The second Strategic Asia Policy Interchange held on Thursday, 27^th of August 2009 on Defense and Internal Security featured the following speakers: LetGen (ret) Agus Widjojo (Director of Strategic Asia Indonesia), MayGen (ret) Sudradjat (RI Ambassador to China), Prof. Dr. Irjen (Purn) Farouk Muhammad (Former Rector of PTIK), and Dr. Andi Widjajanto (Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Indonesia). The discussion was moderated by Mr. Derry Habir, Associate Director of Strategic Asia Indonesia.

Key Points from Speakers

Agus Widjojo stressed on the following points:

1. Any discussion on the issue of security reform should start with a common understanding on the definition of national security and the agreed conceptual framework, especially given the evolving concept of security nowadays (e.g. human security). This definition will help to understand the problems and challenges within it and in turn define the scope of roles and responsibilities of the agencies responsible for the sector.
2. Review and restructuring of TNI, POLRI and Intelligence body would have to take into account division of responsibilities at the national and provincial levels; as well as mechanisms of control and supervision that are in keeping with a democratic system so as to guarantee their accountability in executing their tasks and functions.
3. Key challenges to the realization for the above-mentioned recommendations remain:
   • Existing laws/regulations insufficiently accommodate implementation of security sector reform.
   • Despite the common view that terrorism has become one of the major threats to national security, current law on terrorism (Law No.1/2002) still has not specified the institutional responsibility/coordination aspects related to counter-terrorism operations.

In his presentation Mr. Sudrajat highlighted the points below:

• Nowadays, threats to national security no longer stem from the traditional security threat but mostly came from the non-traditional security threats (both domestic and transnational) – ranging from: piracy, terrorism, ethnic conflicts, identity conflicts, human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc. Consequently, national defense and security system need to be reformed to address these new types of threats.
• A major challenge in reforming the national security system also due to the history of TNI and Polri which resulted in remaining overlapping responsibilities of both institutions with respect to security issues.

 Meanwhile, Andi Widjajanto’s presentation focused on:   

1. It is predicted that the worst scenario of threat to Indonesia is the rise of China, which neo-realists predict will produce a hegemonic transition and the creation of multi polar system. Positioned in the middle of rising power competitions between China, India, and Australia, the best policy for Indonesia would be to adopt a defense diplomacy and power balancing through involving China in regional cooperation like ASEAN. If this mechanism fails, then the best policy for Indonesia is to adopt defense balancing policy.
2. With respect to defense balancing, Indonesia needs to: (1) engage in other cooperation forums besides the ASEAN Security Community, which is more operational and could address larger scale threats; and (2) undertake transformation of the military from minimal essential force into a professional army by the end of 2014.
3. A major challenge to military transformation is the stagnant development of defense doctrine combined with a far from sufficient budget allocation to fulfill defense development requirements.     

 Farouk Muhammad concluded the presentation session with the following observations:

1. Some key remaining problems to Indonesian security are issues related to border management, the internal conflicts in Papua and other local conflicts, terrorism, drug trafficking.  
2. Indonesian government tends to maintain the conventional approach to conflicts resolution which still places emphasis on creating new structures (units) to respond the emerging threats or specific problems at the time. As this approach is no longer relevant, it is imperative to rethink security concept as basis for re-defining alternative approaches to conflict resolution.

Highlights of Discussion

The discussion focused around 3 key issues: (i) conceptual framework for security and defence; (ii) inter-institutional  coordination issues; (iii) posture and structure development.

• There seems to be a general agreement that there is still no common understanding about the national security system and all that it entails, which is reflected in the diverse response and support from key relevant institutions (including within DPR).  This affects the implementation and the speed of the security sector reform that is totally dependent on the government’s understanding of the security system, recognition of the importance of the reform, and their political will to support the reform process. 
• Since the separation of the TNI and POLRI, each institution has separate reporting lines and chain of command which affects coordination between them. It is suggested that there should be a political entity that is above both (TNI and POLRI) to which both institutions are accountable to and defines the division of labor between them with regards to security matters.
• Decentralization had also impacted on the coordination aspect as well as a factor that had hampered the acceleration of security sector reform. Under the decentralized system, the decision making process is no longer centralized and at the same time delineation of authority and responsibilities related to security (national and local) have not been clearly defined.  Therefore, there needs to be a review and redefinition to distinct the scope of provincial and national security which will in turn establish clarity of the scope of responsibilities at the respective levels.  
• While there is preference for the ideal transformation, realistically Indonesia is far from meeting those goals due to budget limitations and remaining lack of clarity of its security system needs.  Therefore, the best option would be build essential force based on identification of key security threats to the country and predicted worst case scenario.
• Security and defense system development should be seen as long-term plans, especially given the enormous resources required and the lengthy period of equipping the system. This means that Indonesia needs to develop a comprehensive defense and security development plan that can be phased. However, there is also recognition that one of the weaknesses in the defense institutions is the lack of human resources trained in planning and management of the defense system in these institutions.   
• Defense and security development should be seen as integral parts of the overall national development plan based on a renewed vision of national defense and security systems. This means defense development planning would not solely emphasize on defense perspective, but also take into account other national interests, so that the plan is integrated with the national policies in other sectors.

 Conclusions and Recommendations

1. It is important to revisit and redefine the whole concept of national security so as to have better and holistic understanding of the challenges and threats related to national security.  This will also form the basis for re-defining “defence” and “security” systems and scoping out the roles and responsibilities of the relevant agencies.
2. While there may be several security-related issues/disruptions, essentially there are 2 issues that will still continue to pose as major security threats for Indonesia in the next few years: (i) internal/local conflicts and (ii) terrorism.  Other security related problems can be solved through other than security/defense means. 
3. Given the lengthy period involved in defense system development as well as budgetary constraints, security system development should be geared towards building essential force to face key security threats.