THE worrisome situation that continues to intensify across the Indo-Pacific theater — India-China border, Taiwan Strait, East China Sea, South China Sea — is subverting diplomatic efforts to restore peace and order, and escalating the prospects of an armed conflict due to clashing core interests of the great powers between China and the United States.

While our interdependent foreign policy seeks to push the peace envelope as the rational path towards diplomatic settlement for human and ecological security we, at the same time, are preparing for the worst, foremost of which is exemplified by the modernization of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.