Renato Cruz De Castro
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 260986 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Renato Cruz De Castro |
| NOMBRES | Renato Cruz |
| APELLIDO | De Castro |
| FIRMA | DE CASTRO R C |
| AFILIACIONES | De La Salle University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6320-2940 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 53 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 87 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 53 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1995 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Quad and SQUAD
This article examines system‐ and unit‐level drivers that create a lattice work of Indo‐Pacific alliances and security partners. Consequently, these developments are leading to a multilateral security network that is comparable to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). It observes the emergence of an Asian‐style NATO in the Indo‐Pacific region, which is gradually replacing the Cold War‐era hub‐and‐spoke system of alliances. It argues that…
The Philippines’ hard-balancing policy against China’s expansion in the South China Sea
Examining Philippine defense policy from the Aquino to the Marcos Administration
Exploring the Philippines’ Evolving Grand Strategy in the Face of China's Maritime Expansion
This article explores the Philippines’ evolving and changing grand strategies in confronting China's maritime expansion in the South China Sea. From 2010 to 2016, under the Aquino administration, the Philippines challenged China's extensive claim over the disputed waters by adopting a hard-balancing approach. In 2016, the succeeding Duterte administration pursued an appeasement policy; in 2018, it shifted to a limited hard balancing policy becaus…
The Philippines in the face of the Ukraine–Russia War
Preventing the Philippines from Pivoting Toward China
The Philippines-U.S. Alliance and 21 st Century U.S. Grand strategy in the Indo-Pacific region
This article situates the Philippines-U.S. alliance within the changing U.S. grand strategies from Barrack Obama’s rebalancing to Asia to President Joe Biden’s continuance of the Trump Administration’s strategic competition with China. Upon President Obama’s announcement of the rebalancing policy in 2011, the Philippines already figured prominently in the American security agenda in Asia, particularly with the intensification of the Philippines-C…
Caught Between Appeasement and Limited Hard Balancing
After five years of pursuing a policy of appeasement towards China, the Philippines is incrementally and reluctantly shifting to “limited hard balancing.” The goal is to constrain China's revisionist agenda in the South China Sea. This strategy entails building up the Philippine military's territorial defence capabilities, maintaining its alliance with the U.S., and forging security partnerships with other middle power like South Korean, Japan, a…
Exploring the factors behind the persistence of the Philippine-U.S. alliance
This article examines how the Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT) between the U.S. and the Philippines became the cornerstone of the two countries’ alliance. When the American forces withdrew from their bases in 1992 after the Philippine Senate (by a vote of 12 to 11) rejected the extension of the bases’ stay, the MDT has since served as the fallback basis of the Philippine-U.S. security relationship. However, the MDT does not spell out t…
From appeasement to soft balancing
ARTICLEThis article examines the shift in Philippine policy on China under the Duterte Administration from appeasement to soft balancing. After his election in mid-2016, President Rodrigo Duterte adopted an appeasement policy vis-à-vis China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea. However, China has not fulfilled its end of the bargain. It failed to inject public investment into the Philippines’ massive infrastructure-building progr…
The Philippines’ responses to Chinese gray zone operations triggered by the 2021 passage of China’s New Coast Guard Law and the Whitsun Reef standoff
This article scrutinizes the Philippines’ strong reactions to the Chinese gray zone operations in the South China Sea, particularly during the Whitsun Reef stand-off in March 2021. Despite the Duterte Administration’s appeasement policy toward China, these gray zone operations have remained unabated since 2016. They were exacerbated by the passage of the China Coast Guard (CCG) law in January 2021. Initially, Philippine officials downplayed these…
Preventing the Philippines from pivoting toward China
Shortly after becoming the Philippines’ 16th president in mid-2016, Rodrigo Roa Duterte had unraveled his predecessor's agenda of standing up to China's expansive claims in the South China Sea. He distanced his country from its long-time treaty ally and gravitated toward China which is resolute in reconfiguring the global commons in the Asia-Pacific region. He also set aside the 2016 UNCLOS decision on the South China Sea dispute favorable to the…
Under the shadow of the giants
This article examines how the ASEAN is managing the quintessential security challenges of the 21st century, particularly China’s emergence as a regional power, its expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea, and the US–China strategic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific region. As an organization tackling these security concerns, the ASEAN lacks the essential mechanism for conflict resolution, operates through informal diplomacy and moral suasion…
The Limits of Intergovernmentalism
Focusing on the Philippines’ changing foreign policy agendas on the South China Sea dispute, this article examines the limitations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) intergovernmental approach in addressing security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. It contends that former President Benigno Aquino III tried to harness this regional organisation in his balancing policy vis-à-vis China’s maritime expansion in the South Chin…
Abstract of crisis in Philippine-U.S. security relations
This article explores the prospect of transforming the Philippine-U.S. alliance into a security partnership. In the past, the Philippines doubted the U.S.’s often-repeated commitment to assist its ally because the 1951 Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT) merely stipulated consultation rather than an automatic armed response in case of an armed conflict. In mid-2011, the Aquino Administration asked for an unequivocal U.S. guarantee to defe…
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Duterte Administration’s Appeasement Policy
The Obama Administration's Strategic Rebalancing to Asia
From 2011 to 2016, then US President Barack Obama vigorously pursued the policy of strategic rebalancing to Asia. The policy's underlying goal was to prevent China from becoming the dominant power in the Asia–Pacific region. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's efforts were thwarted by the strategy's lack of a deterrence component, distracting shifts and crises in certain parts of the world, and the failure of the US Congress to pass the Tra…
Explaining the Duterte Administration’s Appeasement Policy on China
This article examines the reason behind the dramatic shift in Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte Administration. His predecessor, president Benigno Aquino, vigorously challenged China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea throughout his six-year term. However, president Rodrigo Duterte’s actions and pronouncements are undoing the former president’s geopolitical agenda of balancing China’s expansion in the disputed waters. …
St Century Japan–Philippines Strategic Partnership
The Philippines and Japan have evolved a security partnership in the face of China's maritime expansion in the South and East China Seas. The two countries pursue this security partnership through regular bilateral consultations among Philippine and Japanese heads of states, political leaders, defense ministry officials, and high-ranking military officers; joint naval exercises; and exploratory discussions for arms transfers and negotiations for …
Developing a Credible Defense Posture for the Philippines
Since 2011, the Aquino administration has bolstered the development of a credible external defense posture of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the face of China's territorial expansion in the South China Sea. This move entailed the upgrading of the Philippine Navy's and the Philippine Air Force's capabilities for maritime domain awareness and naval interdiction. The Aquino administration also anchored its strategic agenda on the 60‐ye…
The Duterte Administration's Foreign Policy
From 2010 to 2016, then-President Benigno Aquino balanced China's expansive maritime claim in the South China Sea. President Aquino challenged China by shifting the AFP's focus from domestic security to territorial defence, bolstering closer Philippine–US security relations, acquiring American military equipment, seeking from Washington an explicit security guarantee under the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT), and promoting a strategic partnershi…
The Philippines Discovers its Maritime Domain
With China’s naval expansion in the South China Sea, the Philippine government has eased up its counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism campaign and has vigorously pursued instead the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) particularly in developing the deterrence capability of the Philippine Navy (PN). However, slow-paced and hampered by scant resources, the naval build-up will hardly deter China’s encroachment on the Philippine…
The Strategic Balance in East Asia and the Small Powers
How does a small power respond and adjust to a fluid and potentially dangerous strategic balancing by major powers generated by a territorial dispute? This paper observes that notwithstanding the major powers’ mistrust, suspicion, and rivalry, such precarious stability in the South China Sea dispute is sustained by a balance‐of‐power system. This system is an offshoot of the small littoral states’ (in this case, the Philippines’) policy of engagi…
Twenty‐First Century Philippines’ Policy Toward an Emergent China
This article examines the Philippines’ two approaches to China's emergence as a power. The first is the Philippines’ strategy of equi‐balancing the United States and China in the early years of the 21st century. During this period, the country revived and strengthened its security arrangements with the United States while at the same time, it obtained economic and politico‐diplomatic concessions from East Asia's emergent power, China. The second …
Linking Spokes Together
This article examines the P hilippines' strategy of external balancing against an aggressive C hina as it intensifies its security ties with the U nited S tates, its only strategic and long‐standing ally. This course of action aims to strengthen the country's defense relations with the U nited S tates, particularly in developing the territorial defense capabilities of the A rmed F orces of the P hilippines. In this process, the P hilippines finds…
The Revitalized philippine-u.s. Security Relations
This article contends that the Philippine-U.S. post-9/11 security relationship is characterized by temporary and limited American troop deployment aimed at developing the Armed Forces of the Philippines' counterterrorism capability and fostering interoperability between the Philippine and American armed forces. The article concludes that the post-9/11 alliance is significantly different from the two countries' security relationship during the Col…
The Duterte Administration's Foreign Policy
From 2010 to 2016, then-President Benigno Aquino balanced China's expansive maritime claim in the South China Sea. President Aquino challenged China by shifting the AFP's focus from domestic security to territorial defence, bolstering closer Philippine–US security relations, acquiring American military equipment, seeking from Washington an explicit security guarantee under the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT), and promoting a strategic partnershi…
Twenty‐First Century Philippines’ Policy Toward an Emergent China
This article examines the Philippines’ two approaches to China's emergence as a power. The first is the Philippines’ strategy of equi‐balancing the United States and China in the early years of the 21st century. During this period, the country revived and strengthened its security arrangements with the United States while at the same time, it obtained economic and politico‐diplomatic concessions from East Asia's emergent power, China. The second …
Engaging both the Eagle and the Dragon
The article examines the limits and challenges small powers face when they adjust to systemic changes. Specifically, this article discusses the Philippines' conduct of a diplomatic strategy of equi‐balancing between the USA and China. In this strategy, the Philippines enhances and deepens its security relations with its strategic ally, the USA and at the same time, obtains economic assistance and politico‐diplomatic concessions from East Asia's e…
Caught Between Appeasement and Limited Hard Balancing
After five years of pursuing a policy of appeasement towards China, the Philippines is incrementally and reluctantly shifting to “limited hard balancing.” The goal is to constrain China's revisionist agenda in the South China Sea. This strategy entails building up the Philippine military's territorial defence capabilities, maintaining its alliance with the U.S., and forging security partnerships with other middle power like South Korean, Japan, a…
The Philippines’ responses to Chinese gray zone operations triggered by the 2021 passage of China’s New Coast Guard Law and the Whitsun Reef standoff
This article scrutinizes the Philippines’ strong reactions to the Chinese gray zone operations in the South China Sea, particularly during the Whitsun Reef stand-off in March 2021. Despite the Duterte Administration’s appeasement policy toward China, these gray zone operations have remained unabated since 2016. They were exacerbated by the passage of the China Coast Guard (CCG) law in January 2021. Initially, Philippine officials downplayed these…
Abstract of crisis in Philippine-U.S. security relations
This article explores the prospect of transforming the Philippine-U.S. alliance into a security partnership. In the past, the Philippines doubted the U.S.’s often-repeated commitment to assist its ally because the 1951 Philippine-U.S. Mutual Defence Treaty (MDT) merely stipulated consultation rather than an automatic armed response in case of an armed conflict. In mid-2011, the Aquino Administration asked for an unequivocal U.S. guarantee to defe…
The Philippines in 2011
Early this year, a majority of Filipinos indicated in a national survey that they are not sure if Benigno Aquino, III, will succeed or fail in his presidency. This uncertainty stems from his unconventional style of governance and the gravity of the domestic and international problems he faces. Moreover, his style of governance is generally perceived by the Filipinos as reactive and lackluster—a fact attributed to his first year in office, a diffi…
The twenty-first century Armed Forces of the Philippines
This article examines the factors that account for the Armed Forces of the Philippines's (AFP) never-ending involvement in many wars of the third kind. It discusses the essence of counter-insurgency warfare or low-intensity conflict in the Philippine setting. The article then notes that the disruption in the US military assistance after 1992, the AFP's inability to modernize, and its continuous campaign against communist and secessionist insurgen…
Exploring the Philippines’ Evolving Grand Strategy in the Face of China's Maritime Expansion
This article explores the Philippines’ evolving and changing grand strategies in confronting China's maritime expansion in the South China Sea. From 2010 to 2016, under the Aquino administration, the Philippines challenged China's extensive claim over the disputed waters by adopting a hard-balancing approach. In 2016, the succeeding Duterte administration pursued an appeasement policy; in 2018, it shifted to a limited hard balancing policy becaus…
Weakness and Gambits in Philippine Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century
In November 2001, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made an ambitious foreign policy pronouncement entitled Eight Realities of Philippine Foreign Policy.1 The policy statement highlights the government's objectives to contain domestic and international terrorism and address the country's underdevelopment by enhancing its economic competitiveness in the global market. It also contains bold diplomatic gambits such as balancing the major powers (Uni…
The US-Philippine Alliance
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 31, Number 3, December 2009
Philippine Defense Policy in the 21st Century
a result of the Philippine Senate's decision not to ratify a new base treaty on September 16, 1991, the United States withdrew its forces from the Philippines in November 1992. This event heralded Manila's attempts to discontinue its alliance-based defense policy and forge an independent defense capability. The Philippine government announced its plan to modernize its armed forces through the acquisition of modern aircraft, fast-attack crafts, re…
From appeasement to soft balancing
ARTICLEThis article examines the shift in Philippine policy on China under the Duterte Administration from appeasement to soft balancing. After his election in mid-2016, President Rodrigo Duterte adopted an appeasement policy vis-à-vis China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea. However, China has not fulfilled its end of the bargain. It failed to inject public investment into the Philippines’ massive infrastructure-building progr…
Explaining the Duterte Administration’s Appeasement Policy on China
This article examines the reason behind the dramatic shift in Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte Administration. His predecessor, president Benigno Aquino, vigorously challenged China’s expansive territorial claim in the South China Sea throughout his six-year term. However, president Rodrigo Duterte’s actions and pronouncements are undoing the former president’s geopolitical agenda of balancing China’s expansion in the disputed waters. …
Philippine Strategic Culture
Philippine strategic culture has traditionally been characterized by its emphasis on internal security through asymmetrical warfare in confronting military challenges and a reliance on alliance in addressing the country's strategic inadequacies. Philippine strategic culture is rooted in the country's archipelagic geography and isolation from continental Asia, its colonial history, and liberal-democratic political system. It is a culture long shap…
The Risk of Applying Realpolitik in Resolving the South China Sea Dispute
This paper examines the regional security implications of China's realpolitik approach in its territorial claim over the South China Sea. It observes that China uses the following power‐politics tactics: (i) citing a historic claim; (ii) applying a bilateral approach to weaken ASEAN; (iii) relying on a divide‐and‐rule stratagem in dealing individually with ASEAN member states and creating a wedge between ASEAN and the USA; and (iv) buttressing it…
Addressing International Terrorism in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 26, Number 2, August 2004
Examining Philippine defense policy from the Aquino to the Marcos Administration
Developing a Credible Defense Posture for the Philippines
Since 2011, the Aquino administration has bolstered the development of a credible external defense posture of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the face of China's territorial expansion in the South China Sea. This move entailed the upgrading of the Philippine Navy's and the Philippine Air Force's capabilities for maritime domain awareness and naval interdiction. The Aquino administration also anchored its strategic agenda on the 60‐ye…
The Philippines Discovers its Maritime Domain
With China’s naval expansion in the South China Sea, the Philippine government has eased up its counter-insurgency/counter-terrorism campaign and has vigorously pursued instead the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) particularly in developing the deterrence capability of the Philippine Navy (PN). However, slow-paced and hampered by scant resources, the naval build-up will hardly deter China’s encroachment on the Philippine…
The Strategic Balance in East Asia and the Small Powers
How does a small power respond and adjust to a fluid and potentially dangerous strategic balancing by major powers generated by a territorial dispute? This paper observes that notwithstanding the major powers’ mistrust, suspicion, and rivalry, such precarious stability in the South China Sea dispute is sustained by a balance‐of‐power system. This system is an offshoot of the small littoral states’ (in this case, the Philippines’) policy of engagi…
Linking Spokes Together
This article examines the P hilippines' strategy of external balancing against an aggressive C hina as it intensifies its security ties with the U nited S tates, its only strategic and long‐standing ally. This course of action aims to strengthen the country's defense relations with the U nited S tates, particularly in developing the territorial defense capabilities of the A rmed F orces of the P hilippines. In this process, the P hilippines finds…
The Philippines in 2013
Southeast Asian Affairs is the only one of its kind: a comprehensive annual review devoted to the international relations, politics, and economies of the region and its nation-states. The collected volumes of Southeast Asian Affairs have become a compendium documenting the dynamic evolution of regional and national developments in Southeast Asia from the end of the 'second' Vietnam War to the alarms and struggles of today. Over the years, the edi…
The Aquino Administration's Balancing Policy against an Emergent China
Interactive Naval Developments of Three Northeast Asian States
Interactive Naval Developments of Three Northeast Asian States
This article discusses the dynamics of naval developments by three Northeast Asian states and how this might affect regional stability. It argues that China's naval force modernization cannot be adequately explained without looking at its regional context. It notes further that China's modernization programme is a response to the more advanced arms modernizations being implemented by its two neighbours, Taiwan and Japan. The article concludes by …
Adjusting to the Post-U.S. Bases Era
Despite facing a regional arms build-up and an emerging regional power (the People's Republic of China), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) found it difficult to convince the Philippine government of the need to modernize its obsolete military hardware. It took the Philippine government nearly four years before it approved a modest arms acquisition program for its armed forces. This article discusses how democratic institutions and practic…
Whither Geoeconomics? Bureaucratic Inertia in U.S. Post-Cold War Foreign Policy toward East Asia
the future of the U.S. security role in the region. This apprehension resulted from President Clinton's pronouncements about his foreign policy agenda with respect to East Asia. He had emphasized the primacy of domestic issues, particularly the economy, and his plan to tie U.S. foreign policy to U.S. economic revival. For this new administration, foreign policy must shift away from security/military matters to the pursuit of U.S. economic securit…
Special Relations and Alliance Politics in Philippine-U.S. Security Relations, 1990–2002
This article argues that the special relations between the Philippines and the United States undermined their security ties in the early 1990s. It examines the impact of three events on Philippine-U.S. security relations: the end of the cold war, negotiations for a new bases treaty, and cooling off of the special relations between the two allies. The article also analyzes the developments that led to the revival and revitalization of the Philippi…
The Revitalized philippine-u.s. Security Relations
This article contends that the Philippine-U.S. post-9/11 security relationship is characterized by temporary and limited American troop deployment aimed at developing the Armed Forces of the Philippines' counterterrorism capability and fostering interoperability between the Philippine and American armed forces. The article concludes that the post-9/11 alliance is significantly different from the two countries' security relationship during the Col…
Congressional Intervention in Philippine Post-Cold War Defense Policy, 1991–2003
This essay analyzes the Armed Forces of the Philippines' (AFP) modernization program as a case study of how the legislature was able to influence a state's strategic doctrine and posture. The withdrawal of American forces in 1992, and the challenge poised by China in the mid-90s created the expectation that the Philippines was to embark on an arms modernization program that would develop the armed forces' autonomous and external defense capabilit…
Addressing International Terrorism in Southeast Asia
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 26, Number 2, August 2004
Politics in Command
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 27, Number 3, December 2005
Regionalism and Multilateralism
U.S. War on Terror in East Asia
O n September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists using three civilian aircrafts claimed lives of approximately three thousand Americans and foreign nationals in New York, Washington, DC, and Pennsylvania. Unlike previous shocks of state-initiated challenges against United States in June 1940, December 1941, or June 1950, 9/11 made world watch in horror as a group of poorly armed individuals suddenly challenged, wounded, and traumatized world's only su…
Philippine Defense Policy in the 21st Century
a result of the Philippine Senate's decision not to ratify a new base treaty on September 16, 1991, the United States withdrew its forces from the Philippines in November 1992. This event heralded Manila's attempts to discontinue its alliance-based defense policy and forge an independent defense capability. The Philippine government announced its plan to modernize its armed forces through the acquisition of modern aircraft, fast-attack crafts, re…
Twenty-First Century Philippine–American Security Relations
This paper examines the changing nature of twenty-first century Philippine–US security relations. It notes that the alliance is against a non-state actor, and raises the possibility that this security arrangement might be difficult to maintain given its prohibitive governance cost and the systemic nature of the threat. It also observes that the alliance has been plagued by dissension between the two countries. In conclusion, the article maintains…
Exploring the Prospect of China's Peaceful Emergence in East Asia
Using Pedersen's concept of cooperative hegemony, this article examines the prospect of China's peaceful emergence in East Asia. It notes that China has the essential characteristics to become a cooperative hegemon, spearheading an asymmetrical federation among its neighbors in the region. It also observes that China presently employs a number of foreign policy strategies that will enable it to effect a peaceful emergence except in one respect—it…
The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the Revival of Populism/Neo-Populism in 21st Century Philippine Politics
Some analysts have attributed the 1997 Asian financial crisis to the actions of interventionist developmental East Asian states that had allegedly distorted the operation of the market. This view, however, does not apply to the Philippine case, as the country has never been construed as developmental. In fact, this article argues, the Asian financial crisis created the opportunity for the revival of populism/neo-populism in 21st century Philippin…
The US-Philippine Alliance
Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs - Volume 31, Number 3, December 2009
Exploring a 21st-Century Japan-Philippine Security Relationship
The article examines Tokyo's efforts to link the Philippine and the Japanese security spokes in the face of Beijing's moves to widen the cleavage between both countries' alliances with the U.S. and render them irrelevant. The article concludes that Manila and Tokyo must first reconfigure a defense relationship that is not merely a military aggregation but a political apparatus enabling them to constructively engage an emergent China
Abstract of Counter-Insurgency in the Philippines and the Global War on Terror. Examining the Dynamics of the Twenty-first Century Long Wars
This article examines how the global war on terror affects the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), particularly its long and continuous involvement in many wars of the third kind. It discusses the history and essence of counter-insurgency warfare or low-intensity conflict (LICs) in the Philippine setting. It then explores the impact of the global war on terror on the Philippine military's counter-insurgency campaigns and the current reforms in…
Engaging both the Eagle and the Dragon
The article examines the limits and challenges small powers face when they adjust to systemic changes. Specifically, this article discusses the Philippines' conduct of a diplomatic strategy of equi‐balancing between the USA and China. In this strategy, the Philippines enhances and deepens its security relations with its strategic ally, the USA and at the same time, obtains economic assistance and politico‐diplomatic concessions from East Asia's e…
The twenty-first century Armed Forces of the Philippines
This article examines the factors that account for the Armed Forces of the Philippines's (AFP) never-ending involvement in many wars of the third kind. It discusses the essence of counter-insurgency warfare or low-intensity conflict in the Philippine setting. The article then notes that the disruption in the US military assistance after 1992, the AFP's inability to modernize, and its continuous campaign against communist and secessionist insurgen…
Weakness and Gambits in Philippine Foreign Policy in the Twenty-first Century
In November 2001, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo made an ambitious foreign policy pronouncement entitled Eight Realities of Philippine Foreign Policy.1 The policy statement highlights the government's objectives to contain domestic and international terrorism and address the country's underdevelopment by enhancing its economic competitiveness in the global market. It also contains bold diplomatic gambits such as balancing the major powers (Uni…
Balancing Gambits in 21st Century Philippine Foreign Policy
Founded in 1974, Southeast Asian Affairs provides, without fear or favour, informed and in-depth annual analyses of this vibrant region and its component countries. It is the only publication which does this and is in its own class without peers. It is a mandatory reference and read for those seriously interested in knowing Southeast Asia."- Professor A.B. Shamsul, Founding DirectorInstitute of Ethnic Studies, Universiti Bebangsaan Malaysia"Now i…
The Risk of Applying Realpolitik in Resolving the South China Sea Dispute
This paper examines the regional security implications of China's realpolitik approach in its territorial claim over the South China Sea. It observes that China uses the following power‐politics tactics: (i) citing a historic claim; (ii) applying a bilateral approach to weaken ASEAN; (iii) relying on a divide‐and‐rule stratagem in dealing individually with ASEAN member states and creating a wedge between ASEAN and the USA; and (iv) buttressing it…
The Philippines in 2011
Early this year, a majority of Filipinos indicated in a national survey that they are not sure if Benigno Aquino, III, will succeed or fail in his presidency. This uncertainty stems from his unconventional style of governance and the gravity of the domestic and international problems he faces. Moreover, his style of governance is generally perceived by the Filipinos as reactive and lackluster—a fact attributed to his first year in office, a diffi…
The Philippines in 2012
Two years into his presidency, Benigno Simeon Aquino III has been described as an absentee, do-nothing president by his detractors. A review of the key economic and political developments in 2012, however, reveals that his administration has chalked up a list of accomplishments. Thus, despite his easygoing and laid-back leadership style, the president has shown he can deliver
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