Eyeing China, the Philippines wants to buy its first attack submarine

The Philippines is making a shift to counter China's rising might, but the hefty cost of buying a submarine could be better spent.

• The Philippines wants to buy its first submarine as tensions in the region mount.
• Experts say their money would be better spent on drones and missile boats.
• There are powerful symbolic reasons for the Philippines to join the sub club.

Amid rising tensions with China, the Philippines is planning to buy its first submarine.

The Philippine government says this reflects a shift from internal counterinsurgency against rebels to external defense of the nation's sovereignty as China's military power grows in the South China Sea. But some experts question whether buying a sub makes sense given more cost-effective weapons to counter China, or whether it will even happen.

"There are a lot of folks inside and outside of the Philippine Navy saying, 'maybe this isn't the best use of our money," Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, told Business Insider.

In February, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. announced that his nation would buy a submarine, as part of a long-term modernization of the Philippine armed forces. A Philippine Navy spokesman added that this reflected the Philippines shifting from internal to external defense. "We may not be a large navy … but we would have a navy that will take care of our territorial rights and sovereignty," he said.

China and its neighbors have been at loggerheads for the past decade, after Beijing claimed sovereignty over most of the South China Sea, including islands and resource-rich waters. Multiple nations — including Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines — reject those claims, as did an international tribunal in 2016.

In recent months, the Philippines and China have clashed over an unlikely prize: the Sierra Madre, a rusting ex-American amphibious landing ship from World War II, which the Philippine Navy grounded on the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert its rights over the area. China has tried to stop the Philippines military from resupplying the small garrison on the ship, including ramming Philippine ships, and using water cannon, lasers, and even axes and knives.

However, Poling doesn't believe that the sub acquisition is tied to this incident. Plans to buy a sub date back to the administration of former President Rodrigo Duterte, a populist whose attempts to embrace China sputtered. "The Philippines is in the last third of a 15-year military modernization plan to move from an internal counterterrorism-focused force to an external defense force," Poling said. "And that mainly means pumping more money into acquisitions for the navy and air force."

Though an American ally, it couldn't afford or operate the nuclear-powered models that the US builds. France, Spain, South Korea and Italy, which build diesel-electric subs, have expressed interest, the Philippine Navy has said. Diesel-electric submarines are relatively tough to detect before they surface to intake fresh air, and a small number of them could complicate China's efforts to encroach on atolls and islands by force.

But that leaves the question of how readily the Philippines Navy can operate a submarine. Its combat fleet mostly consists of small missile boats and patrol craft, plus two frigates and a corvette. Other Asian powers, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, have subs. But Malaysia experienced major problems when it received French-built submarines in 2009.

Submarines are a "wildly expensive capability for any country to field because it is an entire ecosystem," said Poling. " You've got to build a submarine base. You've got to have trained crews."

The Philippines may not even have the money for a diesel submarine, which can cost $500 million apiece. "The key determinant here is the fiscal capacity of the Philippines," Mark Manantan, director of cybersecurity and critical technologies, at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum think tank, told Business Insider. "According to some individuals within the defense and security establishment, purchasing a submarine will possibly eat up the entire defense budget."

Still, there are powerful symbolic reasons for the Philippines to join the sub club. It demonstrates success in ending a 50-year-old Communist insurgency, as well as a more recent rebellion by Islamic militants on the island of Mindanao.

"There are two complementary things going on here," said Poling. "One is the rise of China as a threat to the Philippines. The other is the pretty rapid advance of the peace process in the southern Philippines, along with the degradation of the Philippine Communist Party."

And as with many nations, there is a desire to keep up with the neighbors. "Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam have subs, so we should have subs, too," Poling said.

A single submarine would do little to change the power imbalance between the Philippines and China. Nor would it be useful against the sort of low-key, gray zone warfare that Beijing is waging in places, such as harassing the Philippine ship beached on the Second Thomas Shoal.

Rather than a $500 million diesel sub, a better option would be to acquire cheap but powerful weapons such as missiles, drones and small missile boats. Indeed, the Philippines recently took delivery of Indian-made BrahMos anti-ship missiles, with a range of around 180 miles.

"I don't think that you'll find any Philippine naval analysts who would stump for a submarine," Poling said. "They want BrahMos missiles or fast missile boats."

Ironically, one country that won't care about a new Philippine sub is China. "I don't think the purchase of submarines would have any deterrent effect at all," said Manantan, who believes China may also be counting on future Philippine governments to cancel the project. "The Chinese understand the volatility of Philippine domestic politics, particularly the in-fighting and rent-seeking dynamics among competing political parties. So Beijing is just biding its time up until a new administration sits that it can persuade or at least influence.

Ironically, one country that won't care about a new Philippine sub is China. Beijing is more concerned with alliances that Manila is pursuing, such as a new agreement that would allow the Japanese military — whose forebears committed atrocities against Filipinos during their WWII occupation — to use Philippine bases.

"This would be the first time since World War II that Japanese forces have been able to conduct live-fire training in an Asian nation," said Poling. "That worries China."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.