The Evolution of Indonesia’s Military

If ever there was a sign of changed public perceptions of the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia or TNI) since former President Suharto declared the New Order in 1966, you need not look further than the Army’s 2012 flashmob dance in the capital, Jakarta. Organized on a busy Sunday, around 200 camouflage-clad soldiers from the Army’s Strategic Command (KOSTRAD) descended upon Jakarta’s central roundabout and performed a choreographed dance that ended with the global K-pop hit Gangnam Style. In one of the world’s most social-media savvy cities, onlookers captured footage of soldiers smiling and posing with environmental activists and Cabinet Ministers at the famous landmark.

This PR-friendly force is a far cry from the military that cracked down violently on student protesters in the capital in the dying days of the Suharto regime.

The Indonesian military today has made a remarkable transformation over the past 18 years. It is far more professional as a military force and is increasingly better equipped (though having started from a low base). It has also grown more confident in training and exercising with foreign partners. The military’s orderly exit from politics, drawdown of its business activities, and fervor for reform during the B.J. Habibie era (which eased the country into democracy just after the 1998 end of the Suharto regime) have contributed to the further professionalization of the force. A 2015 survey conducted by the Jakarta-based Center for Strategic and International Studies Indonesia found that 90 percent of respondents ranked TNI as the most trusted institution, relegating the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to second place.

Gains made during the decade under former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004 to 2014 were significant Not only did Yudhoyono set in motion a modernization plan for the forces known as the Minimum Essential Force, he boosted their profile (and the country’s) by engaging in peacekeeping missions and by building up the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief capacity. By the time Yudhoyono finished as president, the military was seen, particularly by foreign partners, to be a relatively professionalized force that had left its New Order days behind.

But the transformation (and reform) of the TNI remains patchy. With the signing of a flurry of memoranda of understanding to sanction a greater domestic role for the military, there is concern among human rights groups about the implications of so-called mission creep. Is the military poised to make a comeback of sorts?

Mission Creep

To be clear, there is no risk of a coup, but there have been subtle shifts in civil-military relations in the country that reflect a greater boldness on the military’s behalf to assert itself more in internal security affairs as well as civic life.

On the civic side, the military has offered its services, in cooperation with government ministries, in the distribution of rice and in helping to build mosques. Under the previous Chief of Defense Forces General Moeldoko, greater non-military involvement was formalized by signing agreements with ministries including Agriculture, Transportation, and Religious Affairs. In May 2015, the KPK reached out to the military to address staffing shortages for investigators. Civil society groups pushed back on the idea, saying that the anti-corruption agency was no place for the military to be meddling. A few months earlier, the Law and Human Rights Minister signed an agreement with the military under which soldiers would work as prison guards, but the agreement also included provisions allowing the military to provide psychological training for prison guards, discipline coaching for prisoners, and the loan of non-standard military weapons to correctional institutions vulnerable to security threats. These areas fall clearly outside of the military’s purview and to most observers of civil-military relations, raise eyebrows.

The military has advocated a greater role in domestic security issues such as counterterrorism but also deradicalization. In January 2015, the police conducted Operation Camar Maleo against the jihadist group Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (MIT) led by Santoso. Unsuccessful in apprehending the leader and disrupting the group, the operations ended on March 26, 2015. The military then moved in shortly thereafter to conduct an “exercise” called Swift Reaction Strike from March 31 to April 17 with 3,500 personnel and the deployment of fighter jets, warships, and tanks, as well as live ammunition such as missiles. Then-military chief General Moeldoko stressed this was merely an exercise, although the military would apprehend any terrorists if they happened to encounter them. Interestingly, 600 troops were left in the area to “support territorial development operations.”

Civil society groups raised concerns about the lack of presidential authority for what might amount to further military operations and not an exercise. The counterterrorism operation continues in its most recent form today, Operation Tinombala, and features an unhappy marriage between the police and military forces. This recalibration of TNI’s role in society is significant because the development of security policy within the country is becoming the setting for competition between the military and police. This has also issued a challenge to the top-level policy set down by the president that terrorism is primarily a law enforcement issue.

The current commander, General Gatot Nurmantyo, has espoused the concept of proxy wars as a means for external countries to interfere with Indonesia. According to Nurmantyo, the threat posed to Indonesia results from external forces which will use domestic proxies--that is civil society groups, non-governmental organizations, interests groups, and the media--to destabilize Indonesian society. As a result of this internal instability, foreign forces will be better placed to exploit Indonesia’s resources, particularly energy. In March 2015, Nurmantyo explicitly stated that he thought Australia helped wrest East Timor away due to gas deposits in the Timor Gap. The military chief has made other poignant public statements; in October 2013, when he was head of the Army’s Strategic Command, he called Indonesia’s democracy into question in front of a nationalist youth group, remarking that the many are not necessarily right. 

There are other ways in which a sense of militarism is creeping back into Indonesian society. In October 2015, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu (himself a former Army general) launched a State Defense Program called Bela Negara. At the heart of this program is the promotion of national values, Pancasila, and patriotism as a means to boost societal resilience against threats such as drug use and radicalization. Some analysts argue that this program is a waste of time and raising awareness about social issues like drugs would be better achieved by the National Counter Narcotics Agency. The program also involves basic military training. While not promoted by the military, it creates another interface between civil society and military-related life and frames the solution to societal weaknesses as military-related.

How has all this creeping militarism gained momentum?

Looking at immediate factors, as a first-term president, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is less focused on military affairs than the array of domestic issues that he inherited, such as healthcare, education, infrastructure, and investment. Jokowi has largely deferred to key ministers and advisors when navigating defense and strategic issues. He has, however, announced his intentions to continue the previous administration’s military modernization plan, with particular attention given to the naval and air forces.

However, it has been Defense Minister Ryacudu (notably at the 2015 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore) and the current Armed Forces Chief General Gatot Nurmantyo who have made the public pronouncements on Indonesia’s strategic outlook, which contain different emphases than the president’s messages. Jokowi’s lack of engagement in security matters has thus created a permissive environment for a more intense contestation of Indonesian security policy and the emergence of a more prominent and vocal military. There are multiple spheres of influence within the military and competing nodes in the security establishment that have emerged increasingly since Jokowi's election. Some of these developments started at the tail end of Yudhoyono’s presidency, but this appears to have accelerated over the past 15 months.

Looking at longer-term factors, the deep entrenchment of a doctrine that enshrined the military’s role in politics and society—that is, its culture—is perhaps the most important. A long history of active involvement in civic affairs and multiple experiences of external interference have sustained this mentality, both through conscious narratives or subconscious understandings of the military’s role, into the post-New Order TNI. It is unclear how pervasive the views of the commanders are among Indonesia’s officer corps or whether they are reflected across all three services. What has been demonstrated is that the involvement of the military in areas outside of external defense has become increasingly formalized and normalized again. The audience for the military is largely domestic, so narratives which appeal to its origins as the nation’s defenders will resonate with those sections of society that hold romanticized views of the military and its strongmen. As Indonesian military historian Katharine McGregor notes, “This is a fact about which the Indonesian military is not naive and which has been repeatedly emphasised in their histories and doctrines.”

Military Culture

Indonesia’s 20th century history is dominated by incidents in which the military has intervened on behalf of weak civilian leadership. The nascent armed forces, drawn from militias, fought a war of independence against the Dutch. Many of the country’s heroes were forged during this era, including General Sudirman, the first commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces, whose statue stands prominently in the capital city. In October 1965, with President Sukarno losing his grip on the country, a systematic anti-Communist purge swept the nation in which hundreds of thousands of suspected Communists and other perceived enemies in the state were murdered. In the ensuing chaos, the military stepped in and General Suharto took over in 1966 as president, a position he held until 1998. This period was known as the New Order.

During this era, the military engaged in behavior that further reinforced its sense of legitimacy in domestic affairs. The military dictatorship during the New Order, 1966 to 1998, was fundamentally underpinned by the dwi fungsi or dual function doctrine. That meant the Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia (ABRI) had two roles: one in defending the nation and the other in politics. There was no separation between military and police. The second role, in politics, guaranteed the ABRI a certain number of seats in Parliament as well as dominance in the bureaucracy, notably in foreign and defense ministries. There is a history of the military taking a lead role in agenda setting and policymaking. Commanders also engaged in rent-seeking behavior to pay for hardware as well as soldiers’ wages; military businesses such as hotels flourished. Wary of separatist movements, the army also developed an extensive territorial presence throughout the archipelago, acting as an early warning system against instability. Despite being a maritime nation, the army dominated the armed forces and would become synonymous with its identity.

The concept of dwi fungsi dominated military doctrine until 1998 when Suharto stepped down. After that time, the military formally exited politics and shut down most business operations, although the territorial command system remained. The military that emerged from these times had been stripped of its political power and hollowed out by an arms embargo by the United States in response to human rights abuses in Timor. The Indonesian military became a shell of its former self.

Colonization by the Dutch and Portuguese and then invasion by the Japanese during World War II has impressed upon the Indonesian people, particularly those in the military, their sense of vulnerability to being overrun by external forces. In the 1950s, the CIA provided support to separatist movements during the Permesta/PRRI conflict in Sulawesi and Sumatra. Even Australia’s involvement in helping East Timor gain independence is refracted through the lens of previous history and included as part of a narrative of intervention. The separation of Timor had a profound effect on the Indonesian military which had occupied the territory and had fought a bloody war against Timorese guerilla fighters since 1975. Former General Kiki Syahnakri discusses the separation in his memoirs as akin to a form of trauma, not just for the territorial loss but the blight it became on the military’s human rights record.

The idea that Indonesia is vulnerable to external exploitation of its vast natural resources has been employed by Nurmantyo. It is a convenient way not just to reposition the military in the public’s imagination but also attract resources. When Jokowi does speak of security threats, he emphasized the need to guard Indonesia’s sovereignty against illegal fishing and territorial disputes. However, as Keoni Marzuki highlights, the proxy war narrative is so loosely constructed that Ryamizard employed it when speaking out against the LGBT movement, framing it as a threat to societal cohesion despite the fact it is an issue that clearly lies outside the purview of either the TNI or the Ministry of Defense.

Beyond Indonesia’s borders, what can foreign partners do? Naturally, foreign partners often try to help by supporting domestic institutions that reinforce a healthy civil-military balance or hope that by socializing with professional forces, there is an aspiration created to mirror the foreign partner. It is not that Indonesia’s institutions do not need support in order to root out endemic issues such as corruption—they do. Indonesia’s democracy turns 18 years old this year—hardly a long-rooted political system in which the divide between the uniformed and non-uniformed has been clearly demarcated and then contested over decades. While it is tempting to impose relatively well-established ideals of civil-military relations, the reality is that the context for those relations is constantly shifting and evolving, even in the Western world.

A slightly more nuanced approach would take into account the historical sensitivity of Indonesia to the interference of foreign powers. It is up to Indonesia alone to determine the appropriate level of military involvement in internal affairs. This is about recognizing that a paternalistic approach risks playing into a latent anti-colonialist streak that some military leaders could exploit. It would be helpful, however, for foreign partners to continue to provide opportunities for some Indonesian leaders, civilian and military, to explore these ideas in depth through education or research. There are other areas to watch. Jokowi is indeed pushing for greater self sufficiency in Indonesia’s local defense industry. We are yet to see the effects of a mature military-industry complex in the country. Corruption is another issue to be addressed if Indonesia’s arms industry is to receive an influx of cash, particularly given rent-seeking behavior by generals during the Suharto era.

Conclusion

The Indonesian military has enjoyed a romanticized space in the nation’s history and thinking, which has been further reinforced by its own narrative as the only true defender of the state. The problem therein, however, emerges when the means sought by military leaders to justify its role in society entail negative long-term ramifications for the country. For now, there are minor sites of contestation between security forces and we are yet to see the fallout from new legislation.

The Indonesian military continues to evolve. Understanding the way the military organizes itself ideologically will provide some insight into how civilian leaders can shape these processes, if at all. More research, by Indonesian scholars and others, needs to be done in order to understand where the role of the military in post-authoritarian Southeast Asian societies is headed. Specifically, there’s a need to understand how pervasively certain worldviews are held by officers of all ranks and how that is shaped by time spent in education institutions like staff colleges, training with foreign partners, and even military folklore passed down soldier to soldier. Only then we can better understand whether it matters at all if a leopard can change its spots.