MikeLigalig.com

Rather than switch allegiances between the two nations, Mr. Duterte managed to play them off each other, in that way improving his position with both and cementing his image at home as a strong nationalist unbeholden to foreign powers. And he did it while keeping his nation’s security guaranteed by a 65-year-old treaty with the United States.

Whether he knows it or not, Mr. Duterte is following a strategy that leaders used throughout the Cold War: balancing between the powers by threatening to change loyalties. That strategy’s track record illuminates why Mr. Duterte’s seemingly reckless actions have borne him such fruit, and may offer a hint of his goals.

The historian John Lewis Gaddis called this a “new kind of power balancing” in his 2005 book, “The Cold War: A New History,” which chronicles midsize nations in Asia, Africa and Europe that won concessions from the Soviet Union and the United States by hinting they might swap sides.
 


Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, right, sharing a toast with Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, center, and Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt in 1961 in Yugoslavia. Tito won concessions from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as did Nasser when he served as Egypt’s president. CreditAssociated Press

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=83137.0

Mao Zedong, left, with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in China in 1958. Mao spurned the Soviets and the Americans, cultivating a perception that China was surrounded by enemies whom only he could balance, justifying his consolidation of control. CreditXinhua, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images


Mr. Fravel, in an interview, said he was “skeptical” that Mr. Duterte would follow through on his threats to cut ties with Washington, which he has already walked back. Still, the threats had helped him ease tensions with China.
“He thought the Philippines’ isolation from China was not good for the Philippines,” Mr. Fravel said. “And so he wanted to end that.”

Other Cold War leaders pitted the superpowers against each other as a means to win independence from them and extract concessions along the way. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt took handouts from both sides, for instance, and relied on them to eject a 1956 invasion by British, French and Israeli troops.

China, now a target of this strategy, was once among its cleverest exploiters. Mao Zedong, though aligned with the Soviet Union for decades, bragged of wielding a pair of disputed islands in the Taiwanese Strait as “two batons that keep Eisenhower and Khrushchev dancing, scurrying this way and that.”

This sort of balancing has another benefit: giving leaders a freer hand to act against their patron’s wishes.
In the weeks before Mr. Duterte threatened to separate from the United States, Washington had withheld an arms sale and increasingly criticized his support for vigilante and police violence that has killed 2,000 people. Now, American focus has shifted to preserving the alliance — something that security analysts doubt Mr. Duterte would ever really break.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=83137.0

Mr. Fravel suggested that Mr. Duterte was really seeking Chinese economic aid and an end to American pressure over his rights abuses — both more domestic than foreign issues.

Mr. Gaddis, in his 2005 book, wrote that leaders often exploited Cold War geopolitics to their domestic political advantage, using “the defiance of external authority as a way to enhance their own internal legitimacy.”

Had Mao fully aligned with the more powerful Soviet Union, for instance, there would have been less need for a strong leader in Beijing. By spurning both superpowers, he cultivated the perception that China was surrounded by enemies whom only he could balance, justifying his consolidation of control.

Mr. Duterte is no Mao, but his support of extrajudicial killings appears to be part of a larger strategy of strengthening his control, which includes his self-made image as an unapologetic nationalist.

Though the United States is popular in the Philippines, those attitudes are layered with a sense of wounded pride at being treated as less than equal. Mr. Duterte, by showing up the Americans (without actually expelling them), can indulge that latent nationalism. And by securing Chinese concessions, he can present himself as standing up to both powers.

And while Mr. Duterte is taking a risk by defying his own military leadership, which is deeply invested in the United States alliance, prevailing could improve his control of that institution.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=83137.0

the marcos couple did that too.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=83137.0