The Philippines, a U.S. ally, has hailed as a “game-changer” the delivery of new supersonic missiles that it believes will significantly beef up its coastal defenses amid rising tensions with China.

The first batch of BrahMos cruise missiles, ordered from India two years ago, arrived at Clark International Airport north of Manila on Friday. It was handed over to the Philippine marines to be deployed at an as yet undisclosed location within the country’s archipelagic territory.

The high-profile arms transfer comes in the middle of the simmering Philippines-China dispute in the contested Spratly Islands archipelago of the South China Sea, where the Chinese and Philippines coast guards have clashed over territorial features claimed by both sides.

  • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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    7 months ago

    Right, but this is the Philippines just buying some missiles so Marcos Jr can act tough, like their one squadron of fighters and some dudes with rifles won’t just be begging the US Navy to keep the scary Chinese away. If Ukraine had cash in hand I have no doubt they could have found some people to sell them some missiles of dubious value.

    I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t think it’s that worth getting worked up over for a fluff piece.

    At least now that the military aid is going strong again.

    • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t think it’s that worth getting worked up over for a fluff piece.

      I’m not worked up over it (nice attempt to ‘Kill the Messenger’ with an ‘emo’ accusation bullet by the way), I’m just seeing the irony of one nation needing missiles and not getting them, versus another nation that doesn’t need the missiles and getting them.

      One is at war, the other one is just preparing for a potential future war. The triage decision on this one is self evident.

      Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)