Balikatan Exercise is war preparation by other means That imposes a toll on regional security

Exercise Balikatan 2026 has just ended a week before President Trump and President Xi met at Beijing on 13 May. This longstanding annual exercise between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other states friendly towards the US was planned before 28 February when the US and Israel mounted an attack on Iran and before US naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz on April 13.

The closing ceremony for the multinational exercise involving 17,000 personnel from US, Ph, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France and Japan coincided with the Asean 48th Summit that was also held in the Philippines on 8 May 2026. There is an unspoken uneasiness on the impact of Exercise Balikatan on the security of Asean member states that have striven very hard to keep the region safe from big power competition via its ZOPFAN and through other hedging policy imperatives, for example.

As the military exercise is an internal matter, the Asean member countries have largely avoided public criticism of Manila. However, there is no denying that the Exercise’s proximity to regional flashpoints has heightened tensions and complicate ASEAN’s longstanding preference for centrality, neutrality and strategic balance.

With current crisis in strait of Hormuz, there is an unspoken fear that Southeast Asia is fast becoming a new staging ground for big power competition. There is fear that the Strait of Malacca, world’s leading choke point for navigation and seaborne commerce could be the next flashpoint if multinational efforts to prevent such a conflict fail to gain traction.

Although on paper the purpose of the military exercise is to improve interoperability between the participating militaries, the Exercise narratives calling for destruction of enemy (read China) assets on land, at sea and in the air, have quietly generated geopolitical ripples throughout the region. The strategic scale of these war games, in my view, strongly reflects preparations for advanced conventional warfare, including contingencies in the South China Sea and Taiwan.

Even if China is not strategically rattled by Balikatan’s firepower, the use of heavy weapons in live drills and the Exercise narratives simulating the recapture of occupied islands can easily be interpreted in Beijing as rehearsals involving Taiwan or China-held features in the South China Sea. President Xi just warned President Trump that mishandling the Taiwan issue could push the two nations into direct conflict.

The Balikatan Exercise is touted as a significant event in US – Philippines military relations that went back to thirty-one years when both countries signed a Mutual Defense Treaty in 1951 before Philippines achieved the status of an archipelagic state in 1982. The Philippines has included the Kalayaan Islands-also known as the West Philippines Sea- as its territories since 1974.

China has long contested the Philippine ownership of these territories.

What started as a bilateral arrangement between US and Philippines militaries Exercise Balikatan has now involved seven other militaries. However, the participation of Japanese soldiers in Balikatan Exercise 2026, marks a new beginning in regional geopolitical security dynamics considering Tokyo’s decision to take up arms again. The decision to arm has sent uncomfortable signals to many in the region, especially after Japan raised military expenditure to two per cent of GDP amounting to US $58 billion defense outlay in 2026 fiscal year. This makes Japan the third largest defense spender in the world, after US and China.

To many in the region, Japan’s participation in Balikatan signals that the exercise is evolving from a bilateral alliance drill into a broader strategic alignment of US proxies aimed at countering China.

A remilitarised Japan will revive historical anxieties in countries which experienced its hostile Imperial past and will provide a pretext for a new round of defense spending and procurement across the region.

The 2026 Balikatan military exercise can no longer be described as an ordinary conventional military training. It has evolved into a rehearsal preparation for a coordinated conventional warfare against China’s military bases in the SCS and a planned recovery of Taiwan by the US and its allies.

The preparations are like a rehearsal for a real-world conflict against China, the consequences of which could engulf the entire region into a political quagmire. If a real conflict were to happen, it could hasten the collapse of the US military pre-eminence in the region.

The above strategy has ruffled feathers with those in Beijing.

The conflict would also fracture Asean security architecture and undermines its importance as a regional institution which has been experiencing internal fissures even before President Trump imposed tariffs and sanctions on the member states more than a year ago. Topping the list of internal fissures in Asean is the unresolved land border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia that killed more than one hundred soldiers and displaced over one million people. Next on the list, is Myanmar. Despite recent diplomatic overtures, the crisis remains unresolved. The recent election that was won by political parties aligned with the military junta that staged the coup in 2021 has not endeared the military junta to Asean. The election has further deepened the junta’s isolation especially after the former coup leader was elevated as the new President of Myanmar!

The ongoing tensions in West Asia that led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted energy supplies across Southeast Asia exposing their vulnerabilities. Countries like Indonesia and the Philippines have taken unpopular steps to mitigate dependence on oil from Iran whose rising prices have put a strain on Government popularity in many other Asean member countries. Many view the unpopular policies are necessary to contain public dissatisfaction to protect regime legitimacy.

President Marcos was the first in the region to ｄｅｃｌａｒｅ a state of national emergency after local diesel and petrol prices more than doubled since the war in Iran broke on 28 February. Filipinos are generally unhappy with the Government policy with to some civil society groups staging strikes against the Presidency. This situation has complicated the fragile political situation as the country prepares for the next general election. The impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte had given more headache to President Marcos whose one term limit ends in June 2028.

The war in West Asia has also forced Jakarta to navigate the global power rivalry as it seeks to ensure stable oil supplies amidst a chaotic economic downturn marked by weak currency, widening fiscal deficit, rising unemployment and capital flight which could undermine the authoritarian leadership of President Prabowo Subianto. The decision that looks like to curry favour with Washington by giving a blanket overflight clearance (later denied by Departmen Luar Negeri) to US military has unsettled many in the region.

Some believe the overflight arrangement is in exchange for a highly confidential defense arrangement with Washington that has not gone down well with some critics in Indonesia.  The defence arrangement with the US has also raised eyebrows in Beijing which funded the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway, a flagship infrastructure project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

By itself the Balikatan Exercise does not change the geopolitical equation in this part of the world just yet. However, over time, the involvement of external parties at the time of rising tensions between US and China that could clash over Taiwan is unsettling. Behind closed doors, several ASEAN policymakers worry that Exercise Balikatan has evolved beyond traditional alliance military exercises into a form of operational rehearsal against China, which does not augur well with regional geopolitical dynamics.

Author: B A Hamzah, Former Director General at MIMA, Malaysia