If you live in a dangerous neighborhood, it behooves you to know how to fight, Philippine Army Brig. Gen. Michael Logico told FORUM as troops from more than 20 nations gathered for all-domain exercises across the archipelago in April and May 2025.
The 40th iteration of Balikatan highlighted the Philippine military’s modernization and the increasingly complex training among Allies and Partners amid intensifying regional threats. Australia and, for the first time, Japan contributed personnel and equipment for the long-standing Philippine-United States exercise, which takes its name from the Tagalog word meaning shoulder to shoulder.
Engagements spanned live-fire drills in Palawan, the Philippines’ westernmost province; sea denial rehearsals in the Luzon Strait between the Philippines and Taiwan; and deployment of the precision-fire U.S. Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System in the northernmost province of Batanes.
In the South China Sea, including in Manila’s exclusive economic zone, the Philippines faces coercion and harassment from China, which claims most of the waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal’s ruling rejecting such claims. Escalating tensions between China and Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims and threatens to annex by force, also threaten Philippine security.
Balikatan’s message to like-minded partners and to potential adversaries is the same, Logico said: “The alliance is strong and is getting stronger. Balikatan has evolved from just exercising at the tactical level. Now we are exercising at the joint operational level.”
Balikatan has progressed from stand-alone tactical drills to shared decision making and command and control, said Logico, the Philippine Army’s exercise director.
He said the realistic training, described as a full battle test, exposes gaps the combined forces must fill and involves complete transparency to address improved coordination. “I would rather that we do the hard exercises, the unscripted exercises,” he said. “Burn the script, embrace the chaos because war is chaos.”
