Juwono Sudarsono served as Minister for Defense under President Abdurrahman Wahid from 1999 to 2000; ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Megawati Soekarnoputri in 2003 and 2004; and Minister for Defense under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono from 2004 to 2009. Sam Abrams spoke to him in Jakarta in January.
Juwono Sudarsono. Viva News photo.
by SAM ABRAMS
Perhaps it is worth explaining why I am writing about Indonesia when the United States has troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Indonesian doctrine, strategy and organization stems directly from its 1945-to-1950 war for independence, in which the Indonesian military waged a disorganized guerrilla war against the Dutch. After independence, Indonesia was poor and its territory difficult to defend with modern technology. The defense system that developed subsequently was, in a sense, the state co-opting victorious guerrillas: “total people’s defense” doctrine was very similar to classical Maoist insurgency, and the territorial command structure called for military units to be based throughout the country and embedded into local society.
Under this system, officers were assigned to partner with officials at every level of government down to the village level. These territorial commands also executed civic action programs. Against foreign invaders, the army waged guerrilla war; against internal enemies, the army conducted counterinsurgency, and against potential internal enemies, the army practiced preventative counterinsurgency. Today, Indonesia is a democracy, but legacies of previous regimes persist.
In the second part of my interview with Juwono Sudarsono, I ask about reform of the territorial command structure and total people’s defense concept, which had, since independence, provided a base for the military’s dominant, role in society. As all good COINdinistas know, COIN almost mandates a large role for the military in a society where civilian government is weak. Presumably, though, a functioning democracy would not welcome such a role.
WIB: How do you advocate for reforming the territorial command structure and total people’s defense doctrine?
Sudarsono: I would envision no external threat from any country abroad. The real threat is our own weakness, our own poverty, our own inequity in development. I have advocated what I would call the need to balance territorial defense with the use of the integrated command of the army, navy and air force. We lose about $25 billion a year from illicit trafficking because we don’t have the effective capability to interdict or intercept piracy, smuggling and so forth. They’re more powerful, they’re better organized, well financed and have links across the world. This is why [Indonesia] is one of the most poorest countries in the world.
The best we can do is to develop a strategy whereby we put strong emphasis on transport capability, transport vehicles, transport trains and ships, so that by and large the circulation of goods and services in Indonesia can be supported by the military. That is, until civilian authorities can get their act together and develop the country on a much more modern basis.
There’s this hybrid role of the military in support of territorial defense as well as economic defense. It’s very important.
WIB: How do you support, on the one hand, this “hybridity,” and on the other hand maintain momentum for civilian primacy. It seems like there’s a risk of locking into a stasis where the military is relied on to do what would ideally be civilian tasks.
Sudarsono: This is the challenge to my civilian colleagues including those in business. Young professionals in the civilian sector, including young Muslim entrepreneurs, must be engaged in this total defense concept. We define this concept in terms of defense in the 21st century, not the defense of the 1950s and ’60s. The substance of that defense must encompass these two notions of territorial physical defense as well as defense of skills and knowledge.
WIB: Do you include the extreme right and the extreme left in the same category of territorial defense as smuggling and illegal trafficking of stuff? They seem qualitatively different.
Sudarsono: The right extremist is the problem of our day and age that isn’t welcome. So many young men and women in Indonesia still look at what they call the failure of secular democracy. The challenge is to make the secular world much more relevant with the message of justice.
WIB: How do civilians view the military’s social role?
Sudarsono: The one defining moment was December 2004. It was the tsunami. There the depiction of the military as first on the scene. What they did, I think, redeemed what they were — the sort of bad image they had created over the past 20 years before. It was captured on TV and it helped me persuade congressmen, people in Europe, and people in parliament in Australia that the military was still very important in political operations other than war. Emergency response, food, medicine, tents, blankets. The army chief of staff spent two weeks there. He didn’t take a bath for ten days.
Related:
Former Indonesian Defense Minister Speaks Out, Part One
Sam in Indonesia: A-List Treatment
Sam in Indonesia: Security Reform’s Shortfalls, Successes
Sam in Indonesia: Indonesian Military’s Stalled Reform
Indonesian Human Rights Activist Challenges Government
New Defense #2 Raises Concerns
Sam in Indonesia: Deadly Penalty
Former Indonesian Prez Dies
Is Indonesia Actually Corrupt?
