taken from
Back to the Barracks: Getting the Indonesian Military Out of Politics, 1998-2000
a case studies by Tristan Dreisbach
https://successfulsocieties.princet...ng-indonesian-military-out-politics-1998-2000
Indonesia’s military was able to implement early reforms quickly—in part because it was an institution in which changes could be ordered from the top. In a disciplined military, soldiers respect the orders of their superiors, even if they do not personally agree with them. “In the military, it’s unlike a political organization where you have an open debate,” said Agus Widjojo, who drafted the New Paradigm document while an officer at military headquarters. “The structure of the organization is a command hierarchy. So, if it is ordered by the commanding general, that’s good enough.”
The military had broad freedom to pursue initial reforms on its own, without much negotiation with civilians. Civil society was interested primarily in socioeconomic issues and the basic elements of democratization, and it paid less attention to institutional changes in the military. That distinction may have smoothed the way for initial reforms because the changes required no public discussion.
Widjojo emphasized that the initial reform agenda had come from within the military, not from the outside, and he said that that was a key to its success. “The politicians were in confusion,” Widjojo said. “The politicians were not concerned with the military, so the military had the luxury of drawing the blueprint for reform by ourselves. There was a de facto vacuum of political authority overseeing the military then.”
In a situation that involved activist military officers, the absence of civilian involvement likely helped streamline the early reform process. “Reform is most likely to succeed when it is initiated from within an institution. Reform cannot be forced by external elements,” Widjojo said. “The military took advantage of an opportunity. Reform was initiated by the military and decided in the small circle of its headquarters, and once it was decided, it was directly implemented as a command policy.”
Sudrajat, who was a lieutenant general when the reforms began, also said military reform driven from within the armed forces was an important reason for Indonesia’s success in moving from authoritarianism to a more democratic system. Civilians, he stressed, could not have initiated the changes by themselves. “The inner core of the reform is in the military,” he said. “If the military didn’t agree, how big would the push from civilians be? They could easily have been dominated by the military.”
“The reform had come from very few generals,” Sudrajat said. “But the military is the military, and the subordinates had to follow what their superiors said.” Once a few top leaders were on board, the reforms could be implemented.
“Even the process of reform itself was discussed [primarily] in the circles of the headquarters of the commanding general and his commanding assistants,” Widjojo said.
Military officers’ foreign training, too, had a positive impact on the reform process. Indonesia benefited from a group of officers who had had years of exposure to other military cultures and institutions. Several officers said such background was an important aspect in their desire to develop the Indonesian military into an institution that respected the norms of civilian-military relations witnessed in the United States, Australia, and other democratic countries.
The reform process also benefited from an approach that was more evolutionary than revolutionary. Because the early reform agenda was gradual, the changes did not stir the resistance of conservative officers who could become spoilers. Instead of erasing the dualfunction system by eliminating the military’s nondefense role, the reform plan instead called for the armed forces to play a less-active role in Indonesian political and social life. The internal reforms the military pursued from 1998 to 2000 helped pave the way for civilians to implement further reforms in subsequent years.
Predictable problems emerged from civilians’ lack of knowledge in the area of defense issues, a deficiency that stemmed from the closed nature of the long-running Suharto dictatorship. Because military officers perceived that lack of relevant knowledge among civilian policy makers, cooperation was problematic. “It’s a huge problem because you cannot lead a defense institution if you don’t understand defense issues,” said Kiki Syahnakri, a retired lieutenant general who served as the army’s deputy chief of staff from 2000 to 2002. Sudrajat said he shared Kiki’s concern. “We need real civilian capacity for sitting at the table designing how the military should be,” he said. “So far, our backbone consists of those who graduated from military academies. We need a backbone coming from universities. We’re working on it, but it takes time.”
Widjojo said more could have been done to enhance civilian capacity in government. “You have to prepare for the situation after the reform,” he said. “You have to prepare the capacity of the institutions that will replace the military or that will undertake those roles that before the reform, the military had. We were late in this.”
Factors Contributing to Success Following orders:
- The Indonesian military was already professional in major respects. Officers in the Indonesian military respected the command hierarchy and followed orders from their superiors. Even if some did not personally agree with the reforms that the leading generals implemented, they did not contradict their commanding officers. In less-disciplined armed forces, there might have been more resistance to change within military institutions.
- Internal will to reform: At the time of Suharto’s resignation, advocates for reform held positions in the armed forces hierarchy overseeing the political role of the Indonesian military and the development of military doctrine. Although Wiranto did not strongly champion reform, he was pragmatic and willing to listen. Without a will to change from within the military, the armed forces could have acted as a spoiler by disrupting civilian-led efforts to reform the military-dominated political system that was in place under Suharto.
- Gradual approach to reform: Instead of pursuing a reform agenda that would have rapidly eliminated all of the military’s political and economic privileges, military and civilian leaders took a more gradual approach. Although it meant that important problems in civilian-military relations would remain unaddressed for at least the short term, it diminished opposition from conservative officers. The military and civilian leaders began with a set of reforms that made important changes to the relationship between the military and the civilian government, but they refrained from taking on the military’s economic interests or immediately eliminating the military’s representation in parliament.
