By Tracy Cabrera
MANILA, Philippines — Amid increasing incursions by China’s coast guard and maritime militia in the West Philippine Sea (WPS), United States Navy Admiral Frank Bradley announced that American special forces are ready to step up drills in the Philippines to help deter aggression and maintain peace and stability in the region.
According to the head of the US Special Forces Command, plans have already been decided for the American military to conduct warfighting-readiness exercises with counterparts in the Philippines and other countries in Asia to further strengthen a security alliance and help deter a major conflict in the region.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first disclosed a plan to stage joint American-Philippine special forces operations training in Batanes when he visited Manila last year and said the Trump administration would work with allies to ramp up deterrence against threats across the world, including China’s aggression in the South China Sea (SCS).
Admiral Bradley is the latest American military top brass to visit key Asian allies in recent weeks to reassure them of Washington’s commitment to the region given the U.S. preoccupation with the war in Iran. He is in the country after a trip to South Korea before heading to Japan for talks with military officials.
Bradley’s command, which has about 80,000 personnel and is based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, undertakes the US military’s most sensitive and dangerous covert operations. The majority of his forces are deployed in more than 80 countries worldwide.
In his visit to Manila, the admiral discussed with his Filipino counterparts the Philippine military’s continuing effort to modernize, intensify combat exercises with America and other allies, and broaden an arc of security alliances to deter China’s escalating hostile actions.
China and smaller rival claimant states, including the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in tense territorial standoffs for decades in the disputed waters, but confrontations have particularly flared between Chinese and Philippine forces.
Washington has repeatedly warned of its obligation to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces come under an armed attack.
Anchoring efforts to deter conflict, Bradley cited the importance of having a cohesive alliance of countries, where each state invests in their defense and regularly stages joint combat-readiness drills to brace for contingencies.
“The best way to deter conflict is by being able to demonstrate convincingly to any adversary who may want to start a conflict that they won’t be able to win it,” he underscored during a media conference.
“Where we have strong alliance structures . . . conflict has not come to it. Together, we are stronger, and together, we can prevent those conflicts from coming to us,” he added.
In recent times, large-scale combat exercises between U.S. and Filipino forces have focused on the Philippines’ territorial defense in the South China Sea, and these have involved more allies and friendly nations such as Japan, Australia, Canada and France.
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