FOR almost a century now, our country has been in an enmeshed relationship with the United States. We have depended on their support, adopted their views of the world; their enemies became our own enemies. As Claro M. Recto put it in his speech “Our Mendicant Foreign Policy” in the 1950s, “Like a small dog, we go tagging along behind Uncle Sam wherever he goes in Asia.” In the process, we’ve failed to develop our own identity as a geopolitical actor.
A strong geopolitical identity is rooted in a deep understanding of one’s own diplomatic history, values and aspirations. We can’t strongly position ourselves in our own strategic context if we don’t have a strong sense of our self as a nation.
Time to reflect on who we are:
1. Who are we geopolitically without the Americans interpreting us as a critical part of their defensive perimeter in the Pacific?
2. How would the world look to us if we’re going to look at it with our own history, values and aspirations?
Through his shocking antics meant to take Americans to task for their past atrocities in our country, President Rodrigo Duterte is asserting our independence from our former colonial master. When Duterte raised a middle finger at Uncle Sam, he was raising our flag. By doing this, he is demonstrating to other nations that we are no longer America’s “little brown brother,” but a nation with equal sovereignty, the master of our own domestic affairs. And that just like any sovereign nation, we’ll chart our own destiny rooted in our understanding of our own history, guided by our own values, and shaped by our own political struggle.
Duterte’s approach is surely that of a demagogue; but there are times demagogues, are needed for a breakthrough. To unshackle ourselves from the comfortable chains of Uncle Sam, we must be shocked out of it. The “disente” approach of the intellectual elite of our country won’t cut those chains.
As heterodox economist Murray Rothbard in his essay “In Defense of Demagogues,” wrote, “we will never be free until the intellectuals — the natural molders of public opinions — have been converted to the side of freedom. In the short run, however, the only route to liberty is by an appeal to the masses over the heads of the State and its intellectual bodyguard. And this appeal can be made most effectively by the demagogue — the rough, unpolished man of the people, who can present the truth in simple, effective, yes emotional, language.”
Two interrelated elements accompany Duterte’s delimitation of America’s influence in our country: policy of diversification and policy of détente. The diversification element is about broadening our diplomatic relations. It’s best exemplified by forging relations with Russia. Meanwhile, the policy of détente is about easing our tensions with China.
Détente with China is an absolutely necessary step to resolve our disputes with them. Resolving inter-state disputes always involves reconciling the interests of the contending parties. We’ll not be able to fully pursue our interests in the South China Sea and reconcile them with their interests if we aren’t going to have amicable relations with them.
And we’ll only have a clearer understanding of our own interests and what we must do to reconcile them with our rivals in our own strategic context, if we’re going to finally stop sitting on the shoulders of Uncle Sam and start standing on our own feet, seeing the world from where we are, charting our own destiny.
Our challenge: continuing this foreign policy line. Duterte writing down his foreign policy doctrine would greatly help ensure it.
This doctrine should have a coherent explanation, supported by principles in international relations, with compelling historical analogies taken from our own history and from a country of comparable geopolitical position as the Philippines. This will not just be valuable now but also to his would-be successor. If he can’t do it himself, he can gather international relations scholars, diplomats and strategic thinkers who are on the same page as him.
Think about the Bush Doctrine, the foreign policy principles of George W. Bush Jr. that was published on Sept. 17, 2002, after 9/11. I may not agree with it but it was a very powerful statement that every commentator on US foreign policy always references in interpreting any action the US has taken since Bush. One can’t afford to talk about US foreign policy decisions after 9/11 without using the Bush Doctrine as an interpretive lens. Even Obama wasn’t able to diverge fully from it.
The Duterte Doctrine, just like the Bush Doctrine, will provide an analysis of the geopolitical environment. An analysis of the current and future shape of geopolitics as we see it in our own eyes as Filipinos, through the frame of our own history.
Right now, we rely on our views on geopolitics based on how the Americans see it: China as a threat to their global position. As Recto put it in the 1950s, we’re “parroting the slogans and mimicking the gestures of American policy.” Consequently, our foreign policy actions are largely shaped by Uncle Sam’s geopolitical ambitions. Thus, our geopolitical existence has been about supporting their goal to constrain the revival of China’s centuries-old traditional role in our region.
Time to end our dangerous entanglement with Uncle Sam’s agenda.
E-mail: sass@forthemotherland.net
Website: www.forthemotherland.net
https://www.manilatimes.net/duterte-foreign-policy-doctrine-diversification-delimitation-and-detente/470572/
https://www.manilatimes.net/duterte-foreign-policy-doctrine-diversification-delimitation-and-detente/470572/
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