US military vows continued WPS efforts despite Middle East ops

The United States military on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment to efforts in the Indo-Pacific including the West Philippine Sea (WPS) despite its ongoing engagements in the Middle East.

At a press briefing, US 2026 Balikatan spokesperson Colonel Robert Bunn said Washington remains focused on its alliance with the Philippines and security in the region.

“This region is important to us. As you know, the United States has its geographic combatant commands. We are represented and under the auspices of INDOPACOM and they help us focus our efforts to Balikatan," said Bunn.

“So when there are potential tensions between forces and the amount of time you spend with staff planning, our higher headquarters, INDOPACOM, lets us know that we're supposed to focus on Balikatan and here we are,” he added.

Despite the deployment of US troops to the Middle East, Washington will proceed with its annual exercise with the Philippines dubbed as Balikatan, which is set to start April 20 for this year.

“Our message is our dedication and commitment to our alliance and regional security. So we look forward to practicing and exercising operations from humanitarian assistance to security operations and that does not change,” he added.

However, Bunn said there will be some “tweaks” due to some factors like force flow and availability of assets.

“There are tweaks always being made leading up to a large exercise like this. So even when things aren't happening in the Middle East or elsewhere, it is always tweaking right before the exercise,” Bunn said.

“That's why we give you a range of 17,500. The exact specificity, we'll let you know when everybody gets deployed here, who's here but it's going to be around that range. And that would be the case whether things in the Middle East were happening or not,” he added.