The Philippines signs its first visiting forces agreement with a European power, extending a rapid alliance-building campaign from Washington to Paris
March 27th, 2026: Philippines and France sign first European SOVFANew here? Follow stories to track developments over time. Create a free account to get updates when stories you care about change.
For decades, security in the western Pacific ran through Washington. Countries struck bilateral deals with the United States and, mostly, with no one else. That model is dissolving. On March 27, the Philippines and France signed a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) in Paris. It's the Philippines' first such pact with a European partner. The agreement gives each country's troops a legal basis to train and operate on the other's soil. France now joins the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and Canada on a growing list of nations with military access arrangements in the Philippines. Four of these were signed in under two years.
The agreement lands weeks before Balikatan 2026, the annual Philippine-American military exercise. For the first time, a French amphibious warship will participate alongside a record 1,000 Japanese troops carrying weapons in overseas drills—a first since World War II. These moves mark a shift: the Cold War's hub-and-spoke alliance system is giving way to an interlocking lattice to deter coercion in the South China Sea, where Chinese and Philippine vessels now confront each other.
Why it matters
A thickening web of military agreements across the Indo-Pacific is changing how nations deter aggression in the world's most contested waterway.
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France maintains five permanent military commands across the Indo-Pacific — in New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Reunion/Mayotte, Djibouti, and the United Arab Emirates — with approximately 7,000 troops, 18 defense attaches covering 33 countries, and the world's second-largest exclusive economic zone.
The Philippine defense department is executing a rapid expansion of military partnerships, signing four new visiting forces agreements in under two years while deepening trilateral cooperation with the United States and Japan.
May 2018 March 2026
Defense Secretary Teodoro and Minister Vautrin sign a visiting forces agreement at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, making France the first European Union member state with a military access pact with the Philippines. Both sides reaffirm UNCLOS and the 2016 arbitral ruling on the South China Sea.
The three allies conduct joint exercises in the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines — the first such drills beyond the South China Sea — triggering strong protests from Beijing.
The amphibious warship Dixmude and frigate Aconit depart France on a five-month Indo-Pacific training mission, bound for the Philippines to participate in Balikatan 2026.
A trilateral patrol exercise in the South China Sea prompts China to respond with "combat readiness patrols," illustrating the escalatory dynamic as more international actors operate in disputed waters.
The Philippines and Canada sign a visiting forces agreement, the second new SOVFA in six months, as Manila continues to diversify its military partnerships.
The Philippines and New Zealand sign a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement, beginning Manila's rapid expansion of military access pacts beyond its traditional US and Australian alliances.
President Marcos and Prime Minister Kishida sign a Reciprocal Access Agreement allowing Japanese and Philippine military forces to operate on each other's soil for joint exercises and disaster relief.
Chinese Coast Guard personnel board Philippine Navy boats near Second Thomas Shoal, brandish bladed weapons, and injure Filipino sailors — one of the most severe physical confrontations in the South China Sea dispute.
President Biden, Prime Minister Kishida, and President Marcos hold the first-ever trilateral leaders' summit in Washington, announcing joint patrols and deeper defense cooperation in the South China Sea.
The Philippines and United States agree to expand the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement from five to nine military sites, including locations in northern Luzon near Taiwan and on Palawan facing the South China Sea.
Japan releases a new national security strategy committing to double defense spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2027 and introducing counterstrike capability — its most significant military doctrinal shift since World War II.
The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia announce the AUKUS security pact, including nuclear-powered submarines for Australia. The deal cancels a French submarine contract worth tens of billions, triggering a diplomatic crisis.
President Macron outlines France's Indo-Pacific strategy at Garden Island Naval Base in Sydney, becoming the first European leader to formally adopt the Indo-Pacific framework.
3 moments from history that rhyme with this story — and how they unfolded.
Eight nations — the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan — signed the Manila Pact in 1954, creating the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization to contain communist expansion. Unlike NATO's Article 5, SEATO had no automatic mutual defense commitment. France and the UK contributed minimally. The organization proved unable to prevent communist victories in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
SEATO provided a multilateral umbrella for U.S. military operations in Southeast Asia but could not generate collective action from its members.
The organization dissolved in 1977, discrediting the single-treaty-organization model for Asian security. The United States shifted to bilateral alliances — the "hub-and-spoke" system that persisted for decades.
Today's alliance-builders are deliberately avoiding SEATO's model. Rather than one multilateral pact with weak commitments, the Philippines and its partners are building a mesh of bilateral agreements — each tailored, each requiring specific ratification — designed to be flexible and durable where SEATO was rigid and hollow.
NATO expanded from 16 members in 1990 to 32 by 2024, absorbing former Warsaw Pact states and eventually Finland and Sweden after Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Each accession required individual negotiations and ratification. Russia characterized the expansion as a direct security threat, using it to justify military buildups and eventually the invasion of Ukraine.
New members gained a credible collective defense guarantee. Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerated Finnish and Swedish accession.
NATO expansion demonstrated that alliance networks can grow rapidly when a perceived threat crystallizes political will, but also showed that expansion itself can become a grievance the adversary exploits.
The Indo-Pacific lattice faces a similar dynamic: each new military agreement strengthens deterrence but risks being framed by Beijing as encirclement, potentially accelerating the very coercive behavior the agreements are designed to prevent. The key difference is that no Indo-Pacific arrangement carries a NATO-style collective defense commitment.
The announcement of AUKUS on September 15, 2021, killed a $66 billion French contract to build conventional submarines for Australia. France learned of the deal only hours before the public announcement. President Macron recalled ambassadors from Washington and Canberra — an unprecedented move between allies — and accused both governments of lying.
A severe diplomatic rupture between France and its Anglosphere allies. Relations were gradually repaired over the following months through direct engagement between Macron and Biden.
France recalibrated its Indo-Pacific strategy, deepening partnerships with India, Japan, and Southeast Asian nations — including the Philippines — rather than relying on the Anglosphere. The AUKUS experience made France a more independent and assertive Indo-Pacific actor.
The Philippines-France SOVFA is a direct product of France's post-AUKUS pivot toward Southeast Asia. Locked out of the inner Anglosphere security circle, France built its own network of partnerships — and the Philippines, eager to diversify beyond the United States, proved a willing partner.