National Security Adviser Eduardo Año on Thursday urged European and Indo-Pacific countries to strengthen cooperation in addressing “asymmetric” threats, which he said extend beyond traditional forms of warfare.
“In recent years, as the Indo-Pacific region becomes the center of geopolitical and geostrategic shifts, a host of asymmetric threats has been observed, impacting a global order that has become harder to navigate,” he pointed out.
During a forum titled “Navigating Asymmetric Threats: Cross-Regional Strategies for Europe and the Indo-Pacific” organized by the Stratbase Institute, in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations, Año said such threats could come in the form of cyber-attacks and digital espionage that target infrastructure and defense systems.
Also falling under this threat category, he said, is foreign information manipulation and interference with its coordinated campaigns to spread disinformation that polarize societies and disrupt elections.
“Then there is economic coercion with the use of trade dependencies and critical supply chains as political leverage and the sabotage of undersea cables disrupting communications and data flow, which has become hard to attribute and often used as gray zone warfare,” Año, who is also director general of the National Security Council, said.
Año also cited the weaponization of resources where earth and critical minerals are exploited to pressure economies, saying it has become “prevalent.”
“All these threats are no longer confined to the regions,” he pointed out. “They now transcend borders, exploiting openness, connectivity and democratic systems.”
Combating asymmetric threats, according to Año, calls for deeper, more committed and more sustained partnerships and understanding.
“I say this with certainty, no single country can counter and combat them alone. Yes, asymmetric threats demand symmetric unity and systematic actions. Our alignment of efforts and reinforcement of unity must buttress current geopolitical structure and global power dynamics,” he said.
With these challenges being interconnected, Año opined that nations must use this similarity to confront the threats.
“We recognize that security, stability and prosperity in Europe are directly shaped by events in the Indo-Pacific, more particularly in terms of supply chain shocks, freedoms of navigation and maritime disputes,” Año said.
“Given the importance of the Indo-Pacific as the world’s strategic and economic center, Europe has realized and acknowledged that instability in the Indo-Pacific already impacts European stability,” he added.
