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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-17/mdt-ph-us.webp" alt="Filipino Marines" loading="lazy" />
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<p>
Indeed, the head of the ADR Stratbase propaganda outfit in a recent piece praised MDT to the high heavens. Referring to the US and its MDT, he wrote: 
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<p>
"With friends like these, the Philippines can confidently navigate these challenges that threaten to break the peaceful coexistence needed to bolster progress and prosperity." 
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<p>
What he's saying: No need to worry over our disputes with China; the US has our back.
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<p>
The oft-quoted provision of the treaty reads: 
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<p>
"An armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific Ocean, its armed forces, public vessels, or aircraft in the Pacific."
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<p>
But that treaty was entered into 71 years ago, when the US was the unchallenged hegemon capable of crushing any other nation. Both the USSR and China at the time were still economically and militarily weak nations. While Russia detonated its first nuclear bomb in 1949 and China in 1964, they didn't have efficient delivery systems for these. China would have a blue-water navy only starting in the 1980s, which made it powerless before that to enforce its sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.
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<h3>
Changed
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<p>
The world has changed since. China has become an economic and military power. Russia, China's ally, has 5,889 nuclear warheads, more than the US' 5,224. China has 410 such weapons of mass destruction.
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<p>
It is almost certain that if the US comes to aid us, say, when a Chinese coast guard attacks our coast guard, the two superpowers will be on a slippery road to total nuclear war if the US decides to comply with the MDT.
</p>
<p>
This is especially so since China will see the US intervention as an invasion of its territory since the Americans have totally no claim in the South China Sea. Even if China is an authoritarian state, the Communist Party of China's legitimacy would vanish if it did not battle the Americans in what the Chinese are convinced is their backyard.
</p>
<p>
Several American think tanks have undertaken sophisticated war games if a war were to break out between the two superpowers when China attempts to invade Taiwan. If there's one lesson from these war games, according to a US congressman who observed the simulations: 
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<p>
"It's that a war with China would be catastrophic for America and all of humanity." Heed his words: "We must do everything in our power to prevent a conflict."
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<h3>
Wiggle
</h3>
<p>
How can the US wiggle out of its MDT commitment to militarily aid us? Easy.
</p>
<p>
Imagine a scenario in which the Chinese finally decide to tow away the BRP Sierra Madre in Ayungin Shoal. Our courageous coast guard, followed by the navy, blocks the Chinese vessels. Water cannons fail to drive them away, so the Chinese ram them, and when this fails, they fire artillery shells to sink them.
</p>
<p>
Will the US immediately come to our aid? Certainly not. The US will hem and haw to distance itself from the conflict, knowing the terrible consequences of war with China.
</p>


We have to deal with China without the illusion that the United States has our back