Building Multilateral Coorperation for Regional Security and Prosperity

Posted on November 24, 2008

Keynote Address at the 11th Asia-Pacific Chiefs of Defense (CHOD-11) Conference, Bali, Indonesia, November 11, 2008.

We meet at a critical time in the geo-political and geo-economic setting of today’s world. This coming November 15, the powerful economies of the world___the United States (GDP: $ 14,5 trillion), the European Union (GDP: US 14,6 trillion) and Japan (GDP: US$ 4,6 trillion)__will meet in Washington for the G-20 Summit which aims to resolve the global financial market and economic crises which have afflicted many countries and regions across all continents. The Washington Summit follows the G-8 meeting in Hokkaido in September and last month’s Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Beijing.

CHOD-11 must take into account what will come out of the Washington Summit and its follow-up meetings. As the “center of gravity” of the world economy continue to shift from the North Atlantic to Asia and the Pacific, Japan, China, South Korea will play more significant roles in redesigning the global financial and economic orders. Sooner than later the crises will affect all of our economies, including the budget, force planning and operational capabilities of the defense forces. In turn, the crises will influence the security environment where trans-regional trade, investment and financial flows occur, ultimately impacting perceptions about future multilateral cooperation.

For over 60 years, the United States maintained “full spectrum dominance” in Asia and the Pacific. Throughout the Cold War (1947-1990) and beyond (1990- present). United States Pacific Command (USPACOM) held its role as “security provider,” enabling its treaty allies (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) to secure 80% of energy supplies from the Middle East within a stable Northeast Asia-Southeast Asia-Indian Ocean environment. That security environment made possible Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan and China to accumulate today’s combined GDP of US $ 11 trillion, whilst at the same time underwriting America’s trade and budget deficits. Growth of Asia Pacific coooperation, including the formation of APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) in 1989 and the more recent East Asia Summit in 2005 were made possible by America’s ability to provide satellite surveillance, strategic nuclear, ballistic missile as well conventional forces “forward presence.”

Significantly, USPACOM secured both the intra-regional and trans-regional strategic balance. Japan provided economic, trade and invesment commitments, leading ASEAN to become today a community of 10 nations with a combined GDP of $1,2 trillion. The security, trade and investment complementarities linking Northeast and Southeast Asia were facilitated by USPACOM’s critical role as “regional balancer” adjusting to the shifts of trans-regional military balance over the past 60 yearss. It survived the upheavels in Indo-China (1954-1975), the crises over the Taiwan Straits and periodic tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The transformation from an alliance based SEATO to an independent Asean Regional Forum(ARF)/ASEAN Security Community (ASC) fostered inter-regional links leading to market-based economic prosperity. Indonesia’s vision within the ASC is to provide “strategic space” among all extra-regional and resident economic and military powers in order that multilateral cooperation, regional security and economic prosperity reinforces one another. In place of the former ANZUS (Ausralia-New Zealand-US) alliance, there now exists an informal quadrilateral security consultation forum involving the US, Japan, Australia and India.

CHOD in 21st Century must track trends and projections of Northeast and Southeast Asia with other transregional centers in Pacific Basin, including links with North America, Oceania, Australia/New Zealand and Latin America. USPACOM in Hawaii is strategically located to monitor trans-Pacific air and maritime trade, investments and financial interaction. As budgetary priorities shift, “regional cooperative clusters ” offer useful intersecting points in maintaining trans-regional stability: China-Japan-Korea in Northeast Asia; The ASEAN Security Community in Southeast Asia ; the US-Japan-Australia-India consultative framework.

All of these collaborative clusters need to be carefully harmonized with the right pitch of US military presence. The fulcrum of military “balance of power” and the evolving “power of balance” incorporating economic, financial, trade, investment and energy flows passing through the seas and airspaces of East and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Indian Oceans were a carefully calibrated by USPACOM..

How will future multilateral cooperation fit into the above trends? How coordinated and synchronized will public and private leaders harness a concerted vision about each country’s geo-political distinct location relative to its geo-economic competitive strength? Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore exemplify the imperative to utilize “brain power” in order “to live off” the rest of the world precisely because they do not possess natural resources. What combination of “hard”, “soft” and “smart” powers must leadership groups in government, in the military and in private business command in order to be able to connect, cooperate and at the same time compete with one another as well as with the rest of the world?

What is the role of traditional “military power” compared to the growing importance of “non-military warfare” such as the “battle” over brain-ware, creativity, ideas and innovation? What is the optimum mix matching the ability to“deter and destruct” with the ability to “capture and secure ” market share, financial assets and intellectual property”? Countries with sizeable numbers of population and territory must adopt a comprehensive policy vision simultaneously linking the global, the regional, the national, the provincial and the local so that “access to” and “claims over” strategic resources in international legally disputed areas can be resolved through mediation and peaceful negotiation.

There is need for more skilled and educationally trained military officers who are able to interface the planning of “military battles” over physical space with areas where the “non-military battles” of ideas, knowledge and management skills become increasingly prominent in determining a nation’s ability to survive in a “24/7” globalized world. The “war room”, “board room” and the “classroom” must interface continously.

CHOD has a vital role in preparing next generation of military leaders able to map out a network of collaboration among young officers in the armies, navies and air forces throughout the Pacific. They will be more skilled in the combined applications of “hard” military power, “smart” economic-financial power as well as the “soft” power of culture and communication.

Only in this way can future generation military leaders and defense planners can ensure that the shared responsibility to secure sustainable multilateral cooperation, regional security and economic prosperity will justly reward our vision of planning ahead in keeping the peace in our region.

Categories: Defense, International

Military Presence and Democratic Governance in Indonesia

Posted on September 7, 2008

The Indonesian Defense Force was established from a myriad group of student movements, guerilla militias and irregulars representing diverse ethnic, religious and local identities preceding proclamation of Indonesian independence in August, 1945. These disparate forces were imbued with the fighting ethos that defined latter day Indonesia defense policy : “total people’s warfare, ” and subsequently “total defense and security.” Nationalism was, and continues today, to be the defining basis of the TNI’s (Indonesian Defense Force) world-view.

Today, all services of the TNI are defined as at once a fighting force (tentara kejuangan), a people’s force (tentara rakyat), a national force (tentara nasional) and a professional force (tentara profesional). Professionalism is deliberatedly subsumed under the three preceding spiritual elements. Once enlisted or commissioned, every Indonesian soldier, sailor, airman and marine is honor bound to personally act first and foremost as a citizen of Indonesia, and to professionally be “first in war, first in peace and first in emergency response.”

Army officers who went through their formative years at the National Military Academy in Magelang, uphold this professional commitment to serve as first and foremost as an Indonesian national. Like their colleagues who graduate from the Naval Academy in Surabaya and from Air Force Academy in Yogyakarta they are sworn to defend the tenets of our national ideology, the Pancasila: Belief in God, Humanitarianism, Nationalism, Democracy through Deliberation and Social Justice.

Defending Pancasila is an indispensable basis of our sense of national identity as well as for our constant revitalization of our sense of national purpose. But affirmation of Pancasila has its practical applications as well, not least in two critical areas in contemporary Indonesia.

First, the TNI is committed to support graduated political democratization towards greater competence and capacity building in civic government. More than 10 years ago and well before the reform process began in May 1998, Lieut.Gen. S.B. Yudhoyono led a group of senior Army officers in calling for a “redefining, repositioning and re-vitalizing” of the role of the Indonesian military in support of graduated civilian-based democratization. At present, the role of the Indonesian soldier has shifted from leading and dominating to measured presence backing up the four pillars of democratic governance : the police, the prosecutors office, the courts system and civil society.

Every governor, district and sub-district officer in all of our 33 provinces and 390 second-tier of governmental hureaucracy recognize the need to emulate the code of conduct of the Indonesian soldier. Each and every Indonesian remains proud of one’s ethnic, provincial or religious origin. But once a person is enlisted or commissioned into the profession of arms, the national interest transcends the interests of one’s particular primordial proclivities. Many Javanese, Sundanese, Sumatranese, Kalimantanese, Celebese and Balinese junior officers hailing from a particular place of birth is expected to serve in at least four different areas of command throughout eastern, central and western Indonesia before he gets his first star. Provincial, district and sub-district bureaucracies are expected to adopt similar tour-of-duty rotational schemes which are all-important for nation-wide administrative capacity-building, as well as for effective civilian “ground-level” democratization.

Secondly, the Indonesian military is assigned to help accelerate sustainable economic growth. Not merely growth with equity, but more critically growth through equity. Only robust underpinnings of social and economic justice at all levels of governance can safeguard our political transformation over the medium and long haul. Measured military presence at each level defines the success rate of governmental delivery systems in providing basic needs and essential services to the poor and the destitute.

Indonesia cannot take off into sustained growth without adequate security governance that help deliver basic needs (drinkable water, electricity, public housing, primary health care, basic education) more accessible to the 35 million Indonesians who live on less than 2 dollars a day. Every generation of soldiers and officers is involved in constant processed of “nation-building” and “nation-replenishing”. From Aceh to Papua, soldiers teach grade school arithmetic, help build bridges , rehabilitate irrigation systems, provide primary health care. Each deed reinforce the locals’ sense of participating in a more vibrant Indonesian common national endeavor. Thresholds of tolerance regarding what constitutes equity and fairness can be both tenuous and fickle at the ground level. More often than not it is the local soldier who acts as an effective and credible intermediary. This is the enduring duty of being a people’s defense force, for in a sense the prevalence of social justice is a nation’s best defense.

Equally important, though Indonesia has more Muslims than in any other country in the world, the affirmation of an inclusive nation-wide state identity (dasar negara) is not based on a single religion. Muslims in Indonesia co-exists and are enriched by day-to-day interaction with the practices, rituals and symbols of fellow citizens other faiths and beliefs: Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Neither is “Indonesian-ness” based on a majority ethnic group such as the Javanese; nor is it based on a “cultural stream” like the Malay heritage, though parts of western Indonesia find affinity with Malay culture. And there are more Melanesians in eastern Indonesia than in all of Melanesia proper.

Military presence and democratic governance is also directly linked to narrowing the vertical “rich-poor” gap, as well as the western-eastern horizontal divide of Indonesia. Differentiated rates of access to new knowledge and skills may endanger the nation’s sense unity and cohesion. Security governance provide that degree of political stability to enable us within the next 10 years to quadruple Indonesia’s GDP per capita from currently USD 2000 to USD 8000, and to quadruple the size of our middle class from 15% to roughly 50% of the population. There cannot be successful political democratization without sustainable broad-based economic democratization.

In addressing domestic and international terrorism, interdicting terrorist financial networks and disrupting their organizational capacity, the arrest and prosecution of suspected perpetrators must be conducted on the terms of Indonesian authorities and under the provisions of our legal system. Discreet and timely foreign security assistance rendered “on tap” is much more legitimate and effective than aid provided through virulent “on top” pressure from abroad.

In a globalized world, Indonesia’s younger generation of officer-corps that is more outward-looking, self-confident and competitive can learn much from their colleagues represented in this distinguished gathering from 30 countries throughout the Pacific region. For reasons of history, culture, tradition and geography, each of our land and security services may differ in the way we prepare for war. But in matters of human security, we must above all be guided by our sense of universal humility

Categories: Defense

Indonesia’s Defense Planning and Management

Posted on August 20, 2008

Defense planning and management is a comprehensive endeavor that encompasses six different areas. There are three core areas: force, resource and weapon systems planning; and three supporting streams: logistics, C4SRI (command, control, communication computer, surveillance, reconnaissance, information) ), and civil emergency. Defense planning relates to other disciplines, such as air and naval technology development, standardization, intelligence, operational planning, and force generation.

Given the current economic constraints arising from the government’s limited budget( Rp 32 trillions or less than 1 % of GDP of Rp 5,220 trillion, and 4,6 % of annual budget of about Rp 780 trillion for fiscal 2008) the underlying theme of Indonesian defense planning for the near and mid-term future is to enhance efficiency by drastically reducing leakages and wastages, especially in the procurement and acquisitions of weapon systems, defense equipment and supplies.

Force planning
Force planning deals specifically with providing Indonesia with the forces and capabilities of the tri-services to execute their range of missions, in accordance with the Indonesia doctrine of total defence and security (sishankamrata). It seeks to ensure that Indonesia develop sustainable and interoperable forces, which can function even with limited or scarce budgetary resources.

The force planning process is based on three sequential elements: general political guidance, planning targets and defense reviews. Political guidance sets out the overall aims to be met, incorporating President S.B. Yudhoyono’s concept of Minimum Essential Force (MEF) that establishes in military terms the number, scale and nature of operational readiness and force structure that the country as a whole should at a minimum be able to deploy.

Planning targets include both a detailed determination of an integrated tri-service force (Tri-Matra Terpadu) requirements and the setting of implementation targets to fulfill those requirements. Defense reviews provide a means to assess the degree to which planning targets are being met. The term ‘force planning’ is often confused with that of ‘defense planning’, which is much broader (includes non-military defense planning), and that of ‘operational planning’, which is conducted for specific, tactical and command-level military operations, including balancing strike force, support and maintenance/repair capabilities.

Resources Planning
National resources comprise human resources, natural resources and man-made resources. National resource planning aims to provide the country with the capabilities it needs, but focuses on the elements that are joined in common funding; each service (Angkatan) pool resources within a nation-wide total defense framework.

Resource planning is closely linked to operational planning, which aims to ensure that the Indonesian Defense Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI) fulfill its present and minimum operational commitments and face new threats such as terrorism and bio-chemical weapons. There is a distinction between joint funding and common funding: joint funding covers activities, managed by the Ministry of Defense (Dephan) and TNI Headquarters (Mabes TNI), such as integrated acquisitions and procurement of common use items.

Common funding involves three different budgets: the civil budget, which covers the running costs of Dephan and Mabes TNI; the military budget, which essentially covers the running costs of TNI’s integrated command structure and the nation-wide communication and air defense networks; and the Defense Acquisitions Program that covers nation-wide procurement requirements for communication systems, air defense systems and networks of naval stations and bases, fuel supplies and command structures. The military budget and the Defense Acquisitions Program support the theatre headquarter elements for the Army, Navy and Air Force. Relatively speaking, these budgets represent a small amount of money, but they are important for the cohesion and the integration of capabilities of the tri-services.

Weapon Systems Planning
Weapon systems planning is one of the main constituting elements of Dephan’s defense planning process. It aims to support the country’s political and economic objectives and focuses on the development of inter-service (but not common-funded) programs. It does this by promoting cost-effective acquisition, co-operative development and graduated increased local production of weapons systems . It also encourages interoperability, and technological and industrial co-operation among the three services and related ministries and government agencies.

Dephan’s mandate is to cooperate closely with the Ministry of State Enterprises (Menneg BUMN) which has legal and financial control over five strategic industries: PT Pindad; PT PAL; PT Dana; PT LEN and PT DI; with the Ministry of Industry and the State Ministry for Science and Technology to prepare a long-term plan for developing defense industries which reduces reliance on foreign suppliers; and with the Ministry of Finance for purposes of fiscal accountability.

Logistics Planning
Logistics planning is an integral part of defense and operational planning. It aims to identify the different logistics capabilities that need to be acquired by the tri-services included in the Defense Planning Ministerial Guidance, and ensure that these capabilities are available to be used by the Command Units for operations. Logistics planning serves as the basis for the overarching cooperative logistics effort with the aim of improving the integration of national logistics planning processes during peace, crisis and conflict. At the force planning level, logistics planning consists of identification of the different civil and military capabilities that each service agree to acquire and to provide for joint-operations missions. The management of these capabilities in-theatre is then undertaken by Mabes TNI within the framework of the operational planning process.

C4SRI Planning
The effective performance of Indonesia’s political and military functions, requires the widespread utilization of Command, Control, Computer, Communication Surveillance, Reconnaissance, Information (C4SRI) systems, services and facilities, supported by appropriate personnel and agreed doctrine, organizations and procedures. C4SRI systems include communications, information, navigation and identification systems as well as sensor and warning installation systems, designed and operated in a networked and integrated form to meet the needs of the TNI. Individual C4SRI systems may be provided via common funded programs, or by joint-funded co-operative programs.

Co-ordinated C4SRI planning is an essential activity for the achievement of a nation-wide cohesive, cost-effective, interoperable and secure capability which can meet current and projected political and military requirements. It ensures that C4SRI activities conducted under all aspects of defense planning remain coherent throughout the life-cycle of systems and programs, and that end-products and services match real capability requirements.

C3I planning needs to encompass all elements needed for the achievement of capability. Capability does not just come from the provision of materiel (systems) and facilities, but also relies upon the existence of appropriate organization, training, logistics and personnel, and of relevant interoperability. In addition, the achievement of required system capability necessitates the application of a combination of the three core planning disciplines: resource, armaments and force planning. The C4SRI planning process influences and controls the activities of these planning areas to ensure a degree of coherence between them.

Civil Emergency Planning
Civil emergency planning has two basic dimensions: one dimension are the arrangements that are being made at the national level to protect civilian populations against the consequences of war, terrorist attacks, civic unrest and other major incidents or natural disasters. These include operational arrangements, such as disaster response coordination at national level. The other dimension is the planning to ensure that civil resources can be put to systematic and effective use in support of post-emergency strategy. In essence, this deals with the support that the civilian sector (e.g. transport, supply, communications) can give to the military, primarily in terms of civil support to the military in planning and operations, but also in terms of direct civilian support to crisis response operations.

In sum, civil emergency planning aims to coordinate national planning activity to ensure the most effective use of civil resources in collective support of national strategic objectives. It is a national responsibility and civil assets remain under national control at all times. However, national capabilities are harmonized to ensure that jointly developed plans and procedures will work and that necessary assets are readily available.

Selected Related Areas
There are a number of other related issues, which are closely linked to the defense planning process. These include air and naval technology planning, standardization, intelligence, operational planning, and force generation.

In brief, air defense planning enables members to harmonize their national efforts with international planning related to air command and control and air defense weapons. National air defense provides a network of interconnected systems enabling aircraft and tactical weapons to be detected either by maritime and ground-based systems or by interceptor aircraft. The extension of this air defense system with the civilian radar network is currently being considered by Dephan and the Ministry of Transportation (Dephub).

Naval technology planning aims to synchronize available domestic industry and foreign suppliers to ensure that maritime surveillance and defense match mid as well as long term requirements of deterrence as well as effective naval enforcement within and adjacent to Indonesia’s territorial seas.

Standardization is key to increasing the combined operational effectiveness of all military forces. It explores ways of improving cooperation and eliminating duplication in research, development, production, procurement and support of defense systems. Dephan leads in establishing industry standards, platforms and systems that affect production costs of key individual service requirements: e.g. infantry fighting vehicles for the Army, missile fast patrol boats for the Navy, transport aircraft for the Air Force.

Intelligence plays an important role in the defense planning process, in particular with the emergence of multidimensional security challenges such as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Improved intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as strategic assessment capacity are essential to ensure maximum warning and preparation time to counter armed and terrorist attacks. Intelligence sets out the requirements for the improved provision, exchange and analysis of political, economic, security and military intelligence, and closer coordination of the intelligence producers.

Successful military operations require the preparation of detailed plans to ensure that all the relevant factors have been carefully anticipated and weighed. The number of such factors is potentially great and includes the size, location, and likely duration of an operation; the necessary command arrangements; the rules under which it will be conducted ; special requirements imposed by the terrain, weather, and the availability (or otherwise) of local government support and the state of the local infrastructure; appraises the intentions and capabilities of adversaries; the need to collaborate with regional and international organizations; possible humanitarian emergency services.

Operational planning allows Dephan and Mabes TNI to prepare both for possible situations and for crisis response operations like those involving interdiction of illegal activities related to maritime security, border area surveillance and enforcement of binding legal agreements. Dephan/Mabes TNI develops, and periodically refines, operational planning processes that produce both advance (or contingency) plans and crisis response plans.

An essential element of this process is the requirement for political control and approval from the chief executive, and, where required by law, in consultation with and the consent of, the Commission for Defense and Foreign Affairs of Parliament (Komisi I, DPR-RI). The planning process needs to be flexible enough to accommodate interactive exchanges of political direction and military advice and to adapt plans to evolving political guidance during a crisis.

Force generation is the process by which Dephan indicate what forces and capabilities they will make available, for what period of time, against a list of requirements that Mabes TNI have elaborated for a particular operation, in the light of an operation plan, or for special needs like deployment or rotations of the Rapid Response Force.

Dephan is seeking to tighten the links between defense planning, operation planning, and force generation so that defense planning will be more rigorously conducted on the basis of likely future operational requirements. On the other, operation planning and force generation will be more fully guided by information on what capabilities are, or are likely in the future to be available. Dephan is also improving the force generation process itself to make it more comprehensive and forward-looking in the light of the country’s archipelagic structure.

Framework for Dephan’s defense planning and management process
In practical terms, there is need to standardize defense planning processes and defense management cycles. Each one of the services often devise individual and independent planning procedures and apply specific management methods unique to its mission. They also contribute differently to the overall aim of providing Dephan with the forces and capabilities to undertake the full range of its missions.

With the differences between the various components of the defense planning process and interrelated management areas, the need for harmonization and coordination is essential. While force planning has provided a basis for this harmonization and coordination, more was required. Dephan has directed the Agency for Research and Development (Balitbang)and Agency for Management Training(Badiklat) agencies to produce a comprehensive political guidance in support of the General Policy for National Defense.

Efforts to enhance and coordinate defense management are not limited to just within Dephan and Mabes TNI. Dephan needs to keep abreast of policy and strategic decisions undertaken by related ministries, especially the ministries for finance, national planning, industry, research and technology, maritime and fisheries, public works, energy and mineral resources.

The overall objective is to effectively and efficiently apply the capability requirements needed by utilizing the full range of human, natural as well as financial resources available to the government and to the nation as a whole.

Categories: Defense