United we stand

GOODBYE, "strategic ambiguity." Hello, "certainty of response."

The Bilateral Defense Guidelines have finally been released. In it, Secretaries Lloyd Austin and Carlito Galvez Jr. established and reaffirmed in no uncertain terms the United States' position that "an armed attack in the Pacific, including anywhere in the South China Sea, on public vessels, aircraft, or Armed Forces, including the Coast Guard, would invoke the Mutual Defense Treaty." The guidelines recognize threats on land, sea, air, space and cyberspace — and take the form of asymmetric, hybrid and irregular warfare and gray-zone tactics.