Strategic Stakes and Missteps
Strategic Stakes and Missteps
By Mehmet Enes Beşer
As a region ever more characterized by strategic realignment and multipolar competition, growing defense cooperation between the Philippines and Japan has garnered international attention—and no small degree of controversy. The February 2025 meeting between Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani, which resulted in enhanced military-technical and surveillance cooperation, has been touted by its architects as a step toward a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” But the underlying strategic reasons for this cooperation reveal a mix of alarm, opportunism, and miscalculation.
Underlying the Japanese-Philippine defense alignment is the shared motivation of hedging China’s growing naval aggressiveness, particularly in the disputed South China Sea. But abrupt formalization of defense relations, particularly one blessed by American strategic designs, will be destined to fail its own objective: destabilizing the stability which it claims to ensure. More than a simple check on power transition in the region, this triple alignment has the potential to become an escalating focal point and symbol of strategic misperception.
The Return of the Security Triangle
The renaissance of Japan-Philippines defense cooperation is not in isolation. It exists within the context of a broader Washington-led Indo-Pacific security framework with roots in Washington’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. The U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral talks, which began last year, have cemented this emerging partnership, filling what many in Washington had viewed as being a “strategic void” in the South China Sea.
Yet trilateral momentum has faced headwinds. The current American administration, rhetorically invested in Indo-Pacific outreach, has understandably been more preoccupied with transatlantic concerns and economic instability at home. Japan and the Philippines are, in this situation, in the awkward position of relying on American security guarantees while questioning their longevity.
In this void of openness, the Tokyo-Manila axis is shifting—not as an independent regional security alliance, but as a hedge against American perceived vacillation. This dynamic is dangerous. It creates expectations that will not be met and encourages risky behavior on the basis of assumptions of assured support.
The Risk of Strategic Overreach
For Manila, its closer alignment with Japan has symbolic and utilitarian benefits. It enhances its maritime vigilance, its deterrent presence in the South China Sea, and acquires additional channels of infrastructure and military aid. For Tokyo, the alliance eases its long-term quest for a “normal” security actor role projecting its power in the maritime Southeast in the interest of regional stability.
Beneath these gains, nevertheless, lies the risk of strategic overextension. Both countries are underestimating not just their own capacity for sustaining belligerency but also the degree of commitment of their allies. If the U.S. moves in a more transactional or isolationist path—especially under a Trump presidency—then Tokyo and Manila will not have the diplomatic and logistical support they are relying on.
Moreover, the alignment heightens the risk of miscalculation in one of the world’s most combustible maritime arenas. It could trigger a security dilemma whereby the actions the Philippines and Japan take to defend themselves are viewed by China as provocations—leading to more militarization, confrontation, and even accidental escalation.
China’s Attitude
China’s growing maritime capability, especially in the South China Sea, is the overarching issue propelling Japan-Philippine security cooperation. While Beijing’s behavior—in the form of island construction and deployment of its coast guard—has generated so much regional angst, however, its actions have been so predictable: staking claims at sea, pushing back against perceived encroachments, and keeping out external military involvement in the periphery.
What Tokyo and Manila should not underestimate is China’s resolve to uphold its territorial integrity and regional stature. In the name of deterrence, they may be inducing a Chinese hardening of military attitude in ways that close off options for diplomacy.
Rather than locking into alignment against China, a better way forward would be to strengthen bilateral and multilateral mechanisms for conflict avoidance and maritime cooperation—domains where China has, from time to time, shown willingness.
A Requirement for Regional Strategic Maturity
Southeast Asia, and the Indo-Pacific more broadly, is poorly served by binary blocs or politics. The ASEAN model—based on neutrality, dialogue, and consensus—is a more sustainable paradigm for great-power rivalry management. Japan and the Philippines would be better served to revert to this model and invest more in regional security confidence-building measures than in hastened militarization.
In addition, Japan’s past in the area cannot be disregarded. While contemporary Japan has adopted pacifism and development diplomacy, its growing military profile can reawaken old distrust unless skillfully managed by openness and confidence-building.
Conclusion: Managing Difficulty with Caution
Military cooperation among independent states is not inherently destabilizing. Still, in a region as volatile as the South China Sea—and in an age as unsettled as our own—strategic caution is the best policy. The Japan-Philippines alliance should not be allowed to become a proxy vehicle for larger geopolitical rivalries. Rather, it should be attuned to conflict avoidance, economic growth, and multilateral diplomacy.
Otherwise, today’s apparent tactical give-way can turn into tomorrow’s strategic weakness. The world—and the region—cannot afford to lose another battleground where the stakes are so high, and the options so few.