FOCUS GROUP DISCUSSION

POLITICAL DIMENSION - MNSA REGULAR COURSE

September 30, 2016
1.
We need strategists. In the Army and throughout the services.
At all levels. We need senior generals and admirals who can provide
solid military advice to our political leadership, and we need young
officers who can provide solid military adviceoptions, details, the
results of analysisto the generals and admirals. We need military
strategists, officers, all up and down the line, because it takes a
junior strategist to implement what the senior strategist wants done,
and it (usually) takes the input of juniors to help a senior
strategist arrive at his conclusions.1 - (Ret.) General John R.
Galvin USMA 54,former Commander of U.S. SOUTHCOM and EUROCOM and
former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, European Command (SACEUR;
Served as sixth dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
Tufts University
TO PARAPHRASE, AS IT APPLIES TO MNSA GRADUATES:
We need
strategists.
In the national security establishment and throughout
government.
At all levels.
We need senior military officers and
civilian bureaucrats who can provide solid advice as a basis of
decision making of our political leadership, and we need middle-grade
officers and mid-career public servants who can provide technical and
operational advice - options, details, the results of analysis - to
the senior military officers and civilian bureaucrats.
We need
strategists, all up and down the line, because it takes a mid-level
strategist to implement what the senior strategist wants done, and it
usually takes the input of senior military officers and civilian
bureaucrats to help the political leadership arrive at a policy
decision.
2.To add relevance to this assertion, we need to review a recent
catchphrase (for example) surrounding the concepts of whole of
nation (WON) or in other words the whole of government (WOG)
approach. Nowhere should this have been better demonstrated than in
the counterinsurgency effort to address the CPP/NPA/NDF (collectively
called the CNN) and the secessionist and internal security operations
in Mindanao.

1General John R. Galvin, Whats the Matter with Being a Strategist? Parameters, Vol. XIX, No. 1, March 1989, p.2;
reprinted in the Summer 1995 edition, Vol. XXV, No. 2.

FRANCISCO ASHLEY ACEDILLOInstitute for Policy, Strategy, and Development Studies, Inc.

Yet, what we see, for example, is a largely DND/AFP-directed

Internal Peace and Security Plan (IPSP)Bayanihan.
Although a
product of a multi-stakeholder consultation, the final output and its
implementation became largely consigned to AFP (and dare I say,
mostly to the Army), and the concomitant complementary and supporting
efforts
supposedly
from
other
agencies
of
government
given
begrudgingly or half-heartedly (and surely as a product of parochial
agency or silo thinking).
3.
A potential demonstration of the MNSAs contribution to this
strategic approach to governance can be made in retooling the current
war against drugs and criminality.
The administration might not care to admit it, but the political
decision to launch this war was largely premised on a PNP-centered
approach, and the limitations that come with it - the said approach
being more familiar to the principal political figure of the land,
the President. The war on drugs and criminality should become, in my
opinion, a textbook case of the holistic approach to government
programs - and that the DIPLOMATIC, INFORMATIONAL, MILITARY, SOCIOECONOMIC, and POLITICAL dimensions all carefully considered.
So far, a decision that was solely determined POLITICALLY has
already enlisted the MILITARY/state security forces (initially just
the police, but pretty soon might also enlist the military); created
a DIPLOMATIC backlash with the United Nations, the US, and the
European Union (to name a few); spawned problems in messaging among
the governments principal communication agencies chasing after the
Presidents conflicting statements; and are slowly creating SOCIOECONOMIC headaches. On the latter, for example, the massive drove of
surrenderees has revealed another problem: the serious lack of
accredited drug rehabilitation facilities.
It remains to be seen
whether business and the economy will either be positively or
negatively affected (although some quarters already claim the
latter).
4.
The Philippines, being a liberal democracy, must anchor and
should be guided by these same liberal democratic values. But these
values do not exist in a vacuum, rather, they interact with both the
domestic as well as the international environment. Such interaction
will then yield what our PERMANENT/ENDURING and VARIABLE national
interests are which, in turn, sets the stage for the objectives that
must be achieved by way of a National Security Strategy (NSS). The
NSS must have to be contextualized by the established national
security
apparatus
of
government
comprising
many
actors,
institutions, affected by legislative rule making and oversight, and
must be funded through a budget.
Then they are translated into
FRANCISCO ASHLEY ACEDILLOInstitute for Policy, Strategy, and Development Studies, Inc.

national security policies, integrating the different dimensions as

earlier identified.

Figure 1.

Framework for Analyzing National Security Policy2

2 Daniel J. Kaufman, Military Undergraduate Security Education for the New Millenium. Chapter 2, Educating International
Security Practitioners: Preparing to Face the Demands of the 21st Century International Security Environment.
United States Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, Pennsylvania. July 2001. pp.10-23.

FRANCISCO ASHLEY ACEDILLOInstitute for Policy, Strategy, and Development Studies, Inc.

Still using the aforementioned framework, and giving focus to the

POLITICAL dimension, Kaufman3 enumerates certain objectives that must
be met by national security studies programs like the MNSA including but not limited to:
a) Facilitating understanding of the tension between national
interests and Filipino values in national security policy;
b) Demonstrating the principles of strategic thinking and the value
of strategy for reconciling the challenges of the international

3 Ibid.
FRANCISCO ASHLEY ACEDILLOInstitute for Policy, Strategy, and Development Studies, Inc.

environment
system;

with

the

constraints

of

the

Philippine

political

c) Fostering understanding of how to determine the degree of

vitalness
(permanent/enduring
vs.
variable)
of
national
interests,
recognizing
the
difficulties
inherent
in
such
endeavors;
d) Providing a full grasp of the role that political decision-making
structures and processes play in affecting the development and
implementation of national security policy;
e) Helping determine the capabilities and limitations of economic,
diplomatic, military and other instruments that contribute to
national security;
f) Facilitating understanding of the role of force in the achievement
of national political ends; and
g) Demonstrating how the instruments of national power can most
effectively address short- and long-term threats to the countrys
national security.

FRANCISCO ASHLEY ACEDILLOInstitute for Policy, Strategy, and Development Studies, Inc.