Address
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
To the Australian Defence Force Academy on the state visit to Australia

[Delivered in Canberra, Australia, August 22, 1995]

Leadership in the
new century

I WAS A CADET at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1946 when the Cold War began—and I finished in time to serve—as a platoon leader in an infantry battalion of my country’s armed forces—in the Korean War; in the Philippine counterinsurgency campaign against the Communist Huks as an Army company commander; and then, as lieutenant colonel in the Vietnam War.

I can truthfully tell you, as Winston Churchill did after returning from the Boer War in 1897: “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

Serving the regulation 30 years

I served the regulation 30 years—and 15 more years in uniform—including helping former President Corazón Aquino win a people power revolution in February 1986 that overthrew a 14-year-old dictatorship.

As Armed Forces Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary in Mrs. Aquino’s Cabinet up to 1991,1 helped fight off seven coup attempts by rebellious soldiers who were led by some graduates of the Philippine Military Academy.

Cadet life is the same in any modern armed force—it is work work work; march march march; and yes sir yes sir yes sir. But your careers will be greatly different from mine.

We are on the threshold of a new world, with its new concepts of state power.

The world is less and less a world of “sea-lanes” and “chokepoints”—as it was in the nineteenth century—although geopolitical aberrations, like the Spratlys dispute in the South China Sea, do intrude on our new world order.

In a world of global markets, military strength is no longer needed to acquire or preserve “foreign markets” and “raw-material” sources as it was needed in the age of imperialism.

Today no one really needs to conquer, say, Brunei to obtain its oil. All you really need to do is to exchange $15 dollars or so for a barrel—which is then handed to you peaceably over the counter.

Having military power is not even necessarily a good way of projecting power in the world. Look what happened to the Soviet Union!

Increasingly, international relations are being moved by the power of ideas rather than the power of arms; by the rule of law, rather than by the force of weapons.

In this part of the world, your country’s leaders, in association with the other leaders in the Asia-Pacific region, are working to make the great Pacific deserve its name, as an ocean of tranquility and mutual benefit.

Leadership is a vital quality

I am sure this is what you yourselves would do—were you in command already, because, as Sun Tzu says, “To win without fighting is best.”

And it is not “win-lose” but “win-win” situations that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the ASEAN Regional Forum would bring about—by organizing an Asia-Pacific community that would engage every state on both shores of the Pacific and, eventually, all the islands in between.

Inhabiting such a region of peace, a few of you might—like Alexander of Macedon—perhaps lament not having any more worlds to conquer.

But the truth is that leadership is a vital quality in short supply—a quality needed by every country and all peoples—in peace as in war.

And, whether in military or civilian jobs, you who are cadets today in this academy of leadership will become leaders of men and women in the Australia of the future.

There will be other battlefields

There will be enough Australian and Asia-Pacific battlefields for you to win—wars in which our two peoples can fight side by side: as we fought side by side during the Pacific War, and in both Korea and Vietnam.

These are some of the ideals we must fight for—together.

• We must ensure the post-Cold War world order does not result merely in a resurgence of narrow nationalisms. We must see to it that many small conflicts do not replace the single big one.
• We must stand together against religious intolerance and the oppression of minorities.
• We must guard against environmental degradation and economic breakdown.
• We must overthrow once and for all that old tyrant poverty and its minions, ignorance and inequality, which still oppress so many Asia-Pacific peoples.

Against these age-old ills, none of our countries is immune—none of our societies can say it has conquered and prevailed.

Your basic weapon in fighting these scourges of humankind are the leadership traits you learn here—and every soldier’s commitment to what at the Philippine Military Academy we summed up as “courage, integrity, loyalty.”

And, in Robert Louis Stevenson’s words, your fight against these evils will not be “the less noble because no drum beats for you when you go out on your daily battlefields and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat.”

What is leadership?

But what is leadership? Specifically, what does it mean to be a leader?

I consider myself experienced in the hierarchy of obedience and command—but when I talk about leadership I still go back to the classical texts.

In Napoleon’s Grand Army, we are told, every private carried a field marshal’s baton in his knapsack. This tells us anyone can lead—for as long as he or she is focused on the challenge at hand—and he or she has the guts to get out front, and say, “Let’s go!”

Leadership, says Sun Tzu, is a matter of intelligence, trustworthiness, humaneness, courage and sternness.

Sun Tzu’s “sternness”—detached involvement—suggests the leader’s obligatory reserve. As Charles de Gaulle, himself a great leader, said, “There is no power without mystery.”

A latter-day authority has only three short tests for the authentic leader.

1. Leaders do not accept constraints.

2. Leaders see what followers cannot.

3. Leaders know that human will—human energy, human intelligence and human resolve—can change the way things turn out.

Good leaders and bad leaders

Unfortunately, these attributes do not apply to good leaders alone: they can work for evil leaders as well.

Hitler and Stalin also painted visions for their peoples—visions of their country’s supremacy and triumph. Hitler told Germans his Third Reich would last a thousand years. Stalin thought Communism to be the wave of the future

These rogue leaders, during their time, could rally their peoples toward achieving their visions, even at great sacrifice and cost—even their collective ruin.

This is why power by itself is not enough. Power must be tempered by humanism.

The art of war you learn here must also be a lesson in the arts of peace. By understanding the very roots of human conflict, you become skilled in its peaceful resolution.

Leadership in a democracy

The democratic leader brings out the best in his—or her— people. This is what I have tried to do in my country since I became President in June 1992.

I might well have become the Filipino strongman myself—following President Marcos’s example—because I commanded the loyalty of the Armed Forces.

I have always believed that to deserve loyalty, one has to give it unstintingly.

During our people power revolution of February 1986, it was the loyalty awarded to me by the chain of command—by junior as well as senior officers, most of them graduates of the Philippine Military Academy—that proved to be our salvation.

These loyalties I had given and received over 45 years as a professional soldier paid off. We staved off one attack after another—because officers simply refused orders to lead their troops against us.

These loyalties given me I would not use for ignoble goals. I resisted those who urged me to take over—and campaigned for President in a constitutional election as an idealistic long-shot.

Any seizure of power without the people’s support—even if it gained its immediate goal of overthrowing the tyrant—would merely self-destruct.

As President, my first concern was to stop the fratricidal wars that had cost our country so much in blood and treasure.

By offering honorable peace to our military rebels, Communist insurgents and Muslim separatists in portions of the Philippine South, I moved the conflict from the battlefield to the negotiating table.

Having achieved a measure of political stability, I then launched a program I call “Philippines 2000″—whose guiding vision is the modernization of our economy, its opening to foreign investment and multinational industry, the enhancement of Filipino competitiveness in the global market, and the emplacement of social reform to empower ordinary Filipinos.

To this vision Filipinos have responded enthusiastically.

Our political stability holds until now.

The leader of our military rebels has in fact become an elected senator of the Philippines.

The leader of our Muslim separatists is campaigning peaceably in our southern provinces for autonomy; and the Government has seized the moral high ground in its protracted campaign against the few remaining members of the Communist New People’s Army.

Leadership in the 21st century

As the twentieth century closes, we may be witnessing also the end of the old order.

Security as we know it now involves not only the military—but also politics, the economy and the cohesion of the national community.

The threats we face now include environmental degradation, dangerous drugs, modern plagues like AIDS; computer crime and criminal syndicates.

Technology has also changed the lifestyles of people and, consequently, the environment in which the leader works.

Technology has also changed the way we conduct business, the way we communicate with people, and the way leaders lead. Television has become the primary medium for reaching national constituencies. Information is empowering local communities, and preventing the rise of new authoritarian systems.

Globalization also brings greater political interaction among nations. Globalization of the world economy forces leaders to look to beyond national boundaries—to become sensitive to regional associations and global trends.

Neither the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nor the ASEAN Regional Forum would have been possible in an earlier time.

Rise of interdependence

Increasing interdependence calls on us to reexamine even the dominant ideology of the past 200 years—nationalism—which conventionally sees one’s country as the center of the universe.

Eventually our peoples must shift the reference point of their corporate loyalty from its traditional location in the nation-state to the region as a whole.

Our strategic environment has also changed. The last superpower—the United States—is scaling down its military forces in Asia-Pacific. Regional powers—Japan, China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Australia—are emerging, in a complex relationship.

Against this background, our leaders in the coming century must begin to think of a workable alternative to the isolation of the nation-state system. This will probably make necessary the maintenance of a volunteer force responsible to the United Nations—to preserve peace and save lives in the world’s zones of turmoil.

In places where there has been no or little social and economic development, international relations have really changed little since the Athenians lectured the Melians on Realpolitik 2,400 years ago: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

Now to sum up my message here—as I traveled the long road from cadetship to the Presidency of my country, I have discovered that while “leadership” is an admirable human trait, it is also a state of mind.

Often the leader himself does not know what qualities he possesses until he is put to the test.

Here, in this sheltered life of the Academy, you have the luxury of time—of contemplation. That luxury you will never have in the outside world.

I urge you then to develop your skills to their utmost, developing your leadership qualities with dedication, patience and fortitude.

The power of prayer

Finally—If you should ever find yourself in what Sun Tzu calls “desperate ground”—where you have no other recourse but to stand and fight—then seek the power of prayer.

Just before daybreak on February 24,1986, when our 250-odd mutineers, barricaded at Camp Crame along EDSA Avenue in Quezon City, awaited attack from a full Marine regiment reinforced by armor and an assault by a helicopter strike wing—after we have said goodbye to one another—each of us sought comfort in our own ways. I myself turned in my solitude to Psalm 91, which I regard as the soldier’s psalm:

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust . . . .”

You will not fear the terror of night; nor the arrow that flies by day . . . .

A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

Now—let me thank the Australian Defence Force Academy for asking me here—and for enabling me to speak before the corps of cadets.

The Philippine Military Academy has a fine tradition, which allows every visiting head of state to grant amnesty to all cadets under punishment for demerits. If this is a tradition also of this Academy, then I should wish to invoke my privilege. If it is not, perhaps there is always a first time.

If you agree, I authorize you to yell.