The Research Of The Strengthening And Motivation Of The Philippine-US Alliance After The Cold War

Alliance is a formal agreement between two sovereign countries in order to reach some kind of political and military purposes. There are alliance external factors and internal factors for alliance. On external factors, the threat is the most important reason for generated alliance. According to Walter’s theory, more countries choose alliance to counterbalance the threat and not counterbalance the strength. On internal factors, the interests of the nation is the motivation of alliance. Within the alliance, if a State considers that paying resource consumption is greater than the expected return, the country will opt out of the Covenant. Randal L. Schweller thinks the country seeks for the interests, rather than safety, for alliance. Congress, in order to avoid to pay a high price, and choose to maintain the status quo, so that they will increase in the latter part of the victory party advantage and profit. Another factor is the role of political elites. Alliance with the major powers can increase their own power, to provide a stable internal and external environment for class-based regime, and weak competitors. The power lies in the hands of the political elite, and their decisions directly affect the country’s foreign policy. The third factor is the recognition of the value of the alliance’s role in promoting. The powers with close ideology are easier to commit to each other, and more willing to honor its pledge. These internal and external factors led alliance generation, development and enhancement.These theories can explain a series of changes in the Philippine-US alliance during the post-Cold War. First, the primary cause is the external threats. Neoclassical Realism regards structural system as the primary variable factors and it considers a country’s foreign policy can be taken depending on their position in the international system. The primary interest of the country is to survive, that is security interests. After the Cold War, the called "communist threat" entrenched in the north of Philippines for decades suddenly disappeared, and Philippines secretly relieved. After the military bases agreement expires, the Philippines did not choose to renew. But this was soon changed after the "9·11" incident. The threat of terrorism makes the Philippines reconsider to improve bilateral military alliance with the United States. Meanwhile, the strengthening of the post-Cold War Philippine-US alliance is promoted jointly by various factors in the Philippines. First, as a small country in Southeast Asia, the Philippines’ economic and military resources are scarce. In the military cooperation with the US, the Philippines gets a lot of economic and military aid. Maintaining good political and military relations with the United States and acting as "arson" role on regional issues the United States concerned, they can get a lot of economic and military aid. Second, neoclassical realists emphasize the important role of political elites in the formulation of foreign policy. In the Philippines, the coup frequently occurs. There are nearly 200 coups only during the period of Arroyo in office. Coupled with the AbuSayaf, the anti-government legitimacy army in the southern region, legitimacy of the regime was tested. An important objective of conducting joint military exercises with the United States, obtaining the United States retired military equipment, fight against terrorist organizations aiding with the US military forces is to maintain the regime. Third, after World War II, the Philippines does not stand alone and the collapse of the national economy needs US aid; after emerging from colonial rule, the state authorities of political system of separation of powers copying are established with the help of the United States. The most important is that the Philippines elite influenced by the United States cultural education. Most of them have a college degree in the United States, accept Western democratic values. These elite led directly to that when selecting alliance objects, the Philippines consider the United States of America.This enhanced development of the Philippine-US alliance in the post-Cold War had a significant impact on regional and international situation. On Philippine-US relations, we can expect that in the next decade, the close military and security cooperation will still maintain between the Philippine-US relations. The impact on China is concerned that it is bound to intensify pressure on China perimeter security, to make maritime disputes China faced more complex, and threat sea route security. For the impact on the Asia-Pacific region, the Philippine-US alliance provides an important channel for the US Pacific rebalancing strategy, and it is bound to bring in more US forces into the Asia-Pacific region leading to increased regional conflict of powers interest, causing mistrust among countries in the region. In the long run, this strengthening Philippine-US alliance is not conducive to the peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.