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Indonesia is getting an aircraft carrier. The Philippines isn’t. Does it matter?
Indonesia wants to project power. The Philippines wants to deny it. In the South China Sea, one approach may matter more than the other
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The Philippines cannot afford an aircraft carrier, could not sustain one if it had it and, according to most analysts, does not need one.
What it needs is messier, cheaper and harder to photograph, they say: a web of missiles, patrol boats, frigates and surveillance assets designed not to project power, but to deny it.
Two recent developments have made that choice harder to ignore. Last month, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr openly mused that an aircraft carrier with “accompanying destroyers, frigates, and submarines” could “push them away”, referring to Chinese vessels in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
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This comes as Indonesia, the Philippines’ vast southern neighbour, is preparing to acquire a retired Italian light aircraft carrier later this year, which would make it only the second country in Southeast Asia after Thailand to operate a carrier-type vessel.
Together, these events have cast a spotlight on what kind of navy the Philippines is building – and whether it is fit for purpose.
“We don’t have the means to send them away,” Marcos told a press conference on February 5, referring to Chinese-flagged vessels. “But if we had an aircraft carrier with accompanying destroyers, frigates, and submarines to send there to push them away, that would be possible.”
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