Quora Answer: Who Will Win a Naval War between the Philippines & Japan?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “Who will win a naval war between the Philippines and Japan?”

In the 1960s, the Philippines was the naval power of East Asia.  The Philippines military, including its navy, was among the very first nations to deploy troops during the Korean War.  Filipino soldiers, many of them veterans of World War II, fought with distinction.  This was despite them having an insurgency back home.  After the end of the Korean War, the Philippines was instrumental in the setting up of the Republic of Korea’s navy, including training many of its officers, and setting up the maritime interdiction doctrine.  They have a proud history of more than 120 years.

However, mismanagement of the economy and lack of investment in defence has caused them to deteriorate to the extent that the current naval fleet has less than 25,000 personnel, with less than a hundred vessels.  All this to defend an archipelago of almost 8,000 islands, with a population of over 100 million, covering an ocean area of over one million square kilometres, including their EEZ.  In contrast, the Republic of Singapore Navy has just under half that number of modern vessels, with just under 10,000 personnel to cover an area less than 5% that.

Additionally, most of the Philippines Navy uses obsolete equipment, and is in the modernisation process.  It will take several decades for them to adequately defend their own littoral waters, let alone take on one of the naval powers in the region.  The only other navies powerful enough to contend with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force are the Koreans and the Chinese.  The USN is in a category by itself.  The Philippine Navy is hilariously out of its league.