rivalry

Jan. 8 (UPI) — As the Philippines takes over the rotating Association of Southeast Asian Nations chair in 2026, it will do so at a moment of sharpened maritime tension and narrowing diplomatic patience in the South China Sea.

Manila has made clear it intends to prioritize two parallel initiatives that reflect the region’s evolving reality: renewed efforts to finalize a legally binding code of conduct with China and a dramatic expansion of U.S.-Philippines military cooperation, with more than 500 joint activities planned for the year.

Taken together, the dual-track strategy underscores how Southeast Asia’s maritime order is being reshaped. Diplomacy remains essential, but it is increasingly paired with deterrence and preparedness, reflecting a regional judgment that rules alone are insufficient without the capacity to defend them.

The Philippines is moving to fast-track a binding code of conduct after decades of inconclusive talks, using its ASEAN chairmanship to push for enforceable rules rather than voluntary guidelines.

“The Philippines will push for a binding COC at the same time continue to strengthen defense ties with the United States, as well as other partners like Japan, Australia and others,” said Lucio Pitlo III, a foreign affairs and security analyst at Asia-Pacific Pathways for Progress Foundation.

Yet, the limits of ASEAN consensus diplomacy remain evident. Member states hold differing threat perceptions and economic dependencies, while China has resisted provisions that could constrain its operational flexibility or legitimize external involvement.

Analysts have argued that, with Manila chairing, a comprehensive agreement is unlikely to be concluded in 2026 given the temperature of China-Philippines tensions – though the chair can still steer narrower confidence-building steps and agenda-setting wins.

“I would not expect a binding code of conduct in the South China Sea to materialize regardless of who is ASEAN Chair,” said Hunter Marston, senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic & International Studies.

As ASEAN chair in 2026, Manila is expected to press for a more active multilateral role in managing South China Sea disputes, seeking to use regional dialogue to dampen tensions when incidents erupt.

Philippine officials, however, are also likely to lean more heavily on bilateral channels with Beijing to manage flashpoints in real time. Chief among them is the Philippines-China Bilateral Consultative Mechanism, a forum designed to contain maritime flare-ups before they escalate into broader diplomatic or security crises, reflecting Manila’s effort to balance regional solidarity with the practical need for direct engagement with China.

Even so, chairmanship confers agenda-setting power. Manila can steer negotiations toward narrower but meaningful gains, such as clearer incident-avoidance protocols, standardized communications between maritime forces and provisions that explicitly address coast guards and maritime militias, which are now central actors in most confrontations.

In that sense, 2026 may be less about delivering a final document than about clarifying whether a credible code of conduct remains politically attainable.

“The progress on CoC isn’t necessarily hinged heavily on who holds the ASEAN chairmanship, though in some ways the ASEAN member state holding onto this position might influence or shape the direction it takes,” said Colin Koh, senior fellow of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

That diplomatic push unfolds against a backdrop of persistent friction at sea. Confrontations near Second Thomas Shoal, Sabina Shoal and other contested features have increasingly involved water cannons, ramming incidents and aggressive maneuvering, often targeting Philippine resupply missions and civilian fishing vessels.

Each episode reinforces Manila’s view that restraint has not been reciprocated, and that negotiations conducted without leverage risk entrenching, rather than moderating, coercive behavior.

This is where the second pillar of the Philippines’ 2026 strategy becomes decisive. Plans for more than 500 U.S.-Philippines joint military activities represent a significant escalation in tempo and scope, even in the absence of a single marquee exercise.

The schedule encompasses everything from staff-level planning and logistics coordination to maritime domain awareness, coastal defense drills and repeated operational rehearsals across air, land and sea domains.

“Having the Philippines as chairman, particularly under the U.S. friendly Marcos administration, is useful to the U.S. agenda in the region,” said Elizabeth Larus, adjunct senior fellow at the Pacific Forum.

She also underscored the critical importance of Trump-Marcos security accord in preventing China from displacing the United States as the dominant maritime power in the region.

The scale of this cooperation carries implications that extend well beyond symbolism. A Philippine maritime force that trains continuously with U.S. counterparts becomes harder to coerce at sea, raising the operational and political costs of gray-zone pressure in contested waters. In a region where presence, response time and narrative control often determine outcomes, that shift matters.

“China is likely to emphasize the Philippine defense cooperation with the United States over a Philippine-led ASEAN agenda that emphasizes legal norms and [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea],” said Khang Vu, a visiting scholar in political science at Boston College.

The volume of combined activities also accelerates alliance integration in less visible but more consequential ways. Regular staff talks, shared surveillance practices and logistics planning embed interoperability as a standing condition rather than a crisis response.

For regional observers, the message is unmistakable: U.S.-Philippines security cooperation is becoming structural, not episodic, and is likely to endure regardless of short-term political fluctuations.

By pairing expanded readiness with a renewed push for a binding code of conduct, Manila also is reframing diplomacy. The Philippines is signaling to ASEAN partners that engagement with China should proceed from a position of resilience, not restraint alone.

In practice, this reflects a broader regional reassessment that negotiations over the South China Sea will only carry weight if backed by credible capacity to resist coercion when rules are tested.

For ASEAN, the Philippine chairmanship will test the concept of “ASEAN centrality” under far less forgiving conditions than in previous decades.

While ASEAN remains indispensable as a diplomatic convener, the region’s most consequential security dynamics increasingly run through alliances and mini-lateral arrangements rather than consensus forums. The challenge for Manila will be to preserve ASEAN’s relevance without pretending that diplomacy alone can manage today’s risks.

Maritime relations in 2026 will be defined less by stability than by tempo, with a surge in patrols, surveillance flights and military exercises raising the risk of miscalculation and making clear rules of engagement and crisis hotlines more critical than ever.

At the same time, legitimacy at sea is becoming as important as capability. Each encounter is now fought on two fronts: on the water and in the information space.

Competing claims of lawful defense versus provocation, sovereign rights versus external interference, shape international perceptions and diplomatic alignments. How states behave during routine encounters may ultimately matter as much as formal agreements signed at the negotiating table.

The Philippines’ 2026 approach signals that the era of quiet accommodation in the South China Sea is over, with Manila pressing for binding rules while bolstering its military posture.

Whether that strategy stabilizes the region will depend on whether China and other regional actors are willing to translate pledges of restraint into behavior at sea, but the Philippine chairmanship already is set to shape how maritime order is contested in the years ahead.

The century-old rivalry series between USC and Notre Dame is taking a few years off, and as far as Lincoln Riley is concerned, that’s the fault of the Irish.

In his first public comments since the series was officially put on hiatus, the USC coach put the blame squarely on Notre Dame for not accepting USC’s most recent offer to continue the rivalry, which would have moved the 2026 game, usually scheduled in November, to the very beginning of the season.

“It’s pretty simple,” Riley said Monday, ahead of USC’s bowl matchup with Texas Christian. “We both worked for months to try to find a solution. Notre Dame was very vocal about the fact that they would play us anytime, anywhere.

“Jen Cohen, our AD, went back to Notre Dame roughly a couple of weeks ago with a scenario and a proposal that would extend the series for the next two years. We took Notre Dame at their word that they would play us anytime, anywhere. That proposal was rejected.

“Not only was it rejected, but five minutes after we got the call, it was announced they scheduled another opponent, which I’ll give them credit, that might be the fastest scheduling act in college football history.”

The Times reported last week that the Playoff selection earlier this month proved to be a turning point for USC’s administration in talks with Notre Dame. The realization that the Irish — by virtue of a side agreement with the College Football Playoff committee that hands them a bid if ranked in the top 12 — would have gotten into the field over Miami especially gave USC pause.

That’s when Cohen returned to Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua with an offer for the rivals to face off in the season opener. Notre Dame instead scheduled Brigham Young to fill that vacancy over the next two seasons.

Riley has been roundly criticized for his part in the rivalry’s potential demise after he suggested in August 2024 that the annual series could be in danger, if USC proved too much of a hurdle in the Trojans’ path to the College Football Playoff.

In the spring, as negotiations between the two schools stalled and the public pointed fingers at Riley and USC, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said that continuing the rivalry was “pretty black and white for me.”

“I want to play them every single year,” Freeman said. “You want my opinion? I want to play them every single year. When? I don’t care. I don’t care when we play them: Start of the season, middle of the season, end of the season. I don’t care. I want to play USC every year because I think it’s great for college football.”

After initially holding firm on its intent to renegotiate terms of the rivalry year-to-year, so as to wait on changes to the College Football Playoff format, USC sent an amended offer to Notre Dame before the season that would have extended the series for two seasons. But Notre Dame wanted a longer deal.

The two schools nearly came to an agreement in October, around their final meeting in South Bend. USC had made clear that it wanted to play the game earlier in the season, but was warming up to the idea of continuing the series as is through 2027.

USC decided to dig its heels in after Selection Sunday, returning to USC with a final offer to play early in the 2026 season. Notre Dame declined.

“The fact is very, very clear, this can all be settled very quickly,” Riley said. “Had Notre Dame lived up to their word and played us anytime, anywhere, we would be playing in the next two years, and looking ahead after that, hopefully continuing the series.

“They did not follow through on it, thus we are not playing them the next couple years. We’re hopeful something can be worked out in the future. That would be fantastic. We at SC would love for the game to continue. We have no problem following through on our promises in the future.”

It’ll be a while before those negotiations start up again. The next window in which USC could play Notre Dame is during the 2030 season.

The world of college football may be awash in uncertainty, but the last several weeks have proven one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Nobody runs like Notre Dame.

When the Irish got jobbed by the College Football Playoff committee and insanely were left out of the CFP, they refused to play another game this season.

Notre Dame ran from the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Then came Monday’s announcement that Notre Dame no longer will regularly play USC, essentially ending a 100-year-old rivalry because the Irish didn’t want to change the dates of the game.

Notre Dame ran from the Trojans.

Call them the Fightin’ Chickens, a once-proud Irish program that demands acquiescence or it will take its ball and go home.

The Irish could have played USC at the beginning of the season, but refused. The Irish could have kept the rivalry alive with a scheduling tweak that would have helped both teams, but refused.

Lots of folks are going to blame USC and coach Lincoln Riley for butchering a Knute Rockne-born tradition that accounted for 78 straight games, not counting 2020, the COVID-19 year. That’s wrong. Nobody has been more critical of Riley than this space, but he’s not the bad guy here.

Anybody who felt the buzz around the CFP first-round games last weekend would attest, this is where USC needs to be playing. If the Trojans truly want to return to greatness, being selected for the CFP is the goal. Not beating Notre Dame. Not even beating UCLA. It’s all about the tournament.

USC needs to put itself in the best possible position to be playing on a mid-December weekend, and that means no longer being the only Big Ten school to play a major nonconference game in the middle of the season or later.

The schedule has become tough enough. The Trojans don’t need to make it tougher with the kind of game nobody else in their conference is playing.

They need Notre Dame in August, not in late October or mid-November.

But, as it turns out, Notre Dame believes it doesn’t need USC at all.

The Irish signed a deal with the CFP that stipulates, beginning next year, if they are ranked in the top 12, they are guaranteed a playoff berth. They can get in the playoffs without risking a loss to the Trojans. They can play it safe and schedule easy and back right in.

USC doesn’t have that luxury. USC isn’t guaranteed squat. USC has a 2026 schedule that even without Notre Dame is a nightmare.

USC and Notre Dame prepare to play in a packed Notre Dame Stadium in October 2023.

(Michael Caterina / Associated Press)

Home games against Ohio State and Oregon. Road games at Indiana and Penn State.

USC doesn’t need a midseason game against Notre Dame making that road even harder.

Jennifer Cohen, the USC athletic director, said as much in a recently posted open letter to the Trojans community.

“USC is the only team in the Big Ten to play a nonconference road game after Week 4 in either of the past two seasons,” she wrote. “USC is also the only team to play a nonconference game after Week 4 in both seasons.”

Trojans fans love the rivalry. The college football world loves the rivalry. It’s Anthony Davis, it’s Carson Palmer, it’s the Bush Push, it has won Heismans and cemented championships.

But times have changed. The landscape is evolving. Everything that college football once represented is up for debate. Even the most venerable of traditions is subject to adjustments.

That’s what the Trojans wanted to do. Not eliminate, but adjust. But Notre Dame football adjusts for no one.

It was indeed a travesty that the two-loss Irish, winners of their last 10 games by double digits, did not get a spot in the national tournament. By the end of the season they were arguably one of the four best teams in the country. They easily could have captured the crown.

Tulane? James Madison? Are you kidding me? As the opening games revealed — the two AAA teams were outscored 92-44 — there is no place for Cinderellas in the CFP.

But that was no reason for Notre Dame to back out of the bowls completely, sacrificing the final game in the careers of the Irish players who will not be going to the NFL just to make a whining point that resonated with nobody.

And, besides, there’s another way Notre Dame could have been a lock for the playoffs.

Join a conference, fool!

By keeping the football team out of the otherwise Irish-infected Atlantic Coast Conference, Notre Dame is raking in big TV bucks that it doesn’t have to share. But this means the Irish are subject to the whims of a committee that could, and did, unconscionably leave them out.

Notre Dame always wants it both ways. It wants its independence, but also wants to dictate a schedule filled with conference-affiliated teams.

In demanding that their game be played in August or not at all, USC finally called Notre Dame’s bluff.

And the Irish did what they recently have done best.

They ran.

The team that initially will replace USC on the Notre Dame schedule?

It’s Brigham Young, the same team that Notre Dame snubbed in the Pop Tarts Bowl.

Put that in your toaster and cook it.

One of college football’s longest-lasting and most storied rivalries will be taking a break in 2026.

After months of negotiations and public posturing, USC and Notre Dame have failed to reach an agreement to continue their rivalry series, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to discuss it publicly.

USC has now turned its focus to finding a new nonconference opponent to fill out its 2026 schedule. The earliest the two rivals could play again, a person familiar with discussions told The Times, is the 2030 season.

The rivalry series dates back to 1926 and was only previously paused for World War II. With the exception of the 2020 pandemic-shortened season, the two schools had played for 78 straight seasons. They last met in October, with Notre Dame dealing USC a 34-24 defeat.