Philippines at Very Important Place to Push Back on Communist China_ Retired Navy Captain and Pentag

And let's turn our attention to the Philippines, where tensions are simmering with communist China. The U.S. is sending an unprecedented level of military support to the island nation. Earlier, we spoke with retired Navy Captain Brent Sadler about the importance of the Philippines to the U.S. and China's other military activities in the Indo-Pacific. Sadler is a former Pentagon official and a research fellow for naval warfare at the Heritage Foundation. Brent Sadler, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back on the show. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Now, there's an increasing focus on the Philippines, especially with tensions simmering with China. Now, the foreign policy recently had a piece saying, quote, the Philippines is Washington's new front line against China. Now, besides the mutual defense treaty between the two countries, how important is the Philippines to the U.S.? Well, for several reasons. On the economic front, the Filipinos are a large portion of merchant mariners in which the United States relies for conduct of its trade. But more directly, the gift of geography places the Philippines right on the front line in this great power competition with China. During the Cold War, it was a bulwark against communist China's expansion, but also Soviet designs in Southeast Asia. Today, yet again, because of that geography, it sits at a very important place to push back on communist China's designs in Southeast Asia again. But also, should a war break out over the future of Taiwan, the Chinese know they need to control the waters in and around the Philippines to be successful, and thus the success or failure of any American war effort in the region. And zooming out a bit with the tensions we are seeing in Asia and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, as well as in Europe, how likely are we to see the U.S. involved in a three-front war, either directly or through proxies? Well, I think we're already seeing, sadly, some of the contours of that unfolding right now. Russia's invasion in 2022 of Ukraine really pushed very close to a more direct confrontation. But we are very much involved with NATO countries in Europe to provide huge amounts of munitions and a lot of diplomatic activity and a lot of attention of senior leadership in D.C. So that has a cost and intellectual bandwidth. In the Middle East, you've got, since October of last year, Iran that has stoked many confrontations across the region, the most direct to U.S. interests being the Houthis attacking shipping and U.S. naval vessels for several months now. And of course, our longstanding ally in Israel's constant threat from Hezbollah, the war since October from Hamas and Iran directly, which we saw in April. And really, the only issue that hasn't fallen is a more direct, violent confrontation in Asia, though we did see the beginnings of something like that just a couple of months ago when the Philippines Maritime Forces had a confrontation, a violent confrontation at Second Thomas Shoal. We are seeing China and Russia with their No Limits partnership, but they're also training their militaries together. We saw recently patrols by Alaska, Taiwan and Japan. What do you make of those joint patrols? Well, it's a troubling development. It's not one a few years back I would have said that it's very unlikely given the inherent animosities and historical grievances between Moscow and Beijing. But that being said, there was a watershed event where both Russia and China used nuclear capable bombers to fly around Takshima Dokdo Island. It's disputed between South Korea and Japan back in July of 2019. And that signaled a real change that now, quite frankly, combined Russian Chinese naval flotillas sailing around Japan up into our waters near Alaska, as well as flying their nuclear capable bombers repeatedly around Japan and more distantly into the Philippine Sea. It's become a routine occurrence and it highlights a not just a passing strategic partnership, but one that actually goes to a higher level of coordination and pre-planning. Now on the economic front, the South China Morning Post is reporting that local authorities inside of China and across China are in talks about how to do more business with Russia while evading Western sanctions. Now, where do you see all of this going, especially in regards to this military development? Well, communist China, as well as the Soviet Union, now Russia are all very familiar with and have in the past used barter exchange. North Korea, Cuba also benefited during the most chaotic times of the post-Soviet era, where they actually exchanged, in the case of Cuba, rum and cigars for financial assistance from the Soviet Union and also trading goods. And so this is not a new development, but it's very limited in its capacity and the things you can actually move. What's more likely is after 2014, Moscow and Beijing develop their own alternatives to the SWIFT system. This is the electronic means to do financial transactions. And all you need is one bank and a fiber optic cable or satellite connection between those two banks in your capitals to make and conduct financial transactions. And my suspicion since 2014, when those two systems came online to evade sanctions after Russia annexed Crimea, have been utilized and continue to be utilized. And there's not much the West can do about it or can see into the activities that they're doing. Brent Sadler, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much.