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Washington’s return to Subic Bay marks a strategic recalibration in Southeast Asia—reviving Cold War legacies to counter China’s growing maritime assertiveness.
Image Source: Wikipedia
In the previous quarter of 2025, an adjacent development that has tacitly administered itself on the soil of Manila, barring the ongoing Baha sa Luneta protest, is the United States' (US) articulation and expression of its intent to resurrect the Philippines’ Subic naval base. The revival of the Philippines’ historic Cold War base indicates an oscillation in Southeast Asia's regional security matrix and Washington’s attempt to consolidate its strategic defence vis-à-vis its first island chain. The Philippines constitutes a vital component of the latter.
The installation of the base is traced to the US’s decision to establish control over the archipelago through colonisation. It provided the US the opportunity to erect basing facilities straddling the vital global sea routes in the western Pacific sector, in consonance with the Mahanian vision. The route emerged as a conduit for China’s trade. The Philippines’ intrinsic value as a strategic and security asset for forward deployment and defence was appreciated by the US before the inception of the Second World War. The conflicts in Korea, the Persian Gulf, and Vietnam corroborated the validity of the proposition. Although the Philippines became independent in 1946, the US’s control over the base persisted.
It has culminated in the residential state’s enhanced dependency and outsourcing of national security and defence to extra-regional powers, like the US.
The US’s base in the Philippines comprised two base complexes, the Subic Naval Base, the Clark Air Base and other allied facilities. The bases enabled tactical air control, communication, warning apparatus, and other facilities. It harboured the US’s Seventh Fleet and had emerged as a transit post for catapulting a substantial portion of the US’s naval ventures in Southeast Asia. The Subic naval base had cultivated dry docking facilities with floating attributes for ship repair, berthing facilities to station the US’s largest aircraft carrier and depot facilities. The Clark Air Base consolidated the USA’s air power projection. The two bases facilitated the sustainment of US deployment and operational longevity in Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Western Pacific.
However, in 1991, the Philippine Senate voted in favour of terminating the lease that had enabled the presence of American forces on its soil. Later, it was transformed into an economic zone. It harbours a shipyard, now administered by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries. Initially, it was built by the Hanjin Heavy Industry of South Korea. China capitalised on the vacuum created by Washington’s withdrawal and incrementally expanded its footprint in the South China Sea. It enhanced its presence by constructing artificial islands and occupied the Mischief Reef, located east of the Spratly Islands. In 1998, the two stakeholders signed the Visiting Forces Agreement. Contextualised against China’s belligerence in the region, the Agreement was complemented by the conclusion of the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement in 2014. It facilitated the US’s conventional force deployment and rotation in the Philippines’ military base. It coincided with the rekindling of the US Navy’s ships docking at the Subic base. Two inferences may be drawn from the cascading concluding agreements. First, the Southeast Asian nations’ posturing of a nuclear-free, freedom-based neutral zone during the Cold War has adversely affected their national security and defence. It has culminated in the residential state’s enhanced dependency and outsourcing of national security and defence to extra-regional powers, like the US. Second, the dependency prompted by China’s aggressive regional posturing has compelled a colony to seek defence from its extra-regional coloniser.
The region has potential oil and hydrocarbon deposits, thus raising the possibility of joint US–US-Philippines exploration, antithetical to China’s interests.
The present revival of the US’s presence in Subic Bay can be traced to Cerberus Capital Management, an American Investment firm, which emerged victorious in 2022 against its Chinese counterpart in the bidding process, after the collapse of Hanjin. It has operationally revived the Subic shipbuilding infrastructure through a tripartite arrangement involving the US, South Korea, and the Philippines. It steered the way for the US to reinstate its regional presence temporarily. The initiative marks a paradigmatic shift in the Philippines’ stance, from acquiring rotational training from the US to reinstating its substantial presence in the archipelago. The region has potential oil and hydrocarbon deposits, thus raising the possibility of joint US–US-Philippines exploration, antithetical to China’s interests. The deposits have prompted the US to rekindle its presence in the Western Philippines.
In a recent summit in Washington between US President Trump and President Marcos Jr. of the Philippines, the former articulated that the latter would possess “more ammunition”, encompassing a wide range of missiles than any other nation. For the US, it will enable a continuous naval and air presence in the western Pacific. The posturing will consolidate the US’s Taiwan and Indo-Pacific strategies by enhancing its forward deployment, ammunition production, deterrence credibility, force projection in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands and logistic replenishment capacity. The initiative aligns with the US’s free, fair and open Indo-Pacific to secure navigational freedom and protect its trade with East and Southeast Asian economies. The US seeks to proceed with setting up a military storage facility in the Philippines. For the Philippines, US defence investment is an enabler to augment its security strategy, hinged on self-reliance by outsourcing it to America, since territorial defence and integrity are elementary issues in the region. However, the Philippines must strike a balance between the US's presence vis-à-vis defence investment and China, its substantial foreign investor.
The posturing will consolidate the US’s Taiwan and Indo-Pacific strategies by enhancing its forward deployment, ammunition production, deterrence credibility, force projection in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands and logistic replenishment capacity.
Although the US has dismissed the infrastructure being harnessed for ammunition storage and the space utilisation for vehicle repair and storage, its future application for the former cannot be discounted. It can exacerbate the ongoing security dilemma between the US and China in the volatile region of Southeast Asia. The US’s engagement may be decrypted as an attempt to either maintain the status quo or deter and contain China from adopting grey-zone warfare tactics by escalating the cost and challenging its logistics in the region.
Ipshita Chakravarty is a PhD student, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University
The views expressed above belong to the author(s). ORF research and analyses now available on Telegram! Click here to access our curated content — blogs, longforms and interviews.
Ipshita Chakravarty is at present a Ph.D. scholar in the Department of International Relations with Political Science at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. The broad research area ...
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