Advertisement
Diplomacy
OpinionAsia Opinion
Sophie Wushuang Yi
Opinion
Sophie Wushuang Yi

Without diplomacy, deterrence in Asia is a path to escalation

The danger is that every state insists it is acting defensively while collectively building the habits and infrastructure of confrontation

4-MIN READ4-MIN
2
Listen
Illustration: Craig Stephens
Sophie Wushuang Yi
Sophie Wushuang Yi holds a PhD in Chinese studies (international relations) from King's College London, where she specialised in Sino-US relations, military and strategic studies, and South China Sea geopolitics.
“Balikatan 2026” is meant to reassure allies and deter adversaries. But the military exercise hosted by the Philippines also reveals a harsher truth: the Indo-Pacific is drifting into a security logic in which deterrence no longer contains risk but multiplies it. Every move taken in the name of stability now invites a countermove. Every display of resolve is answered by another. The result is not equilibrium, but a trap.

That is why diplomacy has to return to the centre of regional strategy before military signalling becomes the region’s default language.

The scale of the exercise is itself a message. More than 17,000 personnel from the Philippines, United States, Australia, Japan, Canada, France and New Zealand are involved. Japan is participating as an active combat partner for the first time, and its Type 88 anti-ship missile is part of a live-fire drill. Philippine and US forces are also conducting maritime strike drills on Itbayat, the country’s northernmost island, close to Taiwan.

Manila frames Balikatan as a sovereign exercise in defence modernisation and “minimum credible deterrence”. An army spokesman said the Philippines was “unfazed” by Beijing’s warnings and had contingency plans for any escalation around the drills. That stance captures the moment. Even a defensively framed exercise is now paired with explicit readiness for a response – capability, geography, timing and symbolism all matter here, and all sides now speak in those terms. No country embodies that shift more sharply than Japan.

Select Voice
Select Speed
1x
AI-generated voice