Indonesia - Security Policy

Indonesia’s military operations rely on a well-developed doctrine of national security called Total People’s Defense (Hankamrata). Based on experiences during the struggle for independence, this doctrine proclaims that Indonesia can neither afford to maintain a large military apparatus nor compromise its hard-won independence by sacrificing its nonaligned status and depending on other nations to provide its defense. Instead, the nation will defend itself through a strategy of territorial guerrilla warfare in which the armed forces, deployed throughout the nation, serve as a cadre force to rally and lead the entire population in a people’s war of defense. Military planners envision a three-stage war, comprising a short initial period in which an invader might defeat conventional Indonesian resistance and establish its own control, a long period of unconventional, regionally based fighting, and a final phase in which the invaders eventually are repelled.

The Total Defense System (Sistem Pertahanan Semesta or Sishanta) published by the Defense Ministry in 2007 shapes the legal, political, intellectual, and even operational foundation of the entire national security system. The doctrine envisions a "comprehensive view" of the security challenges facing Indonesia; categorized into "military" threats, such as an invasion, blockade, or armed rebellion, and "non-military" threats, including ideological, political, economic, sociocultural, and technological ones.

The success of this strategy, according to the doctrine, requires that a close bond be maintained between citizen and soldier to encourage the support of the entire population and enable the military to manage all war-related resources. The people would provide logistical support, intelligence, and upkeep in this scenario, and, as resources permit, some civilians would be organized, trained, and armed to join the guerrilla struggle. To support these objectives, the TNI maintains the army’s territorial organization, comprising 12 military regional commands (Komando Daerah Militer—Kodams) encompassing an estimated two-thirds of the army’s strength. The territorial commands parallel the civilian governmental structure, with units at the province, district, and village level. Armed forces personnel also engage in large-scale civic-action projects involving community and rural development in order to draw closer to the people, ensure the continued support of the populace, and develop among army personnel a detailed knowledge of the region to which they are assigned. (Finally, and doctrine aside, the territorial structure provided the base upon which most of the army business empire flourished.)

Attention to potential external threats grew during the 1970s as planners became concerned with the growing military power of the newly unified Socialist Republic of Vietnam and its allies, including the Soviet Union. At the same time, China began publishing maps that made a claim to virtually all of the South China Sea, including the Natuna Islands, a chain off the western tip of Kalimantan. Indonesia responded with a major intraservice military exercise (Latihan Gabungan—LatGap—Joint Exercise) in the Natuna Islands. China soon withdrew the map, and relations between the two countries remained stable.

Political developments in the late 1980s and early 1990s subsequently relieved tensions in Southeast Asia. These developments included efforts to bring peace to Cambodia, during which Indonesia’s three-battalion deployment was the largest military contribution to the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC); the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia; and the reduced perception of a general threat from Vietnam and China. Nonetheless, the potential for regional conflict—for example, over territorial claims in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea—continued to trouble strategic planners. In the post–Cold War era, Indonesia has quietly continued to support the maintenance of a U.S. regional security presence to prevent a vacuum that could be filled by potentially less benevolent outsiders.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the Indonesian National Army (TNI) combines soft power and hard power. Combination of the two he called the smart power. "We do not want to be a nation that waged aggressive war pleasures of all time. We love peace, but of course we love our sovereignty and territory," the president said at an iftar with soldiers and civil servants (PNS) in the Headquarters TNI, in GOR Ahmad Yani, TNI Cilangkap, Jakarta, 03 July 2014.

In the previous 10 years, the government has been strengthening and modernizing the military and the main tools of weapons systems (defense equipment). It is not intended for anything other than reinforce the responsibility for the integrity of the Homeland. As the mandate of the 1945 Constitution, the President continued, it would be glorious if Indonesia could give an example to help build regional peace and world peace.

"And we seek the exquisite use of soft power and not too easy to use hard power. Whenever must defend our homeland, hard power and military force should be used," SBY asserted. Paired use of soft and hard power, the so-called smart power is what should be the strategy of the military mindset and forward.