US Special Forces to Help in Asia      08/14 06:19

   American special operations forces are ready to step up 
warfighting-readiness exercises with counterparts in the Philippines and other 
countries in Asia to further strengthen a security alliance and help deter a 
major conflict in the region, a U.S. military official said Thursday.

   MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- American special operations forces are ready to 
step up warfighting-readiness exercises with counterparts in the Philippines 
and other countries in Asia to further strengthen a security alliance and help 
deter a major conflict in the region, a U.S. military official said Thursday.

   Adm. Frank Bradley, commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, is in 
the Philippines after a trip to South Korea. He will then head to Japan for 
talks with military officials.

   He is the latest American military top brass to visit key Asian allies in 
recent weeks to reassure them of Washington's commitment to the region given 
the U.S. preoccupation with the war in Iran.

   Bradley's command, which has about 80,000 personnel and is based at MacDill 
Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida, undertakes the U.S. military's most sensitive 
and dangerous covert operations. The majority of his forces are deployed in 
more than 80 countries worldwide, Bradley said.

   He discussed with Filipino counterparts the Philippine military's continuing 
effort to modernize, intensify combat exercises with the U.S. and other allies 
and broaden an arc of security alliances to deter China's increasingly hostile 
actions in the South China Sea.

   China and smaller rival claimant states, including the Philippines, Vietnam, 
Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in tense territorial standoffs 
for decades in the disputed waters but confrontations have particularly flared 
between Chinese and Philippine forces.

   Washington has repeatedly warned of its obligation to defend the 
Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces come under an 
armed attack.

   A cohesive alliance of countries, which each invest in their defense and 
regularly stage joint combat-readiness drill to brace for contingencies, was 
the best deterrent against a major conflict, Bradley said.

   "The best way to deter conflict is by being able to demonstrate convincingly 
to any adversary who may want to start a conflict that they won't be able to 
win it," Bradley told The Associated Press in Manila late Thursday.

   "Where we have strong alliance structures ... conflict has not come to it," 
he said. "Together, we are stronger, and together, we can prevent those 
conflicts from coming to us."

   Large-scale combat exercises between U.S. and Filipino forces have involved 
more allies and friendly nations such as Japan, Australia, Canada and France in 
recent years and have focused on the Philippines' territorial defense in the 
South China Sea.

   U.S. Special Forces commandos have participated in those annual combat 
drills, as well as smaller warfighting exercises with Filipino counterparts in 
western Philippine provinces facing the South China Sea and in the northernmost 
island province of Batanes, which lies near Taiwan.

   U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth first disclosed a plan to stage joint 
U.S.-Philippine special forces operations training in Batanes when he visited 
Manila last year and said the Trump administration would work with allies to 
ramp up deterrence against threats across the world, including China's 
aggression in the South China Sea.

   Batanes province is a cluster of islands in the northernmost tip of 
Philippine archipelago across a sea border from Taiwan, the self-ruled island 
that China regards as a province and has threatened to annex, by force if 
necessary.

   Bradley did not provide details of the joint special operations forces 
training and drills, including how many U.S. commandos were involved and what 
types of maneuvers were being carried out, but he said the exercises were 
continuing and could possibly expand.

   "In the future, how it might scale will be based upon the sovereign needs of 
the Philippines and where the Philippine government may want us to come and 
partner, but we will always be committed to be a strong partner," Bradley said.