U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday condemned China's dangerous actions against the Philippines and renewed a warning that the United States would defend its treaty ally if Filipino forces come under an armed attack in the increasingly volatile waters. During a visit to the Philippine province of Palawan next to the disputed South China Sea, Austin was asked if the strong U.S. military support to the Philippines would continue under incoming President Donald Trump, including $500 million in new military funding. Austin expressed belief that the strong alliance “will transcend" changes of administration. “We stand with the Philippines and we condemn dangerous actions by the PRC against lawful Philippine operations in the South China Sea,” he said, using the acronym of China’s official name. He added: “The behavior of PRC has been concerning. They’ve used dangerous and escalatory measures to enforce their expansive South China Sea maritime claims." China has also had recent territorial spats with smaller coastal states, including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, over the key global trade and security route. Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in long-unresolved disputes. The outgoing Biden administration has taken steps to strengthen an arc of military alliances across the Indo-Pacific region to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan or in the South China Sea, which Beijing has claimed almost in its entirety. That has dovetailed with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s thrust to strengthen his country’s external defenses, given an alarming escalation of territorial confrontations between Chinese and Filipinos forces in the South China Sea. There has been intense speculation over how Trump would steer U.S. military engagements in Asia. Marcos told reporters Tuesday that he congratulated Trump on his presidential election victory in a telephone call and renewed Philippine commitment to continue strengthening its alliance with the U.S. "I expressed to him our continuing desire to strengthen that relationship between our two countries, which is a relationship that is as deep as can possibly be because it has been for a very long time,” Marcos said. Austin was speaking during a joint news conference with his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, in the military headquarters in Palawan. They were given a demonstration of an unmanned vessel the U.S. has funded for use by the Philippine Navy for intelligence-gathering and defense surveillance. Austin “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. commitment to the Philippines” and reiterated that the allies’ Mutual Defense Treaty covers both countries’ armed forces, public vessels and aircraft…“anywhere in the South China Sea." He also reaffirmed his department’s “commitment to bolstering the Philippines’ defense capabilities and capacity to resist coercion,” according to a joint statement. Austin and Teodoro signed an agreement on Monday to secure from possible leakages the exchange of highly confidential military intelligence and technology in key weapons the U.S. would provide to Manila. The Department of National Defense in Manila said the agreement aims to ensure the security of classified military information exchanges and would “allow the Philippines access to higher capabilities and big-ticket items from the United States." Neither side provided more details or released a copy of the agreement. Two Philippine security officials, however, have told The Associated Press that such an agreement, similar to those Washington has signed with other allied countries, would allow the U.S. to provide the Philippines with higher-level intelligence and more sophisticated weapons, including missile systems. It would also provide the Philippine military access to U.S. satellite and drone surveillance systems with an assurance that such intelligence and details about sophisticated weapons would be kept secure to prevent leaks, the two officials said on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue publicly. China's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said in Beijing on Monday that no military agreement “should target any third party…nor should it undermine regional peace or exacerbate regional tensions."

Ukraine's president praised the United States for including tank-killing armored vehicles in its latest multibillion-dollar package of military aid, saying they are “exactly what is needed” for Ukrainian troops locked in combat against Russian forces, even as both sides celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Saturday. The White House announcement Friday of $3.75 billion in weapons and other aid for Ukraine and its European backers came as Moscow said its troops are observing a short Orthodox Christmas cease-fire. Ukrainian officials denounced the unilateral 36-hour pause as a ploy and said it appeared to have been ignored by some of Moscow's forces pressing ahead with the nearly 11-month invasion. Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions on Saturday. Russia's Defense Ministry insisted Saturday that its forces along the 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line were observing the Kremlin-ordered truce, but returned fire when attacked. The latest package of U.S. military assistance was the biggest to date for Ukraine. For the first time, it included 50 Bradley armored vehicles and 500 of the anti-tank missiles they can fire. Germany also announced it would supply around 40 Marder armored personnel carriers and France promised wheeled AMX-10 RC tank destroyers. Read more: Kremlin-ordered truce is uncertain amid mutual mistrust Together, this week's pledges were powerful signals that Ukraine can count on continued long-term Western aid against Russian President Vladimir Putin's drive to dismember the country. In his nightly televised address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the U.S. aid package as “very powerful.” “For the first time, we will get Bradley armored vehicles — this is exactly what is needed. New guns and rounds, including high-precision ones, new rockets, new drones. It is timely and strong,” he said. He thanked U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. lawmakers and “all the Americans who appreciate freedom, and who know that freedom is worth protecting.” Celebrated by both Ukrainians and Russians, the Orthodox Christmas holiday also underscored the enmity that Russia's invasion is precipitating between them. In a revered cathedral in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, the Christmas service Saturday was delivered in the Ukrainian language — instead of Russian — for the first time in decades, highlighting how Ukraine is seeking to jettison Moscow's remaining influences over religious, cultural and economic life in the country. Ukraine’s government on Thursday took over administration of the Kyiv-Pechersk monastery's Dormition Cathedral from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which had been loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church, and allowed the Ukrainian church to use it for the Christmas service. The monastery complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The cathedral was built about 1,000 years ago, then reconstructed in the 1990s after being ruined in World War II. “It’s an amazing moment," said Alex Fesiak, among hundreds of worshippers who attended. “Previously this place — on Ukrainian territory, within Kyiv — has been linked to Moscow. Now we feel this is ours, this is Ukrainian. This is part of the Ukrainian nation.” Read more: US to send $3.75B in military aid to Ukraine, its neighbors The Putin-ordered Christmas cease-fire that started Friday was first proposed by the Russian Orthodox Church's Kremlin-aligned head, Patriarch Kirill. The Orthodox Church uses the Julian calendar and celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7. Putin's order said a cease-fire would allow worshippers in combat zones to attend Christmas services. But Ukrainian officials didn't commit to following it and dismissed the move as a Russian ploy to buy time for its struggling invasion forces to regroup. Ukrainian and Western officials portrayed the announcement as a Russian attempt to grab the moral high ground and possibly snatch battlefield initiative and momentum from Ukrainian forces amid their counteroffensive of recent months. The pause was due to end Saturday night — at midnight Moscow time, which is 11 p.m. in Kyiv. The Ministry of Defense in Britain, a leading supplier of military aid to Ukraine, said Saturday in its daily readout on the invasion that “fighting has continued at a routine level into the Orthodox Christmas period.” In the fiercely contested Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai reported continued Russian shelling and assaults. Posting Friday on Telegram, Haidai said that in the first three hours of the cease-fire, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions 14 times and stormed one settlement three times. The claim couldn't be independently verified. Ukrainian authorities on Saturday also reported attacks elsewhere in the previous 24 hours although it wasn't clear whether the fighting was before or after the cease-fire's start. The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said Russian forces carried out a missile strike and 20 salvos with rockets, and targeted settlements in the east, northeast and south. The head of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday reported two civilian deaths the previous day from Russian strikes in the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut and to its north, in Krasna Hora. In the southern Kherson region, Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said Saturday that Russian forces shelled 39 times on Friday, hitting houses and apartment buildings, as well as a fire station. One person was killed and seven others were wounded.

The US has been engaged in military interventions worldwide over the past decades. America's heavy reliance on military approaches over the past decades has been driven by "a hankering to retain hegemony in the world" and "vested interests of the country's influential military-industrial complex," according to experts. The US' "war addiction," which has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and destruction of countless homes in an array of countries, has also backfired, with casualties and tragedies among its troops piling up amid sky-high military spending. War addiction "Violence is the primal problem of American history, the dark reverse of its coin of freedom and abundance," wrote US historian David Courtwright in 1996. The root cause of America's addiction to the use of armed forces lies in its yearning to maintain hegemony. Read: Taliban guard airport as most NATO troops leave Afghanistan

As President Donald Trump’s supporters massed outside the Capitol last week and sang the national anthem, a line of men wearing olive-drab helmets and body armor trudged purposefully up the marble stairs in a single-file line, each man holding the jacket collar of the one ahead.

An American service member was killed in action on Monday in Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement, without providing further details.

The U.S. military said Friday it lost an unmanned drone aircraft over the Libyan capital, Tripoli, where rival armed groups have been fighting for control of the city for months.