On disputed waters and the credibility of alliances

The Washington Examiner reports that Philippine Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro has issued a warning about Chinese pressure on the Scarborough Shoal — a feature that sits, by the account of international law, within the Philippines's exclusive economic zone, yet which China claims as its own. The headline asks whether anyone believes Chinese propaganda against Japan. I would put the question somewhat differently: does it matter whether they believe it, if the behavior behind the propaganda goes unanswered?

I was known to counsel against permanent entangling alliances, and I hold to that counsel still. A republic should not chain its fortunes to any foreign power for sentiment's sake alone. But that principle was never a counsel of indifference. Interest is the governing word. When a nation that shares commerce and principle with you is pressed by a neighbor that does not respect agreed boundaries, your interest in a stable and rule-governed world is directly engaged — whether you acknowledge it or not.

The Examiner's framing raises the matter of propaganda itself, and here I would urge citizens and officials alike to think carefully. A narrative repeated long enough, across enough channels, begins to reshape the perceived facts on which policy rests. I knew something of this in my own time — the art of shaping public sentiment was not invented in the modern age. What is new, I am told, is the scale and speed with which such narratives can move. The civic discipline required to distinguish a claim from a fact has never been more necessary, and appears, by many accounts, to be in shorter supply.

The Scarborough Shoal dispute is, as I understand it, not merely a quarrel between two neighbors. It touches the question of whether international agreements mean what they say — whether a smaller nation can rely on a recognized boundary, or whether boundaries simply reflect whoever has the most ships in the water at a given moment. A republic that professes to honor the rule of law at home cannot be wholly indifferent to whether the rule of law holds at sea. These are not separate questions.

I will not pretend to know the precise instruments — legal, diplomatic, or military — that the present moment calls for. Those are judgments for people who have lived in this era, not for one of my disposition reasoning at a distance. What I can say is this: the question of whether free peoples notice, and what they do when they notice, is precisely the question of national character. Inattention is not neutrality. It is a choice, and it carries consequences. My counsel is to engage this matter with clear eyes, consult interest honestly, and be wary of both the permanent friendship and the reflexive hostility that faction so often supplies in place of genuine deliberation.