Photo: Members of the Armed Forces Philippines (AFP) participate in live-fire exercise while receiving training with the U. S. Army Special Forces, Zamboanga, Philippines, Mar. 21, 2003 (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Edward G. Martens).
In remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Manila early last month, U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg praised the elite counterterrorism unit sent to advise the Philippine military after the attacks of 9/11, known as the Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTF-P), as having “gained the trust and earned the respect of our host nation partners.” The unit, he pointed out, was also the “first element of the U.S. Armed Forces to deploy” to areas affected by last November’s typhoon.
But after more than a decade in the Philippines, the United States is phasing out the task force. A smaller group of U.S. Army Special Forces advisers will remain in the country to assist the Philippine military.
David Maxwell of Georgetown University, a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who commanded the unit from 2006 to 2007, says in a phone interview that the transition to “steady state operations” is a sign of a “mature alliance” and enhanced capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. “We can rely on normal mechanisms to provide training, advice and assistance,” he adds.
Renato DeCastro, a professor of international studies at De La Salle University in Manila, agrees that there is “wide satisfaction” in the Philippines with the task force’s performance. But “it is time to move on,” he says in an email, reflecting the shift in alliance priorities “from counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to territorial defense and maritime security.”
The task force and other U.S. counterterrorism efforts launched by the George W. Bush administration are credited with a number of successes in the Philippines, including degrading militant groups like the al-Qaida-affiliate Abu Sayyef and helping the Philippines reach a landmark peace deal with the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front in May after decades of conflict. Philippine security forces conducted these operations themselves, without the direct involvement of U.S. combat troops.
Maxwell points to a number of more structural accomplishments resulting from U.S.-Philippines security cooperation. These include intelligence sharing, improved targeting practices and enhanced capabilities of the Philippine military, such as the ability to conduct helicopter operations at night using night-vision gear.
The Philippine military was also able to use “effective civic action programs” to change conditions on the ground and provide better access to contested areas, he adds.
Maxwell cautions, however, against regarding the U.S. experience in the Philippines as a model for global counterterror efforts. “We can’t just pick this up and apply it somewhere else,” he says. He stresses that the task force’s operations relied extensively on the capacity and willingness of the Philippines as a partner, and that U.S. assistance was preceded by a thorough assessment by U.S. Army Special Forces, which “informed the strategy that is being executed to this day.”
Furthermore, Maxwell adds, the task force was never seen as permanent, even if the United States saw “off the bat” that it would take over 10 years to have an effect.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned. Maxwell says he is “heartened” by the Obama administration’s decision to deploy Special Forces into Iraq to conduct an assessment of how to help Iraqi security forces battle militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). This will give policymakers a sense of what U.S. assistance to Iraq can actually achieve, and reproduces a key element of the mission in the Philippines.
But even as one chapter of U.S.-Philippines security cooperation comes to a close, the relationship will remain a priority for the Obama administration as it tries to keep its rebalancing plan—the strategic “pivot” of military assets and attention to Asia—on track.
In April, the United States and the Philippines signed the Enhanced Cooperation Defense Agreement. According to the Philippines Department of Foreign Affairs, the agreement will strengthen the Philippine military, maritime security and disaster response through better infrastructure and planning for disaster response missions.
Given domestic sensitivities about the long-term stationing of American troops in the country, the Philippine government emphasized that any U.S. presence would not be permanent. Indeed, DeCastro says that the task force’s light, rotational presence “provided a model of the type of American strategic footprint” that will be implemented under the new defense agreement.
Despite successes over the last decade, however, the Philippines is still exposed to complex internal and external threats. As Lt. Cmdr. Mark Munson observed in an article at War on the Rocks, although membership in Abu Sayyaf is down to 300 from around 1,200 in 2002, “violence in the southern Philippines has cycled up and down over the last decade,” despite the killing and capture of numerous high value targets.
Decastro says that the Philippines is satisfied with the level of “material and technical assistance” from the United States as its military shifts from internal to territorial defense. But new threats are on the horizon: He warns that there is “an underlying concern” about the strength of U.S. promises “in the face of Chinese maritime expansionism in the South China Sea.”
http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/trend-lines/13900/as-u-s-winds-down-counterterrorism-task-force-in-the-philippines-challenges-remain
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