When you consider the complexity of the Moro Islamic insurgency in the southern Philippines and the diverse motivations of the groups involved, it’s all too easy to be pessimistic about the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the 50-year conflict. The Islamic State–affiliated Abu Sayyaf Group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), the Maute Group and the New People’s Army all appear more interested in mayhem than in peace.

Despite the best efforts of these spoilers, peace and indeed cooperation between the Philippine national government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are flourishing.

In July last year, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte signed the Bangsamoro Organic Law, which allowed for the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). The BARMM is composed of municipalities on Mindanao’s west coast and also encompasses the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in the Sulu and Celebes Seas. Its creation represents a major step towards a political solution to the long-running conflict in Mindanao.

Since the establishment of the BARMM, peace has broken out between the Philippine government and the MILF. Everywhere you look in the regional capital, Cotabato City, someone is building something. In the field, the MILF, aided by close air support from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), is pursuing terrorist groups.

The success to date is causally linked to the multi-track approach being used to manage the security situation in the BARMM.

At the political level, the national government has established the BARMM Transition Authority, which is made up of members nominated by the government and the MILF. This has fostered greater cooperation and coordination between the MILF, the AFP and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

At the same time, Duterte has pushed his ministers and the civil service to assist in normalising peace arrangements in the BARMM, including by making progressive changes in the way the security agencies function.

The AFP, while still maintaining a very visible presence, has removed itself from policing the community, despite the existence of martial law. It has shifted its efforts to maintaining continuous pressure on Abu Sayyaf, the New People’s Army and BIFF by ‘finding, fixing and finishing’ them. By relentlessly pursuing these groups, the AFP has denied them the opportunity to reorganise and plan attacks.

In response to the AFP’s change in strategy, the PNP has taken on a more security-focused role. Through physical presence the PNP has sought to discourage conflict and restrict the terrorist groups’ freedom of movement.

Under the umbrella of the BARMM regional government, the MILF, AFP and PNP have established 30-strong joint peace and security teams comprising seven AFP, eight PNP and 15 MILF officers.

These arrangements have been critical for facilitating the peace process and in dealing with the parallel conflicts present in the BARMM. But after decades of conflict, policing in the BARMM remains militarised to a degree, which has left a gap in law enforcement in the community at large.

While the threat environment still demands that a large portion of the BARMM security sector focus on fighting terrorism, success in meeting that challenge is generating new community policing requirements. For the normalisation process to continue, communities need to have faith that the BARMM and the Philippine government can deliver peace and security.

For that to occur, the PNP needs to deal with the regular conflicts between Moro family clans, the presence of private armed groups, and an alarming gun culture present across the BARMM. But they also need to build the Moro people’s confidence in their ability to enforce the law and resolve disputes.

In the wake of the Marawi siege, the international community focused on providing assistance to the Philippine government to enhance the counterterrorism capabilities of the PNP and AFP. These actions should be commended as they were critical to both organisations’ ongoing and successful campaigns against Abu Sayyaf, the New People’s Army and BIFF. But at this critical juncture in the peace and normalisation process, new police capacity development requirements are emerging.

To full appreciate these requirements, the BARMM, the PNP and the national government will need to work with Mindanao communities to identify and resolve issues of law and order.

The primary focus of this work needs to be enhancing public confidence in those institutions. The development and implementation of community-based policing methodologies that concentrate on conflict resolution and problem solving will be key to building trust.

This community-policing approach will generate a requirement to enhance the negotiation and conflict-resolution skills of PNP officers in the BARMM. These skills will be critical to resolving the ongoing clan disputes that plague the region.

There’s an opportunity here for Australia to play an active role in reforming the security sector in the BARMM and in doing so to make a lasting contribution to the normalisation process.

Australia’s law enforcement agencies, especially its state and territory police forces, have hard-earned experience in community policing, and their current models are underpinned by an extensive evidence base.

Similarly, the Australian Federal Police International Deployment Group’s experience in Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Cyprus could be used to develop negotiation and conflict-resolution training for the PNP.

As this new chapter of the peace process in the southern Philippines continues to evolve, Australia needs to reconsider the nature of its assistance to the BARMM and move beyond its existing role of counterterrorism support.

 

Last week, the Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation and the Griffith Asia Institute co-hosted a Philippines–Australia Track II dialogue in Manila, focusing on the security dimension of the relationship. It brought together academics, analysts and practitioners to talk about the security challenges facing both countries, as well as their policy responses. A key message for Australia was the need to think about options for further strengthening our strategic ties with this important Southeast Asian state beyond the battle for Marawi.

The terrorist siege in that southern Philippine city provided Canberra with an opportunity to boost defence relations by supplying much-needed assistance. The provision of surveillance support to the Armed Forces of the Philippines, in the form of AP-3C Orion aircraft, was particularly valued. Since then, the Australian Defence Force has stepped up its engagement by training Philippine soldiers in combined urban operations to enhance their capacity to address similar scenarios in the future.

While cooperation on counterterrorism will continue to be an important aspect of Australia–Philippines defence relations, it should be embedded within a broader strategic relationship. In particular, the two countries need to work together to manage a bigger strategic challenge: China’s quest for regional dominance and its ongoing efforts to turn the South China Sea (SCS) into a Chinese ‘lake’.

The geopolitical significance of the Philippines in our region is clear. Despite the depredations of the authoritarian populism of its current president, Rodrigo Duterte, the country remains one of Asia’s largest democracies. It has a burgeoning, young and increasingly better-skilled population of over 100 million people. It’s also one of Southeast Asia’s best-performing economies, alongside China and Vietnam, with GDP growth predicted to remain above 6.5% out to 2020.

Moreover, it’s a ‘frontline state’ in the emerging competition for the SCS because of its close proximity to some disputed islands and features. It sits in what some in Beijing term the ‘first island chain’ off China’s east coast. Its location makes the country a potential ‘barrier’ against a future bout of Chinese military expansionism and a putative ‘springboard’ for US-led operations against China’s People Liberation Army (PLA). As Stephen Biddle and Ivan Oelrich point out, Philippine territory could be utilised to deny the PLA control over parts of the SCS by establishing an ‘anti-access/area denial’ perimeter.

Like Australia, the Philippines doesn’t want to live in a China-dominated order. Notwithstanding Duterte’s recent friendly overtures to Beijing, as Peter Chalk’s recent ASPI report points out, the Philippines hasn’t walked away from the US alliance. Many in the political elite in Manila (as well as in the bureaucracy, the military and the wider population) continue to be deeply opposed to China’s encroachment on what they consider sovereign Philippine territory at Scarborough Shoal, seized by Chinese forces in 2012, and to the continued harassment of Philippine fishermen by China’s coast guard and maritime militia.

Driven by these concerns, the AFP is investing—albeit slowly—in territorial defence, with a long-term objective of acquiring a deterrent capability against China. The Philippine government just announced a record budget of US$5.6 billion for the five-year ‘Horizon 2’ defence modernisation program, with the lion’s share earmarked for air and naval capabilities. The future ‘Horizon 3’ program is likely to include more money for further upgrades, including the acquisition of submarines. These investments are very modest from a regional perspective, and defence spending remains well below 1% of Philippine GDP. But they signal an important, if incremental change in the country’s defence policy.

Australia doesn’t take sides in territorial disputes in the SCS. But Canberra has repeatedly stated its deep concern about China’s attempt to change the territorial status quo in the region and to challenge the wider ‘rules-based order’, as both the 2016 Defence White Paper and 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper make clear.

In this context, investing in strategic ties with the Philippines must be a key priority for Canberra. Australia should offer to upgrade bilateral ties to a ‘strategic partnership’ akin to the one just concluded with Vietnam, and ensure high-level dialogue is maintained, with regular visits by senior ministers and officials.

Australia should also explore opportunities to include the Philippines in trilateral security or defence dialogues, involving Japan, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and the United States. These moves would send an important signal to the region about Australia’s willingness to play a more active role in shaping the security of Southeast Asia and about the Philippines’ geopolitical significance in the region.

At the same time, Canberra should seize the opportunity and offer assistance to strengthen the Philippines’ territorial defence capabilities, including in hard-edge areas such as air defence and anti-submarine warfare. It could also explore the possibility of more regular sharing of strategic assessments of Chinese intentions and capabilities, and information about the disposition of naval and coast guard assets, as well as other fishing vessels.

Enhancing the strategic relationship in these ways would be important steps in pushing back against Beijing’s revisionist claims and its attempt to establish effective control over the SCS.

In a new ASPI report, Terrorism in the Indo-Pacific: glocalism comes of age, I assess al‑Qaeda and Daesh’s commitment to establishing a presence in the Indo-Pacific from which they intend to promote their destructive ideology.

Salafi-jihadi ‘glocalism’ refers to the meshing of local issues with the transnational goals of al‑Qaeda—restoring Islam and the umma to their glory days—and advancing the idea of shared grievances through a program of action (terrorism).

The report shows that the Indo-Pacific is an important sphere for the evolving Salafi-jihadi campaigns of al‑Qaeda and Daesh, not only because foreign fighters are slowly filtering into the region, bringing new knowledge and capability, but also because there are many locally based push and pull factors that create conditions that al‑Qaeda and Daesh can exploit.

These conditions range from oppressive policies such as those introduced by the Chinese government in Xinjiang Province, where there’s a preference for a ‘strike first, strike hard’ approach, to political shenanigans undertaken by the ruling party in Bangladesh such as placing thousands of its political opponents in prison, to disillusionment with globalisation. Al‑Qaeda and Daesh exploit these conditions.

My report focuses on Marawi, Bangladesh and Xinjiang Province. Marawi was clearly a game changer in that it took the Philippine military more than 150 days to take the city back. It also featured in the June 2017 issue of Rumiyah—the Islamic State online magazine—under the headline ‘The jihad in East Asia’. It’s likely to serve as a useful propaganda tool for Daesh because of the length of the battle and the fact that the insurgents used drones, which indicates a level of sophistication that hasn’t been seen for years in the region. The battle also saw several foreign fighters—Indonesians and at least one Moroccan—travelling to participate in the conflict.

I also note how the mistreatment of the Rohingya is being used by Salafi-jihadi groups to inspire activism. The Malaysian police in Kelantan State, which shares a border with Thailand, have identified more than 100 smuggling ‘rat trails’ the groups use (in May 2017 the police busted a Daesh cell that was smuggling weapons into Malaysia from southern Thailand and preparing to launch an attack in Malaysia). I also point out that Sunni extremists such as Slamet Maarif, the spokesperson of the Islamic Defenders Front, an extremist Sunni group located in Indonesia, have called on Muslims to help the Rohingya:

We want to help in any way we can. We are even prepared to wage jihad there if need be. That is why one of the main requirements for our recruits is the willingness to die as a martyr. Muslims are being slaughtered there. Our volunteers will be facing armed military officers and civilians there. That is why we want young men who are willing to die for their religion.

In my report I highlight the importance of Bangladesh to al‑Qaeda and Daesh. In 2014, Ayman al‑Zawahiri authorised the establishment of al‑Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent under the leadership of Uthamn Basha, Zawahiri’s son-in-law. Basha was a senior leader in the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. The goal of the group, in the words of Zawahiri, is to defend the ‘vulnerable in the Indian subcontinent, in Burma, Bangladesh, Assam, Gujurat, Ahmedabad and Kashmir’.

In 2016, Daesh established a branch (Soldiers of Khilafah in Bengal) in Bangladesh under the leadership of Sheikh Abu Ibrahim al‑Hanafi. According to al‑Hanafi, Daesh’s goal was to facilitate ‘guerrilla attacks inside India simultaneously from both sides and facilitate creating a condition of tawahhush [management of savagery] in India along with the help of the existing local mujahidin there’.

Over the last few years, Canberra has reached out to its partners in Southeast Asia with the intention of developing better mechanisms to counter violent extremism and Salafi-jihadi activity. Australia played an important role in supporting the Philippine army’s campaign to retake the city of Marawi, but we haven’t looked to South Asia or to Central Asia

The May 2018 ASEAN–Australia Special Summit highlighted a shared commitment to ‘respecting international law and the rules-based order which underpins our way of life, secures our prosperity and safety’ as being the pinnacle to countering terrorism.

Nevertheless, as was recently shown in Surabaya, more is needed to ensure that what transpired in East Java isn’t part of an evolving trend aimed at sowing panic and revulsion (and emphasising the devotion of Daesh followers), and promoting sectarian violence, as was the case in the Maluku Islands (1999–2002).

Soon after the attack, President Joko Widodo called on the parliament to adopt a counterterrorism bill that has been languishing in parliament since 2016, in part because there was concern the legislation would give police even wider powers to arrest and hold terrorist suspects. Putting aside the issue as to whether the revisions are necessary, the reality is that Indonesia has a major problem with its prisons, specifically as it pertains to how it deals with its terrorists. Reports suggest that three men whose families were responsible for the Surabaya attacks had visited Aman Abdurrahman and Abu Bakar Bashir.

It’s becoming clear that al‑Qaeda and Daesh are linking local issues to their transnational ideology, which is why there’s a desperate need for a robust, regionally based counterterrorism program that goes beyond Southeast Asia.

The Philippines is poised to become strategically more important to Australia, leading to opportunities for intensified defence cooperation. At a recent dialogue held in Manila on deepening the Australia–Philippines relationship, hosted by the Foreign Service Institute in conjunction with the Griffith Asia Institute, I spoke about the importance of taking a long-term perspective on the relationship between the two countries.

Currently, the strategic relationship seems hampered by uncertainty over the course of the Philippine government of President Rodrigo Duterte. Under his leadership, the country appears to have moved away from its traditional alliance with the United States towards closer alignment with China. Some analysts have already concluded that Manila is now tempted to ‘bandwagon’ with Beijing. Combined with human rights concerns, the Australia–Philippines relationship has been characterised by uncertainty and limited opportunities for deeper engagement.

Moreover, despite the progress made since the Philippines–Australia Status of Visiting Forces Agreement was ratified by the Philippines Senate in 2012, bilateral defence cooperation remains constrained. That’s particularly true in the maritime and air domain, due to capability asymmetries between the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Philippine Armed Forces (PAF). Joint maritime exercises such as Exercise Lumbas have therefore been at lower levels, focusing on maritime safety.

However, a more nuanced and long-term perspective is required to assess the Australia–Philippines strategic relationship. First, despite his pro-Chinese rhetoric, Duterte hasn’t walked away from the US alliance. Indeed, at the working level, US–Philippine defence cooperation continues to increase, as evidenced by US special forces support for the campaign against IS militants in the southern Philippines, the delivery of the Philippine Navy’s first Tethered Aerostat Radar System to enhance maritime surveillance, and the transfer of two new Cessna-20B Grand Caravan Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance aircraft. Under Duterte, the Philippines also reached an agreement with Japan on the transfer of equipment and training for maritime reconnaissance, indicating that Manila is still ‘balancing’ against China while slowly but steadily building up its maritime capability.

Second, Australia has already ramped up its contribution to the PAF’s naval capability development. For instance, the delivery of five decommissioned landing craft (two donations and three sold at a ‘friendship prize’) in 2015–16 was a welcome step towards strengthening the Philippines’ nascent maritime capability. As the PAF is incrementally developing a more robust coastal defence capability—also evident in the order of two modern 2,600-tonne coastal frigates, a variant of South Korea’s Incheon class—there’d be opportunities for more complex naval exercises, including in critical areas such as anti-submarine warfare, and possible cooperation on defence equipment such as AUSTAL’s high-speed vessels.

Third, over the medium to long term the Philippines will become even more important to Australia. That’s partly because of the joint interest in combating terrorism operating in the Mindanao–Sulawesi–Sabah triangle, demonstrated in Australia’s dispatch of two AP-3C Orion aircraft to provide surveillance support for the PAF in the southern Philippines. However, the driving factor for deeper cooperation will be China. Despite the current relative calm in the South China Sea, China is likely to continue to push the envelope, including further militarisation of artificial islands and pressure on the Philippines over the Scarborough Shoal. Beijing doesn’t consider Manila an equal partner and will pursue its objective of dominating the West Philippine Sea slowly but surely. A Philippine strategy of a true partnership with Beijing would probably fail.

Meanwhile, the US may decide to more strongly contest Chinese attempts to dominate the South China Sea. The honeymoon between Washington and Beijing is quickly coming to an end. In turn, Washington will look for increased bilateral and multilateral cooperation with allies such as the Philippines and Australia amid a more contested South China Sea. And now, after the 2012 disaster in the Scarborough Shoal, where the Obama administration failed to support its Philippine ally in the face of Chinese coercion, Washington might be more prepared for much tougher measures, including forward-deploying forces on Philippine territory. In the face of increased Chinese pressure, a post-Duterte government as well as the Philippine strategic and military establishment could well support such steps.

For its part, Australia faces increasing pressure to carry a greater burden in Asia–Pacific maritime security affairs, including much closer maritime cooperation with littoral Southeast Asian nations and enhanced military presence. Canberra’s most significant naval build-up since World War II will equip the ADF with growing power projection capabilities in the region. Working closely with the PAF in conjunction with US, Japanese and (potentially) Indian forces will become more important. Given the Philippines’ growing geostrategic location as a ‘frontline’ state in the struggle for the ‘rules-based order’ in maritime Asia, Canberra would be well advised to invest systematically and significantly in this important long-term strategic and defence relationship.

The Marawi crisis between Philippine government security forces and militants affiliated with the Islamic State—Philippine, including the Maute and Abu Sayyaf salafist-jihadist groups, started on 23 May 2017. Since the fighting began, nearly 350 people have been killed and more than 300,000 displaced. If the situation isn’t contained, external intervention will be needed to avoid the spill-over of terrorism and other violence into the South Pacific.

Much of the extremist ethos driving the desire to usurp governments is historically based. The imposition of European colonialism following World War I didn’t dim Arab optimism about the future. Many Arab thinkers (PDF) objected to colonialism because of resulting underdevelopment and lack of legitimacy. In a new dawn, Arabs saw their salvation in ideas brought from the West. Very few subscribed to the view that a return to the precepts of Islam was a solution to the lack of development of the Arab world and its subjugation to colonialism.

Many individuals believe the extremist principles proclaimed over the past 20 years derive from Osama bin Laden. In fact, analysts should understand that bin Laden wasn’t among the foremost Islamists; nor were his ideas original. Over the past two decades, Islamists have sought to explain the causes of the political, socioeconomic and identity-related crises of their societies and the Islamic world by providing solutions. Consequently, bin Laden drew many of his ideas from such Islamists as the Egyptian Muhammad Abdel Salam al-Farag (PDF), executed in 1982 for his role in the assassination of President Anwar al-Sadat. Farag wasn’t an original thinker, and more famous scholars have offered a deeper understanding of the philosophical wellsprings of violent extremism. Farag is important because he wrote a manifesto of action for violent extremism.

To counter violent extremism’s ability to usurp governments, the war against extremists involves the use of intelligence assets and military, legal and financial means, converging in a synergistic campaign. Subsequently, a number of states serve as breeding grounds for terrorist organisations. Oppositional conditions relate to a security failure supporting the perception of the existential threat to Western and global security posed by weak, fragile and failing states. This position underpins strategic responses involving military intervention aimed at pre-emptive, defensive, humanitarian and state-building objectives in perceived failed states.

The discussion focuses on the threat posed by weak, failing and fragile states to global security. Direct or indirect threats occur through civil war, spill overs of violence, poverty, environmental degradation, disease, weapons of mass destruction, terrorist networks and drug cartels, leading to strategies for military interventions. Military intervention in perceived failed states is pursued ideally through integrated strategic frameworks to protect human rights, establish stability, promote democracy and provide economic assistance to rebuild the state.

As a state drowns in societal conflicts, the opportunity for people to join extremist organisations increases significantly. Edward Azar was the first to describe violent events in the developing world as ‘protracted social conflicts’:

‘Protracted social conflicts occur when depriving communities of their basic needs on the basis of the communal identity … the deprivation is the result of a complex causal chain involving the role of the state and the pattern of international linkages (p.12).’

In many cases, a harsh response constitutes the core of state strategy in coping with communal dissent. A hard-line approach invites equally militant responses from repressed groups. Co-option could serve to mitigate collective grievances, but it’s usually perceived as being a tactical manoeuvre to fragment the opposition and divert its attention. Failure of the co-option strategy further justifies coercive repressive options, leading to an upward spiral of violent clashes.

When grievances occur, security must support the agenda of the state. Monty Marshall views security as a regional issue when a state can’t contain violence. Exploring the process of diffusion of insecurity in cultures of violence, he presents the concept of the ‘protracted conflict region’, suggesting that the spill over of the culture of violence is a function of spatial proximity and ‘affects all social relations in proximity to the violence’ (pp. 138-139). While the culture of violence directly affects confrontational states, it spreads to populations in peripheral countries (those surrounding core states) and marginal states (located beyond the peripheral states) in the region.

The ‘all-out war’ provides a dominant counter-narrative through strict Islamic Salafist fundamentalist adherence as the future path in failing societies. In the constant battle between differing views of governance, the context of the Arab world is one of turmoil as a result of the declining political legitimacy of rulers and massive socioeconomic and identity crises. If the Philippine government can’t contain the Islamic State—Philippine, the region should be prepared to respond as a preventive measure to avoid the conflict spilling to other countries throughout the South Pacific and breeding violent extremist actors further afield.