US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives in the Philippine province of Cebu on Wednesday for a gathering with Southeast Asian counterparts, where he is expected to face questions regarding Washington’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region. The Pentagon said Hegseth’s attendance at the gathering would reaffirm Washington’s commitment to “peace through strength” in the Pacific.
Strained Alliances Amid Regional Friction
The meetings arrive as the ongoing war in Iran, launched by US and Israeli strikes on February 28, continues to strain US military readiness and disrupt global shipping and oil markets. This conflict has exposed Southeast Asia’s vulnerability to imported-fuel shocks, pushing energy security higher on ASEAN’s agenda. Host nation the Philippines is navigating particularly tense waters, managing a difficult diplomatic balance while dealing with repeated maritime confrontations with Beijing in the disputed South China Sea.
Teodoro to hold bilateral meeting with US counterpart this week By Priam NepomucenoMANILA – Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. will have a bilateral meeting with his US counterpart, Pete Hegseth, on the sidelines of the ASEAN Defense… pic.twitter.com/XNNsZSW9AV
Security analysts note that regional capitals are looking for reassurance. Collin Koh, a security scholar at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said Southeast Asian nations will use sidelines meetings to seek clarity on alliance certainty. “They will want to seek answers from the United States regarding certainty towards alliances and partnerships,” Koh said, adding that “the bigger elephant in the room is how does that juxtapose with US commitment to the Indo-Pacific or Western Pacific theatre.”
Maritime Showdowns and Diplomatic Balancing
The geographic focal point of the summit underscores the urgency of these security discussions. Days before the October 28 and 29 meetings, the Philippine military reported monitoring and shadowing China’s Liaoning aircraft carrier group as it passed through waters off the southern Philippines toward the Celebes Sea. China’s defence attaché in the Philippines will attend the meeting, its defence ministry said on Tuesday.
Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative and a fellow with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Hegseth would get an opportunity at the gathering to tackle aspects regarding China, the disputed South China Sea and Washington’s commitments to its treaty allies. “Most will want reassurance about US commitment to the region, despite the political turmoil in Washington and the weakening of both US capabilities and readiness by the war in Iran,” Poling said.
Tactical Cooperation Versus Strategic Alignment
While closed-door discussions are expected to touch on thorny maritime disputes, the public outcomes of the summit will likely follow a more cautious script. Koh noted that the eventual chairman’s statement would likely be more restrained than talks behind closed doors and would employ familiar ASEAN language, given the delicate diplomatic position Manila occupies as chair while embroiled in its own territorial dispute with China.
Poling emphasized that while the Philippines must balance “aspirational cooperation” on issues such as energy connectivity, the digital economy, and coast guard cooperation against rising tension with China and stalled progress on a South China Sea code of conduct, concrete breakthroughs on core geopolitical disputes remain unlikely. “I’d expect tactical cooperation on the ADMM workstreams … but no strategic alignment on the South China Sea or other thorny issues,” Poling said, referring to the bloc’s effort to tackle issues such as maritime security and counter-terrorism. Stronger signals were more likely to figure in talks among like-minded partners, including the Squad, a grouping of the United States, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines, whose defence chiefs are set to meet on October 28.
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