HONOLULU –
Lt. Gen. Roy M. Galido, commanding general of the Philippine Army, delivered a keynote address at the Land Forces Pacific (LANPAC) Symposium, offering insights about land power from the perspective of a small state. He expressed the unique challenges and dilemmas faced by such nations in generating and employing land power in a complex and contested geopolitical environment, and offered innovative approaches for small states to leverage their strengths and contribute to regional security.
Themes and Messages:
- Small States Face Unique Challenges: Galido emphasized that multilateral exercises are crucial for building warfighting lethality and readiness at the tactical and operational levels.
- Land Power as a Great Equalizer: Land power represents a visible, vital, and enduring form of deterrence that provides small states a credible means to assert agency and ensure their role in regional stability.
- Concept-Centric, Technology-Enabled is Key: Small states should prioritize innovative concepts and make full use of available technology, rather than getting caught in an unsustainable technology race.
- Leverage Competitive Advantages: Identifying and capitalizing on unique competitive advantages, such as geographical features, qualities of the people, or critical resources, is crucial for small states to offset potential adversaries' strengths.
- Prioritize Coalition and Partnership: Expanding alliances and strategic partnerships with reliable and like-minded nations can exponentially multiply the land power of small states.
- The Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept: The Philippines' defense concept aims to project its force and power within its economic interest zone.
- Transitioning to Territorial Defense: The Philippine Army is transitioning from an internal security focus to territorial defense.
- Challenges in the Cognitive Domain: The cognitive domain presents significant challenges for small states, particularly in balancing economic development with the protection of national interests and sovereignty.
Key Quotes:
- "Caught in the middle of this geopolitical maelstrom are not only major global and regional players, but also small states struggling to survive and protect their interests, and these states almost always, mainly rely on their land power to generate the effects required to survive."
- "Small states could multiply their land power exponentially by continuously building a network of partnerships and alliances involving reliable and like minded arms for a more propulsive and impactful chatter level collaboration and integrated response"
- "They should take a more proactive role on shaping regional security outcomes by leveraging nuance land power strategies combined with extensive understanding of the operational environment, this should more than compensate for their inherent lack of means in this uncertain time"
- "Related to positional advantage, I emphasize that cognitive positioning is as important as physical positioning. Cognitive positioning provides legitimacy and morality of action, clarity of purpose, filters the enemy coalition, and clouds the adversary's decision-making calculus – all of which are very important for us."
Q&A Highlights:
- Philippine Army posture in the South China Sea: Galido stated that the PA's goal is to project its capability in partnership with the Air Force and Navy to protect Philippine interests in the South China Sea.
- Competing for cognitive ground with the PRC: Galido highlighted the importance of conveying to the Filipino people the national interest and national sovereignty.
- Working with the Philippine Coast Guard: Galido noted that while the Coast Guard is not under the Armed Forces, the goal is that a strong fence will protect each other's interests.
Watch the full keynote: