The United States military will deploy more advanced capabilities to the Philippines as one part of the two nations’ continued and developing relationship, senior leaders from both countries announced on Friday.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth met with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his counterpart, Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr., on Friday, during his first trip to the Indo-Pacific region as the leader of the Pentagon.
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Hegseth announced that the U.S. will deploy the Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS), a mobile, ground-based anti-ship missile launcher, to the Philippines, in addition to unmanned surface vehicles, for an upcoming annual military exercise between both militaries next month known as Exercise Balikatan.
U.S. Special Operations Forces will train together with the Philippine Marines on complex landing scenarios in the Batanes Islands.
“We agreed on the next steps to re-establish, that’s key, re-establish deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region,” Hegseth said alongside Teodoro. “What we’re dealing with right now is many years of deferred maintenance, of weakness that we need to re-establish strength and deterrence in multiple places around the globe.”
The U.S. has sought to strengthen its partnerships across the region to ensure “a free and open Indo-Pacific,” which is a reference to threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), widely considered to be the U.S.’s most formidable adversary.
The other two parts of the four-piece plan between the U.S. and the Philippines are an agreement to prioritize defense industrial cooperation and to launch a bilateral cybersecurity campaign.
A separate statement from both countries regarding their industrial base cooperation said the areas with the “greatest potential for near-term cooperation” include drone production, critical mineral refinement, logistics support, ship and maintenance repair, and airspace integration.
This venture is designed to support the Philippines “as it develops more advanced defense capabilities, grows and diversifies its economy, and contributes to bilateral and regional defense industrial base capacity.”
The Pentagon and the Philippine Department of National Defense (DND) also announced a bilateral cybersecurity campaign in which they will collaborate to establish a secure network, develop a capable cybersecurity workforce, and enable advanced operation cooperation.
Adm. Samuel Paparo, the commander of U.S. INDOPACOM, “understands the situation, understands the geographic significance, understands the urgency, and is prepared to work with those in the region to ensure we are leaning forward in our posture, not waiting for events to develop, not retrograding to places further from the front, but deploying capabilities forward, posturing, and creating dynamics and strategic dilemmas for the Communist Chinese that help them reconsider whether or not violence or action is something they want to undertake,” Hegseth added.
The secretary is currently on his first visit to the region since getting confirmed as Secretary of Defense in January. His first stop was in Hawaii, then he stopped in Guam, and his final stop will be in Japan.
His trip has been bogged down by domestic issues, particularly the news that he and several other senior administration officials debated whether the U.S. should restart a military campaign against the Houthis in Yemen on the Signal platform. Unbeknownst to the roughly 18 officials in the chat, a journalist with the Atlantic was added to it from the outset.
Administration officials have acknowledged this was a mistake but maintain that the controversy surrounding it is overblown. They argue that no one shared details of “war plans” in the chat, but Hegseth divulged operational details of when the strikes would begin and what U.S. weapons systems would be involved.
A leak of those details at the time he sent them would have posed risks to U.S. forces involved in those strikes.
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Hegseth has denied that he shared “war plans” in this group chat and briefly referenced the debacle during the press conference, saying, “I defer to Admiral Paparo and his war plans, real war plans.”
Hegseth has also praised U.S. troops for carrying out the strikes against the Houthis when asked about the group chat.