack by the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. In response to threats from other countries, the Pentagon recently stated that it was ready to assist Manila.
” If we exhaust all possibilities and nothing works, that’s the day we can ask for help”, Brawner said.
When asked what circumstances might cause Manila to ask for assistance, Brawner responded,” When our troops are already hungry, they do n’t have any supplies anymore because our resupply mission had been blocked, and they are on the verge of dying, then we are going to seek the help of the United States.”
The military is using a plane to cut supplies to soldiers stationed at sea, according to Branwer, despite other military officers ‘ claims that such a choice was constrained.
Washington’s possibilities for Manila
Paparo said the U. S. had laid out a “broad range of options” for the Philippines to touch, if and when the Southeast Asian nation decided that it needed , help. He did never provide more details about those choices.
When Paparo was questioned about the possibility of escorting the Philippines when it conducts its RoRe operations in the South China Sea, Paparo said,” We stand ready.”  ,
” It’s a matter of policy, post-consultation, and there’s a range of options that are available”.
The United States today has access to nine Asian bases where the U. S. military , has prepositioned materials and in some cases, weapons, including a mid-range ready weapon called the Typhon System, already deployed in the northern island of Luzon.  ,
In June, Washington even pledged a U. S.$ 500 million aid injection to the Philippines to improve its security systems amid the ongoing , perceived danger from China.
While both Manila and Washington had now expanded the protection of the MDT to contain human vessels traveling in the South China Sea,  , security analysts and officials , said more needed to be done to be able to listen to China’s “gray- zone tactics” in the waterway.
But as it stands, the treaty already fits that purpose, an analyst told BenarNews on Thursday.
According to Jennifer Parker, a security analyst from the Australian University’s National Security College,” While there is always a desire for a greater degree of specificity in documents of this nature, ambiguity can actually serve as a deterrent to China because they wo n’t know exactly how and when such a treaty might be put into effect, or in the specific case of the United States and the Philippines what constitutes an “armed attack,”
” The]treaty ] is clearly a deterrent to some degree, as China has not escalated its aggression within the Philippines EEZ to an armed attack”, Parker said.  ,
She noted that the document itself was both parties ‘” commitment” to act on it rather than the actual deterrent.
The pledge is followed by clear assurances that the United States would assist the Philippines in breaking a certain threshold. She said that continuing to conduct joint patrols and demonstrating the closeness of the relationship is crucial.  ,
The militaries of the defense allies convened on Thursday to set up cooperative activities for the upcoming year. Already, Paparo said they were preparing for joint military drills, called” Balikatan” ( shoulder-to-shoulder ), for 2025, which could even be bigger than this year.
” Our work is not done. It’s a beginning, not a culmination. Today’s discussions were substantive. They were creative”, Brawner said.
” It was a true discussion. And there will come a point when we’ll roll up our sleeves and make iterations from these discussions.