First of four parts

OUR Pax Silica series offered a glimpse of the new world. America is no longer merely policing an international order it largely created. It is assembling alliances, securing supply chains, protecting technologies and recruiting strategic partners against China.

The policeman has not disappeared. He is recruiting a neighborhood watch. And the Philippines, sitting beside some of the world’s most contested waters, has suddenly discovered that geography, an inconvenience for centuries, may now be negotiable currency.

History seldom announces its turning points. We remember Pearl Harbor, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But consequential changes also occur without ceremony. The flags still fly. Aircraft carriers still sail. Presidents still speak confidently. Yet the strategic arithmetic has changed.

The Iran war may prove one of those moments. Not because America became weak. The United States again demonstrated its astonishing ability to project power thousands of miles from home. But it revealed something important: Even overwhelming military power cannot guarantee global order.

The unipolar moment

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the United States emerged unrivaled. Its economy dominated. Its military was unmatched. Its navy ranged across the oceans. The dollar anchored global finance. American technology appeared unassailable.

The world entered what Charles Krauthammer called the “unipolar moment.” When crises erupted, Washington intervened. When aggressors threatened order, America organized coalitions. When shipping lanes were endangered, the US Navy appeared. For a remarkable period, America possessed sufficient economic, military and political power to underwrite international order.

The global policeman

Globalization flourished beneath this security umbrella. Trade expanded. Energy crossed oceans. Supply chains stretched across continents. Countries with modest militaries prospered while the global commons were protected largely by somebody else.

America maintained troops in Europe, bases across Asia and enormous Middle Eastern commitments. Carrier groups patrolled distant oceans while alliances deterred adversaries. But success disguised a weakness. The policeman had accumulated an enormous beat.

Europe had to be defended. The Persian Gulf kept open. War around Taiwan deterred. South Korea protected. Terrorism contained. Cyber networks and satellites defended. Eventually geography began imposing limits even upon the nation that had mastered it. America bit more than it could chew.

The cracks appear

Iraq and Afghanistan provided the first warning. America could destroy governments quickly. Building stable ones afterward proved much harder. Meanwhile, its rivals adapted. China expanded its economic, technological and military power. Russia developed asymmetric warfare. Iran invested in missiles, drones and proxies.

War also became cheaper for the attacker and costlier for the defender. A cheap drone might require a multimillion-dollar missile to destroy it. An inexpensive weapon could threaten a sophisticated warship. Cyberattacks needed no armies at all.

Then came Iran.

Hormuz and the new reality

The Iran war exposed the contradiction at the heart of American power: The world’s mightiest military can destroy almost anything yet cannot necessarily control what follows.

Seven months into the war, Hormuz — normally carrying about a fifth of global oil and LNG trade — remains contested. Trump claims control. Tehran disagrees. Commercial shipping apparently believes neither.

Before the war, about 125 large commercial vessels crossed Hormuz daily. On Sept. 21, tracked commodity traffic fell to only two vessels, although some ships may have sailed with tracking systems switched off.

Oil still moves but slowly, dangerously and expensively. Apparently this now qualifies as an open sea lane. America can batter Iranian installations and strike targets hundreds of kilometers inland. Yet keeping one narrow waterway reliably open to ordinary commerce imposes enormous military and economic costs.

That is not American impotence. It is something more consequential: the rising cost of supremacy.

The arithmetic of power

Every great power eventually confronts arithmetic. Not ideology. Not speeches. How many ships, aircraft, missiles and bases? How many crises can it manage simultaneously?

America must calculate across Europe, the Middle East and Indo-Pacific while defending cyber infrastructure, satellites, supply chains and its homeland.

Every missile fired in one theater is unavailable somewhere else. A carrier deployed to one ocean leaves another. Money spent defending yesterday’s order cannot build tomorrow’s security. America’s problem is not too little power. It is too many obligations.

Power without omnipotence

Then Xi Jinping arrived in Washington.

The spectacle itself was revealing. America’s principal strategic competitor was welcomed at the White House while Trump spoke warmly of friendship. Beneath the ceremony, however, the two governments were bargaining over tariffs, trade, critical minerals, artificial intelligence and strategic stability.

No grand reconciliation occurred. China remains America’s principal long-term competitor. Washington continues constructing supply chains and partnerships intended to reduce dependence upon Beijing. Yet Washington is also negotiating with Beijing to keep rare earths flowing and prevent competition from becoming confrontation.

That is the new arithmetic of power.

Great powers negotiate not because they have stopped competing, but because neither can simply impose its will upon the other. The fashionable prediction that America is simply “declining” is therefore too crude. It remains the world’s most formidable military power. The dollar, technological ecosystem, capital markets, universities and alliance network provide advantages no rival easily reproduces.

China has not replaced America. Nobody has. We are entering something messier, a world in which several powers can prevent others from getting what they want, while fewer can impose durable outcomes themselves.

America can intervene almost anywhere. But it may no longer be able to settle everything everywhere. That is the difference between primacy and omnipotence.

What this means for PH

For the Philippines, this is not academic. For generations our strategic thinking rested upon an assumption: Whatever happened in Asia, American power ultimately stood behind the regional order. Our US alliance remains indispensable. Abandoning it would be strategic foolishness.

But confusing alliance with dependency would be equally foolish.

The Trump-Xi bromance provides another warning. The West Philippine Sea may be existential to us; to Washington and Beijing it is one item in a much larger strategic ledger containing Taiwan, trade, technology, Iran, critical minerals and global influence.

That does not mean America will abandon its commitments. It means America, like every great power, will pursue its own interests.

So must we. The Philippines therefore requires something too often postponed: strategic adulthood — credible defense, resilient infrastructure, energy security, stronger institutions, diversified economic relationships and alliances that complement rather than substitute for our own capacity.

An ally should multiply Philippine strength. It cannot permanently replace it.

The end of the global policeman

The lesson of Iran and now Washington is larger than either event.

America has not disappeared. It remains the central military power in the international system. But it increasingly must bargain where it once expected to lead, recruit where it once acted, and negotiate with powers it cannot simply command.

The policeman has not surrendered his badge. He has discovered the neighborhood is larger, more heavily armed and considerably less obedient.

The unipolar moment is ending not with American surrender, but with an accumulating recognition of limits. Which leaves a more dangerous question.

If America can no longer police the world alone, who guards the sea lanes upon which the world depends?

To be continued

The Senate President crowed yesterday that the party he nominally coheads, PDP-Laban, has a “pleasant problem” — too many potential senatorial candidates. Koko Pimentel’s estimate is they have up to 20 possible choices for the 12-person slate for the 2019 senatorial race. But his list includes the five administration-affiliated senatorial incumbents up for reelection next year. This is a group that has made noises that, much as it prefers to remain in the administration camp, it is unhappy with the way PDP-Laban has been designating its local leaders and candidates, and therefore prefers to strike out on its own, perhaps in alliance with the other administration (regional) party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, headed by the President’s daughter and current Davao City mayor, Sara Duterte.

Setting aside, then, the five-person “Force,” the administration-oriented but not PDP-friendly reelectionists (Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, and JV Ejercito), what Koko’s crowing over is a mixed bag. Some of them have been floated by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (with whom Mayor Duterte clashed in recent months): six representatives (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is in her last term in the House of Representatives; Albee Benitez, Karlo Nograles, Rey Umali, Geraldine Roman, and Zajid Mangudadatu), three Cabinet members (Bong Go, Harry Roque, and Francis Tolentino), and two other officials (Mocha Uson and Ronald dela Rosa), which still only adds up to 11 possible candidates (who are the missing three?).

Of all of these, the “Force” reelectionists are only fair-weather allies of the present dispensation; their setting themselves apart is about much more than the mess PDP-Laban made in, say, San Juan where support for the Zamoras makes it extremely unattractive for JV Ejercito to consider being in the same slate. Their cohesion is about thinking ahead: Creating the nucleus for the main coalition to beat in the 2022 presidential election. The contingent of congressmen and congresswomen who could become candidates for the Senate, however, seems more a means to kick the Speaker’s rivals upstairs (at least in the case of Benitez and Arroyo) and pad the candidates’ list with token but sacrificial candidates, a similar situation to the executive officials being mentioned as possible candidates (of the executive officials, only Go seems viable, but making him run would deprive the President of the man who actually runs the executive department, and would be a clear signal that the administration is shifting to a post-term protection attitude instead of the more ambitious system-change mode it’s been on, so far).

Vice President Leni Robredo has been more circumspect, saying she’s not sure the Liberal Party can even muster a full slate. The party chair, Kiko Pangilinan, denied that a list circulating online (incumbent Bam Aquino, former senators Mar Roxas, Jun Magsaysay, TG Guingona, current and former representatives Jose Christopher Belmonte, Kaka Bag-ao, Edcel Lagman, Raul Daza, Gary Alejano and Erin Tañada, former governor Eddie Panlilio and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña) had any basis in fact.

What both lists have in common is they could be surveys-on-the-cheap, trial balloons to get the public pulse. Until the 17th Congress reconvenes briefly from May 14 to June 1 for the tail end of its second regular session (only to adjourn sine die until the third regular session begins on July 23), it has nothing much to do. Except, that is, for the barangay elections in May, after a last-ditch effort by the House to postpone them yet again to October failed.

Names can be floated but the real signal will come in July, when the President mounts the rostrum and calls for the big push for a new constitution—or not. Connected to this would be whether the Supreme Court disposes of its own chief, which would spare the Senate—and thus, free up the legislative calendar—to consider Charter change instead of an impeachment trial. In the meantime, what congressmen do seem abuzz over is an unrefusable invitation to the Palace tomorrow — to mark Arroyo’s birthday. An event possibly pregnant with meaning.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.