22

Explaining Philippine Foreign Policy Pivot to Russia and Implication on

Philippines’ Defense Capability

Chapter 2

Review of Related Literature

“Quotes on IR Theories”

This chapter presents an arrangement of foreign and local literature

and readings related to the study. It contains data and information from

foreign books, doctrines, military manuals, journal articles, circulars,

publication, directives, security policies, thesis, research and studies arranged

in a thematic order. At the end of this chapter is a synthesis and a conceptual

framework derived from literatures to form as the basic foundation and

approach of the research.

2.1 Review of Related Literature

2.1.1 International Relations Theories

Realism

Realism is a straightforward approach to international relations,

stating that all nations are working to increase their own power, and

those countries that manage to horde power most efficiently will

thrive, as they can easily eclipse the achievements of less powerful

nations. The theory further states that a nation’s foremost interest

should be self-preservation and that continually gaining power

should always be a social, economic, and political imperative.

 23

The nature of realism implies that seeking a moral high ground is a

goal that governments cannot always achieve and that deceit and

violence can be highly effective tools for advancing national

interests. With homeland defense elevated to the highest priority,

remaining morally righteous in the eyes of international

organizations can take a backseat to enforcing foreign policy that

will improve the nation’s global stature. In modern times, realism is

evident in the foreign policies of China and Russia. The relationship

between Russia and Syria is one that has raised eyebrows in

Europe and around the world; despite the bloody civil war in Syria

—and the international community’s pleas for intervention—Russia

has maintained strategic relations with the government of Bashar

Al-Assad in order to protect Russian interests in the region.

Similarly, China continues its diplomatic and economic association

with North Korea in spite of the latter’s abysmal human rights

record and aggressive nuclear testing. Chinese encroachment into

the South China Sea and Russia’s incursions into Ukraine also

highlight the two countries’ aggressive—and at times violent—

realist political approach to international affairs.

Liberalism

Also called “liberal internationalism,” liberalism is based on the

belief that the current global system is capable of engendering a

peaceful world order. Rather than relying on direct force, such as

military action, liberalism places an emphasis on international

cooperation as a means of furthering each nation’s respective

 24

interests. Liberalists believe that the negative consequences of

force—such as economic losses and civilian casualties—far exceed

its potential benefits. Therefore, liberal politicians generally prefer

the use of economic and social power in achieving their national

goals (for instance, obtaining the agreement of a neighboring

country to help secure a border). In today’s globalized society,

using economic tactics—such as bilateral trade agreements and

international diplomacy—can be more effective in advancing

political interests than threatening force. As liberalism has become

more rooted in international cooperation through the establishment

of organizations like the United Nations, realism has started to

wane as a viable political strategy. It can be argued that the

liberalist tradition, perpetuated by the United States, has become

the dominant system in international relations, with established

values and international institutions in place to regulate this order.

Constructivism

Constructivism rests on the notion that rather than the outright

pursuit of material interests, it is a nation’s belief systems—

historical, cultural and social —that explain its foreign policy efforts

and behavior. For example, since German aggression served as the

primary catalyst for the Second World War, Germany deploys its

armed forces outside of German borders only when its government

is certain of the need to intervene in instances of genocide or

conflict that threatens to spill over into other nations. This has been

demonstrated by the country’s foreign policy following the first and

 25

second Gulf War (the latter of which Germany refused to

participate), as well as its reluctant participation in United Nations-

led operations in Somalia and Yugoslavia.

Constructivists also argue that states are not the most important

actors in international relations, but that international institutions

and other non-state actors are valuable in influencing behavior

through lobbying and acts of persuasion. For this reason,

constructivism has become a popular and important theory in

recent decades as non-state actors like international organizations

such as Amnesty International, OXFAM, and Greenpeace gain

political influence. International organizations play a role in

promoting human rights and making them an international standard

to which countries are expected to conform. (Norwich University

Online, 2017)

Key Theories of International Relations

https://online.norwich.edu/academic-programs/resources/key-

theories-of-international-relations

The balance of power is one of the oldest and most fundamental

concepts in international relations theory. Although there are many

variations of balance of power theory and interpretations of the

concept, all are premised on the minimum of a tendency and the

maximum of a law like recurrent equilibrium model. According to

this model, imbalances and concentrations in military and material

capabilities among the great powers are checked, and the

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equilibrium is restored in order to ensure the survival of the major

powers in the international system. The great powers have several

mechanisms to restore the balance, including internal military

buildup where economic wealth is converted into military power,

the formation of counterbalancing alliances, passing the buck of

balancing to another state, partition and compensation in postwar

peace settlements, and emulation. In contrast, many scholars find

that secondary and tertiary states are more likely to bandwagon or

join with the more powerful state or coalition of states rather than

balance against it. Based on structural realism as advanced by

Kenneth Waltz in Theory of International Politics (New York:

Random House, 1979), the self-help anarchic system and shifts in

the relative distribution of capabilities mean that balances of power

recurrently form in the international system. How states balance

will depend on the distribution of capabilities among the greater

powers. In bipolar distributions of power (two great powers) states

will balance through internal military buildup. In multipolar

distributions of power (three or more) states will balance through

the formation of counterbalancing alliances. Finally, according to

John Mearsheimer, in balanced multipolar distributions of power

(three or more equally powerful states), great powers are likely to

pass the buck of balancing or “buck pass” to a “buck catcher” the

responsibility of balancing. In the current unipolar distribution of

power, a number of scholars contend that states are engaging in

soft balancing and leash slipping rather than traditional hard

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balancing. Others contend that no balancing is occurring and the

imbalanced or unipolar distribution is both durable and stable.

(Lobell, 2014)

Balance of Power Theory

Steven E. Lobell

LAST REVIEWED: 01 AUGUST 2019

LAST MODIFIED: 25 NOVEMBER 2014

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-

9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0083.xml

2.1.2 Geopolitics and the Asian Regional Dynamics

How geography determines national security

Thinking in Space: The Role of Geography in National

Security Decision-Making

https://tnsr.org/2019/11/thinking-in-space-the-role-of-

geography-in-national-security-decision-making/

In the early Cold War decades, Asian countries were preoccupied

with their internal affairs. China, under Mao Zedong’s depredations and Deng

Xiaoping’s economic reforms, was inwardly focused. Vietnam, the current

territory of Malaysia and to a lesser extent the Philippines were overwhelmed

by internal wars and rebellions. Singapore was building a viable city-state

from scratch. And South Korea and Japan were recovering from major wars.

Now these states have consolidated their domestic affairs and

built strong institutions. They have all, with the exception of the poverty-

racked Philippines, benefited from many years of capitalist-style growth. But

strong institutions and capitalist prosperity lead to military ambitions, and so

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all of these states since the 1990s have been enlarging or modernizing their

navies and air forces–a staggering military buildup to which the American

media have paid relatively scant attention.

Since the 1990s, Asia’s share of military imports has risen from

15% to 41% of the world total, and its overall military spending has risen from

11% to 20% of all global military expenditures. And what are these countries

doing with all of these new submarines, warships, fighter jets, ballistic missiles

and cyberwarfare capabilities? They are contesting with one another lines on

the map in the blue water of the South China and East China seas: Who

controls what island, atoll or other geographical feature above or below

water–for reserves of oil and natural gas might lie nearby? Nationalism,

especially that based on race and ethnicity, fired up by territorial claims, may

be frowned upon in the modern West, but it is alive and well throughout

prosperous East Asia.

Notice that all these disputes are, once again, not about ideas or

economics or politics even but rather about territory. The various claims

between China and Japan in the East China Sea, and between China and all

the other pleaders in the South China Sea (principally Vietnam and the

Philippines), are so complex that while theoretically solvable through

negotiation, they are more likely to be held in check by a stable balance-of-

power system agreed to by the U.S. and Chinese navies and air forces. The

21st century map of the Pacific Basin, clogged as it is with warships, is like a

map of conflict-prone Europe from previous centuries. Though war may

ultimately be avoided in East Asia, the Pacific will show us a more anxious,
 29

complicated world order, explained best by such familiar factors as physical

terrain, clashing peoples, natural resources and contested trade routes.

India and China, because of the high wall of the Himalayas, have

developed for most of history as two great world civilizations having relatively

little to do with each other. But the collapse of distance in the past 50 years

has turned them into strategic competitors in the Indian Ocean and the South

China Sea. (This is how technology abets rather than alleviates conflict.) And

if Narendra Modi of the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party is elected by

a significant majority in elections in April and May, as is expected by many,

India will likely pursue a fiercely geopolitical foreign policy, aligning even more

strongly with Japan against China.

China, meanwhile, faces profound economic troubles in the

coming years. The upshot will be more regime-stoked nationalism directed at

the territorial disputes in the South China and East China seas and more

rebellions at home from regionally based ethnic groups such as the Turkic

Muslim Uighurs, in the west abutting Central Asia, and the Tibetans, in the

southwest close to India. Can the Han Chinese, who inhabit the arable cradle

of China and make up 90% of the country’s population, keep the minorities on

the upland peripheries under control during a sustained period of economic

and social unrest? The great existential question about China’s future is about

control of its borderlands, not its currency.

Practically anywhere you look around the globe, geography

confounds. Burma is slowly being liberated from benighted military

dictatorship only to see its Muslim minority Rohingyas suffer murder and rape

at the hands of Burmese nationalist groups. The decline of authoritarianism in

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Burma reveals a country undermined by geographically based ethnic groups

with their own armies and militias. Similarly, sub-Saharan African economies

have been growing dramatically as middle classes emerge across that

continent. Yet at the same time, absolute population growth and resource

scarcity have aggravated ethnic and religious conflicts over territory, as in the

adjoining Central African Republic and South Sudan in the heart of the

continent, which have dissolved into religious and tribal war.

2.1.3 Philippines’s Significance in the Southeast Asian Region

Security concerns common to the ASEAN Community

The region marks the establishment of then ASEAN Community by the end of

2015 with a favorable regional economic outlook despite weaknesses in the

external environment. At the same time, the region is witnessing profound

shifts in its strategic landscape.

Issues and challenges – if left unattended - threaten peace and stability and

bring uncertainties to the economic and security environments.

Since its establishment in 1967, ASEAN has become a stabilizing influence

and the focal point for security cooperation in South East Asia, particularly

through the Summit Meetings of its Leaders, the Ministerial and Post

Ministerial Meetings and through the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

Engagements in these and other ASEAN-driven mechanisms are anchored

on the principles of mutual respect and reassurance as well as constructive

engagement with members, and not confrontation, deterrence and

containment.
 31

Member states of ASEAN, in varying degrees, have to contend with the

realities of a changing landscape where ASEAN pursues its aspirations for a

peaceful, rulesbased, people-centered and economicallydynamic Community.

These realities require care, wisdom and foresight in the promotion of stable

relations between AS EAN and the major political and economic powers.

ASEAN also confronts various nontraditional security threats that are beyond

the capacity of individual states to address. These threats include terrorism

and extremism, human smuggling, trafficking in persons, drug trafficking,

climate change and other environmental concerns, natural and man-made

disasters, threats to cyber security, resource competition, piracy, poaching,

marine pollution, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, among

others. The transboundary character and impact of these threats oblige AS

EAN member states to increase cooperation withone another and with

ASEAN’s Dialogue partners.

One of the most pressing challenges in the region is keeping a predictable

and peaceful maritime order, particularly in the South China Sea, the main

body of water connecting the region. The territorial and maritime disputes

involving four ASEAN claimant states, and the activities by some claimant

states such as massive reclamation and construction over some features in

the area, have raised the risks of tensions and threatened regional stability,

freedom of navigation and overflight, and the marine environment and

ecology. Other important maritime security challenges are combatting

maritime piracy and transnational crimes, search and rescue regimes for

maritime and aviation emergencies and the preservation of a biologically-

diverse and important marine environment.

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The Philippines as a democratic country is committed to world peace and the

preservation of regional order. National security is engendered and sustained

through harmonious relations with its neighbors, allies and partners. The

national security policy of the Philippines is crafted to fully respond to threats

and opportunities that would have a bearing on the peace and stability of the

nation as well as on the protection of Filipinos.

It has two major goals, the promotion of internal socio-political stability and the

capacitating of the Philippines to exercise full sovereignty over its territory and

to promote and protect its strategic interests as a maritime and archipelagic

nation.

National Contributions to Promoting Regional Security The Philippines fully

supports ASEAN’s central role in the evolving regional security architecture

and advances its interests by pursuing ASEAN’s vision for a peaceful, stable,

people-centered and rules-based AS EAN Political Security Community.

2.1.4 Philippine Threat Dimension and Challenges

2.1.5 Security Policies and Strategy

National Security Policy, National Security Strategy, National

Defense Strategy, National Military Strategy

2.1.6 Foreign Relations and Defense Cooperation

Phil pivot to Russia

2.1.7 Defence Requirements and Capability

AFP Modernization Act

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2.2 Synthesis and Gaps

2.3 Conceptual Framework

2.4 Definition of Terms

References: