Good morning!  Thank you to Major General Blanco and Lieutenant General Glynn for inviting me to PALS.  I am honored to join you today.  And I’m fired up to share my perspective on Amphibious leadership and activity, and why it matters.  I would like to especially thank all our military professionals for making the journey to be here.  It’s terrific to be here with representatives from over 25 different nations, all around the region and world.

Our shared professionalism brings us together for PALS.  Professionalism is the foundation of any elite organization, and PALS strives to build professional, elite, amphibious forces.

The topics covered at PALS this year reflect that goal.  During this PALS Symposium, we strengthened our bonds and exchanged expert opinions.
 
We focused on innovation, information operations, and international law.  And we discussed integration, disaster response, and power projection.  These are all topics Lieutenant General Glynn and I focus on every day -- because they require our finest Naval—by that I mean the combination of Navy and Marine Corps--teamwork.

Amphibious operations, and the special relationship between our Navy and Marine Corps team, have been critical to the U.S. Pacific Fleet throughout history.  Many of our largest and most consequential operations in the twentieth century were amphibious.  Many occurred not far from here.  They were also joint -- because no service has all the answers, or all the capabilities, in the littoral domain.  They included our allies and partners. 
 
And they were extremely complex.  They required relationships and interoperability across countries and cultures.  And they required the utmost professionalism and teamwork to succeed.  And succeed they did.  From the Pacific island hopping campaign, to Leyte, to Inchon -- they changed the course of history.

Amphibious warfare, and the world around us, has grown ever more complex since those famous operations.  Today, many of our greatest challenges in the Indo-Pacific are in the littoral domain.  It’s in this area that we encounter natural disasters, challenges to international law, and potential flashpoints for conflict.  New threats abound, from hypersonic missiles, to unmanned systems -- you name it, it’s probably there in the critical area where Amphibious operations occur. 
 
But some things never change.  Amphibious warfare rides on the foundations of the inherent cooperation of Naval forces.  And it is still based on professionalism, teamwork, and joint and combined integration.  The US Naval team -- the U.S. Pacific Fleet and MARFORPAC – depend on each other to deter aggression to the water’s edge, and beyond.  We do this through building a combat ready amphibious force, executing relentless rehearsals, and always building the tight relationship between our Navy and Marine Corps team.
 
Operationally, our dedication to this theater is stronger than ever.  The U.S. Navy continues to send its most capable amphibious platforms to the Indo-Pacific.  We just forward deployed our newest and most advanced amphibious assault ship, USS TRIPOLI, to Sasebo, Japan.  And we continue to have an entire Amphibious Ready Group forward deployed there.  Our second most advanced LHA, USS AMERICA, is supporting TALISMAN SABRE near Australia.
And earlier this year, we deployed one of our amphibious dock landing ships, USS COMSTOCK, to support TIGER TRIUMPH and BALIKATAN, where some of you may have operated with our forces.
 
During BALIKATAN in March, right here in the Philippines, we witnessed professionalism, teamwork, joint and combined integration, and the future of amphibious operations.  With credit to our Philippine hosts, BALIKATAN has evolved rapidly in sophistication, scope, scale, and participants.  BALIKATAN 2025 was the largest-ever. 14,000 participants, over twenty nations invested, and Japan's debut as a full participant.  It featured cutting edge capabilities, and a focus on the South China Sea and Luzon Strait.  We tested the NMESIS system, operated Amphibious Vehicles and HIMARS, trained with unmanned systems, and conducted a full battle test with real-world scenarios.
 
Our shared achievements during BALIKATAN were a major step forward for deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.  They also underscore that deterrence is a team sport.  BALIKATAN was once a bilateral Philippine-US exercise.
 
To meet the needs of the time, it is now multinational, with a growing range of allies and partners, like many of the key exercises in the region.

We continue to expand the scope and scale of these exercises with like-minded countries.  In addition to the number of bilateral relationships across the Indo-Pacific, we also are more multilateral than ever.  In the multilateral environment we are able to focus on the range of Amphibious operations from HADR to Maritime Domain Awareness to Littoral Live Fire events.  PALS is a great example of that range:  Across the spectrum of operations and from bilateral to multi-lateral.
 
 In this region I have seen that shared interests continue to bring us closer together.  Those include respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and international law.  We uphold these interests with action throughout the Indo-Pacific, with exercises like BALIKATAN, with trilateral operations like FREEDOM EDGE, and through multilateral cooperative deployments.  And we operate with the growing number of allies and partners.

Impressively, nearly all Southeast Asian littoral states are improving their own maritime capabilities -- with new vessels, patrol aircraft, sensors, or unmanned systems.  The U.S. Pacific Fleet is proud to play a role in that effort, along with many of our allies and partners.
 
The success of deterrence, and resilience in the face of pressure, has much to do with nations taking action to show they cannot be intimidated. 
 
 Since we are in the Philippines, allow me to point to the example of our hosts.  Despite heavy pressure from China to give ground on its sovereignty and maritime rights, the Philippines has decided to stand up and refused to give in. 
 
That is not without risk, and has not always been easy.  But Manila has shown you do not need to be a superpower to effectively defend your sovereign rights.  A year since the clash that injured a Philippine sailor, the country’s outpost at Second Thomas Shoal and its garrison of brave Marines continues to be sustained.  The AFP and Philippine Coast Guard are modernizing their capabilities and deploying proactively to defend maritime rights.  And by shining a media light on China’s intimidation tactics at sea, it has shown that public exposure can be a vital, asymmetric tool to blunt coercion. 
 
 The Philippines expansion of capable defense partners has also bolstered deterrence.  It has expanded reciprocal access agreements.  And it has invited many maritime partners, including the U.S. Pacific Fleet, to join in cooperative patrols and exercises in the South China Sea. 
 
The Philippines has remained one of America’s security treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific -- since 1951 -- and we have seen a lot of change over the years.  Now, our alliance is stronger than ever, valued alongside our other great alliances in the region. The alliance has gained dramatic momentum, and evolved significantly, in the last few years.  For example, the prepositioning sites identified by EDCA are now proving their value.  Throughout 2024, EDCA sites were key to disaster response in remote areas and isolated parts of Luzon.  Together, we are increasing infrastructure investments at new and existing EDCA sites to further support combined training, exercises, interoperability, and disaster response capabilities.
 
We’re also doing big things outside of EDCA.  Consider, for example, the Subic Bay redevelopment.  You know, the first time I visited Subic Bay was in 1977.  The second time was in 1991, and the third time was yesterday.
 
Those times have seen a radical change. Now, Subic is in a new era -- where the U.S. is privileged to partner in the Philippines’ own ambitions.  We support the Philippine Navy’s efforts to expand capabilities at Subic, and we are working, under our alliance, to expand some of our own, including the prepositioning of key supplies.
 
There are many other signs this year of our new momentum.  We are helping the Philippine Navy improve infrastructure at Oyster Bay.  And just a few months ago in March, the Secretary of Defense visited and announced several new initiatives.  We launched a bilateral cybersecurity campaign.  We committed to more high-end special forces training.
 
We also published a joint statement outlining our priority areas for cooperation.  Those include co-producing unmanned systems and increasing combined logistics support.
 
We are doing many new things together -- for a cause that matters more than ever.  Tomorrow, I will visit the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the National Heroes Cemetery.  That is no accident --  It means a lot to me and it is to show where we stand.  I stand -- and the United States Pacific Fleet stands -- with the Philippines.  We will continue to stand with our Filipino friends for international law and sovereign rights.
 
More broadly, the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and our Navy and Marines Corps team, stands with all our allies and partners as they strive to defend their freedom, prosperity, and sovereignty.  We stand for a free and open Indo-Pacific that benefits all of us.  From the most dangerous sea, to the most distant shore, we are deterrence in action.  And we stand with all of you for a future of peace through strength.
 
I appreciate all of you being here, I appreciate your commitment to continually bettering our Amphibious skillset together, and I appreciate allowing me to be part of PALS. Thank you.