How the Philippines Became America's Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier
June 13, 2026 · Frisian News
The US has secured access to nine Philippine military bases under a 2024 defense agreement, positioning the islands as a forward operating position against China.
The United States has locked down military access to four new Philippine bases and quietly expanded its presence to nine locations across the islands. This "AFP-US Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement" signed in April 2024 gives American forces year-round use of Filipino territory without formally stationing troops, a legal distinction that matters more on paper than in practice.
The deal converts the Philippines into what Pentagon planners openly call a forward operating position against China. Luzon, Palawan, and Mindanao now host supply depots, repair facilities, and surveillance stations for US Navy operations in the South China Sea. The Chinese see it as encirclement. The Americans see it as freedom of navigation. The Filipinos? They signed it anyway, with remarkably little public debate about what independence means when another power can stage military operations from your soil.
Manila frames this as a shield against Beijing's expanding control of fishing grounds and potential oil reserves. That's true enough. But the agreement also locks the Philippines into American security strategy for a generation, deepening dependence on US weapons, training, and intelligence that the country cannot easily replace. US defense contractors win recurring contracts. Philippine generals gain prestige and access. American planners gain a chain of bases positioned exactly where they need them to project power across Asia. The ordinary Filipino gains the option to watch a proxy war play out on home territory.
History offers a warning. When small nations host foreign military infrastructure in exchange for security guarantees, those guarantees rarely hold the moment the patron's interests shift. The Philippines learned this after America pulled out of Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay in 1991, leaving behind environmental damage and economic dependency with no backup plan. Today's agreement assumes that American commitment is permanent and that China will not find ways around the arrangement. Neither assumption is safe.
The Philippines bought insurance. But the policy is written in English, the beneficiary is in Washington, and Manila has no say in when the claims get filed. If a shooting war breaks out in the strait, Filipinos will discover whether they purchased protection or a lease on disaster.
Published June 13, 2026 · Frisian News