By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part 4 of a Series of 5: Escalation Suggested by Newsweek Report

The “word war” launched in 2023 by pied-pipering retired US air force colonel Raymond Powell as “Lone Ranger” and Commodore Jay Tarriela of the Philippine Coast Guard, as his “Tonto”, was cock-sure in promising an “innovation” over the Noynoy Aquino’s lawfare and disinformation towards thawing China’s steely determination to preserve its sovereignty over almost all of the South China Seas.

But Project Myoushu was meant to fail from the very beginning, because it did not deliver a new narrative and an “inspiring” story. It brought nothing but a fat budget of half-a-billion US dollars from the American Competes Act and raw intelligence gathering and dissemination, to the same tale and tactics that have already been discredited especially after the PCA came out of its ruling in 2016.

Powell called it “maritime transparency”. I call it media hype.

Only 25 nations caught up to the “Sealight” it purportedly generated, and domestically, it caught only 7% of Philippine population to consider it an urgent issue at all.

China, however, was prepared from the very start. The US Naval Institute itself acknowledged how Chinese strategists challenged international norms in a “war without gunsmoke.”

It conceded that “three actions created dilemmas for its joint forces, undermined allied and partner confidence in U.S. resolve, and allowed China to incrementally expand positional advantage to contest and, if necessary, strike US vital interests first.”

The naval institute said China preempted the US by first unleashing legal warfare (sometimes called “lawfare”) providing the basis for launching an attack, while public opinion warfare delegitimized the adversary and psychological warfare demoralized it. “When engaged against the United States, the combination of the three modifies regional expectations and raises doubts about the legitimacy of U.S. presence.” 

The whole failure was exposed and conceded in an article entitled, “Prevailing without Gunsmoke in the South China Sea” authored by Colonel Wendell B. Leimbach, U.S. Marine Corps, and retired Lieutenant Colonel Eric Duckworth, U.S. Army, last November 2022 in the US Naval Institute websites.

Leimbach and Duckworth could very well be Powell’s replacements, as his Gordion Knot Center for National Security Innovation created more gordion knots instead of disentanglements in the contentious South China Seas.

Guinea pigs once more?

All told, President Marcos accentuated for a need for a paradigm shift.

Whether this coincides with a plan the Americans  prepared way in advance only time will tell. But the article’s date of publication, November 2022, attracts suspicions as it is billed to respond to Interim National Security Strategic Guidance directed as early as 2021 for the development of new capabilities to better compete and deter China’s “gray zone” strategies and tactics.

Ouch, it appears that the Philippines may again end up as the guinea pig for this yet another USNI project, past Myoushu, as the US militarists see an opportunity to lead a joint force in escalating Cina’s use of nonlethal weapons (NLWs) onto what they label as intermediate force capabilities (IFCs) to counter perceived threats.

It is to be noted that China have intensified beyond lawfare and propaganda onto  psychological warfare, through NLWs responding to Philippine provocations.

It is not common knowledge, though, that the Geneva Convention authorizes the use of nonlethal means in law enforcement where lethal force is not ordinarily suitable to achieve order.

On the other hand, a USNI paper defines IFCs as technologies and systems that provide active and proportional measures between presence and lethal effects to accomplish warfighting functions. IFCs give naval commanders engagement options beyond the binary choice of lethal force or no force at all, expanding their decision space and time to address threats.

IFCs deliver the critical advantages of additional time, increased targeting range, and more decision-making flexibility when dealing with potential threats.

https://jnlwp.defense.gov/Media/Multimedia/IFC-Videos/videoid/765133/

IFCs increase opportunities for maritime mission success to best achieve strategic objectives, save lives, and reduce unintended collateral damage. Options for the full spectrum of conflict are essential in campaign planning, and IFCs offer a vibrant arsenal of combat-credible but nonlethal force.

• Long-range acoustic hailers with built-in translation devices permit clear verbal instructions or warnings at a distance.

• High-power microwave directed-energy systems disrupt electronics and shut off vessel engines without harm to occupants.

• Millimeter-wave directed-energy active-denial systems physically—but nonlethally—repel personnel to prevent activities topside, inducing withdrawal.

• Eye-safe optical interrupters or dazzling lasers, which originally were handheld short-range devices commonly used at vehicle checkpoints in Iraq and Afghanistan, now can deliver visual warnings and provide obscuring glare at longer range to personnel, windshields, and the optics of approaching manned or unmanned vehicles or vessels.

 • Nonlethal flash-bang munitions or developmental nonlethal laser-induced plasma effects provide long-duration effects instead of lethal shots across the bow, with smaller munitions for dangerously close encounters.

• Occlusion technology under development (sometimes called “synthetic slime” because it is based on hagfish slime) expands to temporarily hinder small-boat propellers.

What is certain is that the foregoing renders the traditional water cannon, laser and acoustic gadgets as basic, but not obsolete.

Anti-Swarm

These IFCs have been primarily developed to target China’s “irregular” forces, especially the People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (CMM), which the US thinks are central to enabling this type of unconventional warfare in the Indo-Pacific.

Separate from the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the China Coast Guard, the CMM comprises citizens who work in the marine economy and are called on to conduct tasks such as border patrol, surveillance, reconnaissance, maritime transport, search and rescue, and auxiliary support for wartime operations.

According to the paper, it includes professional militia vessels and part-time fishing boats recruited using subsidy programs. Ships generally measure 35 to 55 meters or more. Professional ships include explicitly military features, and even subsidized boats have steel hulls suitable for ramming.

As of November 2021, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative identified 120 CMM vessels, with another 53 likely, plus substantial auxiliaries. Since August 2018, there have been approximately 300 maritime militia ships deployed in the island chain at any given time, according to CSIS, citing remote sensing data.

The large number of militia-affiliated vessels in the South China Sea with small radar cross-sections and limited electronic emissions makes identification difficult and enables infiltration into other countries’ exclusive economic zones.

The numerous CMM fishing vessels are cheap and can use their low signatures to converge to outnumber warships. They pose both a safety hazard and an asymmetric threat by threatening towed sonar arrays and inhibiting flight operations.

CMM vessels often possess satellite communication terminals and shortwave radio for beyond line-of-sight communications. This permits close integration and communication with irregular and conventional PLAN forces, allowing the PLAN to position and shape conditions for a first-mover advantage.

Sometime in April 2021, 240 CMM vessels were reported by the National Task Force for the West Philippine Seas, broken down into 136 CMMs at Burgos (Gaven) Reef, 6 at Julian Felipe (Whitsun) Reef, 65 at Chigua (McKennan) Reef, 6 at Panganiban (Mischief) Reef, 3 at Zamora (Subi) Reef, 4 at the Pag-asa (Thitu) Islands, 1 at Likas (West York) Island, 5 at Kota (Loaita) Island and 11 at Ayungin (Second Thomas) Shoal.

Paradigm Shift or Shit?

Returning to Marcos Jr. need for  a “paradigm shift”, he said our current diplomatic efforts with Beijing are going “in a poor direction.”

This is not an accurate statement. As matter of fact, the media hype created by Project Myoushu dulled diplomacy. The onus when dealing with the management of our South China Seas issues transferred from Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo taking the front, to the US-funded Philippine Coast Guard taking the initiative piloted by the US Naval Institute, with the Defense Secretary, the National Security Adviser, AFP Chief of Staff, the AFP Wescom and Philippine Navy dovetailing.

It was almost a circus, going as far as middle-ranking officers making foreign policy pronouncements. A Chinese spokesman termed it appropriately as “self-amusement”.

“We have to do something [that] we have not done before. We have to come up with a new concept, a new principle, a new idea, A paradigm shift is something that we have to formulate,” Marcos added.

The President said “Well, to this point, we have resorted to the traditional methods of diplomacy where, should there be an incident, we send a note verbale. Our embassy will send a démarche to the Foreign Affairs (Ministry) office in Beijing, but we have been doing this for many years now, with very little progress.”

What have led to note verbales are incidents initiated by his government that departed from existing agreed protocols between China and the Philippines. In the first place, he should be asking himself why after his meeting with Joe Biden last May 2023, he shifted the preexisting continuity paradigm that his predecessor had enhanced to totally reduce any possibility of any conflict.

Has the President forgotten his classic faux pas, saying “I am not are of those agreements, and if there were any, I rescind them”? (paraphrased)

Specifically, China now blames the water cannon incidents on the Philippine government’s continued defiance of an earlier understanding to ban the delivery of construction materials to the derelict Navy ship in the Ayungin Shoal.

China merely enforces approved norms under the United Nations Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement and Use of Force. No provocation, no enforcement response, no note verbales and demarches!

On December 28 last year, Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, pointed out that the Philippine side, despite China’s repeated dissuasions, insisted on sending ships into the waters near China’s Ren’ai Reef and rammed Chinese Coast guard vessels in a provocative manner. Such actions are very dangerous and unprofessional.

The defense spokesman also noted that the Philippine side claimed to be carrying “humanitarian aid”, but a large number of media journalists were on board the cargo ship and many fake news were sent out. “This is not what humanitarian aid is, this is completely a show of ‘porcelain’”

The Philippine military also arrogantly announced to build permanent structures on Ren’ai Reef with the help of their traditional allies.

Qian said China will resolutely respond to any infringement and provocation and firmly safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests. The signal is no longer coming from its coast guard, but Chinese military.

It is clear that against President Marcos’ best wishes, China has not blinked.

On the evening of January 3, the Hongkong Chinese News Agency announced on that day and the day following that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Southern Theater Command is “on high alert at all times, resolutely safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime rights and interests, and are fully in control of any military activities that disrupt the South China Sea and create hot spots.”

The decibels of war, is definitely in the air.  

Next Issue: If China is the Problem, then China is the Solution

   

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