Bolder maritime security forged by Manila and Seoul for the Indo-Pacific region

In the latest round of the conference hosted by the Stratbase ADRi Institute, “Enhancing Indo-Pacific Security: Philippines-South Korea Cooperation Strategies” on Sept. 20, experts from the diplomatic and defense circles converged to critique the current security architecture in the expanded dynamic region. They aimed to expound on strategies in the geometry of relationships of distressed powers tossed by geopolitics and global defense postures of major and middle powers in the Indo-Pacific region.

While the hegemonic rivalry of “Chimerica” (China and the USA) manifested a chain of reaction in the community of competing neighbors in the region, rooted by the defining “lips and teeth” relations in the Korean Peninsula, Japan’s pacific activism in the Senkaku islands, the “tit for tat” dramaturgy in the South China Sea, and India’s effort to check China in Pakistan — these threat perceptions go beyond Russia’s protracted warfare in Ukraine and the “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” in Israel’s conflict with Gaza.

The changing regional alliance system challenges the hub-and-spoke model of constant territorial enlargement coursed through mini-lateral and multilateral approaches in building strategic trust among democratic states. This is where the nexus of calculated interests and collective deterrence are needed in the Indo-Pacific region, fueled by a common threat to elevate freedom of navigation at its highest standard contextualized in the process of maritime rules-based order.

The transformative balance of economic cooperation to maritime security paves the way for stronger bilateral relations between the Philippines and South Korea as the two democratic nations celebrate their 75 years of diplomatic ties. On March 11, the Philippine Senate recognized the enduring friendship and cooperation of Manila and Seoul. In the esteemed commendation formalized by the Senate Resolution No. 946, the Philippines commemorated Manila’s active role in the inter-Korean peace process and reconciliation efforts.

During the Korean War in 1950s, 7,440 Filipino soldiers served in the Republic of Korea to secure the battered peninsula. Seoul is reciprocating Manila’s benevolence by playing a key role in the ongoing modernization of the Philippines’ Armed Forces and becoming one of the country’s largest development partners. The two countries inked a free trade agreement on Sept. 7, 2023 for immediate ratification in South Korea.

Seoul geared up a trilateral pact with Tokyo and Washington on Aug. 18, 2023 in pursuit of the Camp David principles. For its part, Manila has replicated the same mini-lateral template to propel its existing three-sided defense and trade cooperation with Japan and the US which was announced on April 11. This was meant to fortify America’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific region that is connected, prosperous, secure, inclusive, and resilient. But these trilateral pacts will have to evolve into a Northeast Asian quadrilateral arrangement for Japan-Philippines-South Korea-US cooperation amid unpredictability in the upcoming US elections.

South Korea stands as a quasi-island and a product of the Cold War still threatened by North Korea’s massive stock of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Nonetheless, the support it gives to the Philippines to make concrete a grounded self-reliance defense posture, to develop a maiden industrial base in support of maintenance and operations of its procured expensive defense weapon systems and re-engineered military materiel, would grow enough to sustain our two countries’ strategic partnership and defense economics.

Given Manila’s burden of sharing due to its own inherent vulnerabilities in the West Philippine Sea, joint military training and maritime exercises for interoperability are endorsed to unburden like-minded nations on its own external defense. Seoul can offer its stencil for advanced research and development, intelligence gathering and information sharing, and capability building in the dawn of artificial intelligence to the Philippines, aside from South Korea’s advantages in blue ocean economy and coast guard diplomacy.

The rise of new technologies, such as autonomous vehicles and cyber warfare, will certainly create new challenges for maritime security and law enforcement in the region. The physical realities of geography in the Indo-Pacific region can generate acceptable strategic trust to solve specific problems despite constancy of dialogue and diplomacy. This is where the Philippines and South Korea are seen as capacity builders to deter proxy wars and conflicts in the tense region.

By elevating Seoul as Manila’s newest strategic partner, there will be a push for strategic intent to craft a defense deal, similar to Japan’s Reciprocal Access Agreement (that needs to be ratified yet in Tokyo), or perhaps France’s prerogative to sign a Visiting Forces Agreement to join its western allies, in the same league of Canberra and Washington that enjoy military agreements with the Philippines. Recently, Hanoi forged a Defense Cooperation Agreement with Manila to secure a stronger voice for rule-based norms in Southeast Asia.

Through the proposed establishment of Indo-Pacific mini-lateral cooperation, Manila and Seoul can become solution providers to unravel small regional risks and insecurities with greater impact on global security. At the same time, they can strengthen successful regional trilateral cooperation to further develop the mini-lateral mechanisms as exemplified in the intensified Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines tri-border patrols of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seas. As no conflict can be isolated for itself, there should be goal congruence and dynamic equilibrium for like-minded nations in preserving the new arsenal of democratic values. We need this to increase the appreciation of maritime rules-based order amid changing leaderships in the Indo-Pacific region.

 

Dr. Chester B. Cabalza is a non-resident fellow of the Stratbase ADRi. He is the founding president of the International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC) and teaches in the graduate school at the University of the Philippines, Diliman (UPD).