Recent debate on the emerging states has focused largely on the challenges that confront the countries’ political leaders in making policies to accelerate economic development in conjunction with efforts to improve socio-economic equality and environmental governance in the age of a global economy and regional integration. Political economists claim that a serious challenge for the emerging states involves avoiding a middle-income trap (MIT) that requires policy initiatives for structural change regarding economy and business. There appears to be little space in such a discussion for political scientists, especially the students of comparative security studies and civil-military relations , to actively participate because the debate rarely addresses issues related to national security . However, it does not mean that security sector governance has no significance in understanding the problem of emerging states. Rather, many—if not all—of these states share a common agenda of building stable civil-military relations aimed at consolidating a political regime based on democracy . If a country’s civil-military relationship is evidently unstable, then democratic political leadership may hardly be consolidated. There is no doubt that such a political condition easily invites a conservative turn to authoritarianism or populism that attempts to mobilize popular support by provoking anti-globalism; a development that is unfavorable for emerging states.

To advance our understanding of the political problem embedded in these states, this chapter examines the case of Indonesia where the international community has praised the country’s twin success of democratic consolidation and economic growth during the last decade, especially under the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (2004–14). As the only country that participates in the Group of Twenty (G20 ) from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN ) and as the largest Muslim-populated country in the world, Indonesia ’s stable democracy after the fall of Suharto in 1998 is widely regarded as the key to producing a political climate conducive to economic growth, which has heightened Indonesia ’s emerging state status.

It is important to ask one question here: Why has political democracy been stable during the past decade? A conventional answer points to the stability of the country’s civil-military relations . Indonesia ’s military —in contrast to its counterparts in neighboring countries, namely Thailand and the Philippines —has never shown political adventurism to challenge democracy . Rather, it has been “loyal” to civilian governments, and such an institutional commitment to civilian supremacy has undoubtedly fostered political stability after the authoritarian breakdown in 1998. Why, then, has the military never challenged civilian governments; in other words, why are civil-military relations stable enough to avoid military adventurism?

Observers of the Indonesian military have seen the practice of civilian control of the military and the promotion of security sector reform as the major factor to minimize a military incentive to hijack the democratic polity (Alagappa 2001; Sebastian and Gindarsah 2013; Sukma 2013). I attempt to contribute to the discussion by providing an alternative argument from a different angle—that is, military non-intervention is a reflection of “failure,” rather than success, of military reform and civilian control. I contend that Indonesia ’s post-authoritarian civil-military stability is maintained because, in the eyes of military elites, institutional prerogatives and the vested interests of the military are well preserved under the current civil-military power balance; therefore, the military does not possess a strong incentive to leave the comfort zone. What, then, is the comfort zone and how has the military preserved its vested corporate interests?

Below, we will examine these questions and elucidate how the military has developed different logics and techniques time after time to reproduce the legitimacy of preserving these interests, depending on the political leadership of the time. Even during the democratic consolidation since the Yudhoyono presidency, as we will see below, the military maneuverings are changing from his period and the succeeding Joko Widodo presidency (2014–). Such dynamics should be understood in the context of the problem embedded in the emerging states that have enjoyed political stability.

1 Military Politics Under Democratic Consolidation

Indonesia experienced serious internal security disturbance immediately following the collapse of Suharto ’s dictatorship that had ruled the country for three decades since mid-1960s. Separatist movements were activated in places such as East Timor, Aceh, and Papua (Heiduk 2008). Ethno-religious communal conflicts erupted in West/Central Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, and Maluku (Bertrand 2003). Frequent transnational terrorist attacks also contributed to the country’s political instability in the early phase of the post-Suharto democratic transition. Between 1998 and 2004, all governments—led by presidents Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid, and Megawati Sukarnoputri, respectively—faced serious challenges of national security disorder, and even anticipated the possibility of Indonesia ’s “Balkanization” (Washington Post, June 4, 1998).

The large-scale violence, however, began to decline since 2004, when Yudhoyono was elected as president by popular vote. Yudhoyono’s decade of political leadership provided a sense of stability, both at the national and local levels. In fact, Aceh’s peace agreement was made and secessionist movements in Papua were weakened. Communal conflicts in Maluku and Sulawesi were settled. The number of suicide bombings targeting foreigners also significantly declined. These “achievements” in national security management became a foundation for the international community to evaluate the Yudhoyono era as “a decade of stability” (Aspinall et al. 2015; Williams 2015). Why, then, did domestic security recover dramatically under the Yudhoyono presidency, and what was the secret of his “success?”

1.1 Yudhoyono’s Military Management

Traditionally, the Indonesian military (Tentara Nasional Indonesia , or TNI) has identified domestic counterinsurgencies as its major mission, rather than external defense. In the 1950s, army soldiers were busy with combat operations against the so-called Darul Islam (Abode of Islam ) movements (Temby 2010). In the 1960s, the nation-wide communist purging was the military ’s political agenda in building Suharto ’s anti-communist authoritarian regime. In the 1970s, Suharto ’s military annexed East Timor and engaged in counterinsurgencies. In the 1980s, Aceh became the site of intensive military operations against secessionist Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), or the Free Aceh Movement.

It was soon after the fall of Suharto when East Timor’s 1999 referendum resulted in the separation from Indonesia . With this, the TNI lost its longtime internal security mission. Aceh’s separatist rebels also found the opportunity to end their struggle in August 2005 when Yudhoyono administration agreed with GAM to have peace with the so-called Helsinki Agreement. For the TNI , peace in Aceh became a historical turning point, as it posed a question of the role of the military in a country without a battlefield for counterinsurgency (Honna 2008). In retrospect, the arrival of peace in Indonesia was a historical moment for the state-building process, and Yudhoyono got the credit for his leadership. However, at the same time, he faced the challenge of navigating the TNI into the uncharted waters of having no enemy to fight in the era of peace in Indonesia .

Yudhoyono first needed to provide a new career path model for elite officers. In the past, the TNI had a royal road to success for those officers who demonstrated talent in combat experiences—especially covert operations and urban warfare for counterinsurgencies; the experience provided by joining the army “red-beret” special force (Kopassus). Yudhoyono tried to change this tradition. Rather than having good records in covert operations led by Kopassus, the peacetime environment required TNI officers to develop talent in external defense matters, especially airborne missions led by the army “green-beret” strategic reserve command (Kostrad). Yudhoyono himself had personal identity with Kostrad, as he commanded its elite airborne battalion in the early 1990s. Thus, under the Yudhoyono government, the TNI seemingly placed great importance in officers who had good track records in Kostrad—a new career path for the prospective elite officers.

Second, there was also a clear propensity of faster promotion for those officers who had good educational records during the military academy period. This process was understandable, as Yudhoyono himself was the best graduate of the academy’s class of 1973. In fact, army generals he treated well happened to be top graduates of the academy, notably the TNI Commander Gen. Moeldoko (Class of 1981), the Head of TNI’s Strategic Information Agency (BAIS) Maj-Gen. Erwin Syafitri (Class of 1982), the Secretary General of Defense Ministry (Sekjen Kemenhan) Lt-Gen. Ediwan Prabowo (Class of 1984), the Commander of the Infantry Weapon Center at Army Training and Education Command (Danpussenif Kodiklat TNI AD) Maj-Gen. Hisna Siburian (Class of 1986), and Kopassus’ Commander Maj-Gen. Herindra (Class of 1987). The rise of top academy graduates strongly suggested that educational backgrounds were viewed as a key factor in determining the speed of promotion.

Third, the officers who had the experience of directly serving President Yudhoyono also earned remarkably prompt promotion. A typical example was Gen. Munir, former army chief of staff, who had served as adjutant of Yudhoyono for five years from 2004. Ediwan, mentioned above, also served as the presidential secretary for one year in 2010. Jakarta Military Commander (Pangdam Jaya) Maj-Gen. Sutomo also served as the group A commander of the presidential security force (Dangrup A Paspampres). Agus Roman, who had been Yudhoyono’s adjutant from 2009 to 2013, was promoted to chief of the 1st Infantry Battalion of Kostrad (Kadivinf-1 Kostrad). In this way, Yudhoyono developed a network of officers who had experience with directly serving the president , and it was through this network that he selected prospective officers who could lead the process of TNI’s generational change.

It was Yudhoyono’s inner circle that supported such military management. The core members included Marshal (ret) Djoko Suyanto, who was Yudhoyono’s classmate during the military academy, appointed as the TNI Commander in 2006 and joined Yudhoyono’s second-term administration (2009–14) as the coordinating minister for political and security affairs; Gen. Djoko Santoso, who Yudhoyono had trusted since the mid-1990s as his subordinate and replaced Suyanto as the TNI commander; Lt-Gen. Erwin Sudjono—Yudhoyono’s brother-in-law—who was promoted as Kostrad commander in 2006; and Gen. Pramono Edhie Wibowo, another brother-in-law of Yudhoyono, who was entrusted to be army chief of staff in 2011. They were simply Yudhoyono’s subordinates, classmates, and brothers, and it was this intimate inner circle that became the eyes and ears of Yudhoyono in managing the peacetime TNI .

1.2 Preservation of the TNI’s Vested Interests

In this management of the TNI , the biggest challenge was to adapt the Army to a new environment. If domestic war was gone, naturally, there would be a demand to review the role of the TNI . Civil society might argue that the military budget should be reduced and the organization slimmed down. There were not a few elite officers who were anxious about such political pressures—for them, the arrival of peace was a matter of concern. Thus, it was possible that Yudhoyono could invite resistance within the military if his policy sought to undermine the TNI’s vested interests.

What he did, instead, was providing a “peace dividend” to the military .Footnote 1 First, rather than eliminate the defense budget, he set the goal of organizational modernization and greatly increased the budget. The defense spending, which was about Rp. 20 trillion in 2004, rose on the right side every year and reached to Rp. 83 trillion in 2014.

Second, Yudhoyono shelved the agenda to reform the role of the TNI . In particular, he merely announced that he would investigate the details of the TNI’s business profit-making activities, which were banned by the 2004 TNI Law, but he did not make any policy and even decided that the government would not take over military -owned enterprises in 2009. Thanks to Yudhoyono, the TNI could maintain unofficial business activities throughout the archipelago that had provided off-budget finance for many local commands and troops. In the eyes of the TNI , such capital accumulation is highly important for maintaining its organizational autonomy vis-à-vis civilian political leadership and it has been a core vested interest of the military since the Suharto years. Yudhoyono understood this organizational need and effectively performed the role of the guardian for the TNI rather than being a challenger against the status quo.

The TNI’s economic interests are diverse and have included business dealings such as real estate, construction, transportation, tourism, and communication in various local commands (Human Rights Watch 2006). During the Suharto era, the bulk of the military budget was funded by the self-financing of the military , which was speculated to be three times the amount of the official defense budget (International Crisis Group 2001). The salary of military personnel, as they were civil servants, was not high; however, because of this unofficial business, elite officers gained the opportunity to obtain extra money and, in many cases, they even owned luxury houses and cars. The vested interest of the TNI as an organization has been the maintenance of this business function. In terms of statistics, the TNI’s business activities seem to be diminishing year by year, but they are becoming more sophisticated—for example, by selling assets and indirectly managing them. The military involvement in illegal business, especially smuggling, is also evident. Such criminal business became a hotbed of off-budget fundraising in many local military commands throughout the country. Nonetheless, Yudhoyono never allowed the national Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to investigate issues related to military financing, in the name of respecting “national security ” matters.

In other words, Yudhoyono kept sending a message to the TNI that he would never touch on the vested interests of the military , nor would he press the TNI to reform itself, even in the era of “peaceful Indonesia .” The effect was tremendous and the TNI officers came without much frustration with Yudhoyono. Clearly, this was the secret of the stability of the civil-military relations seen in the decade of the Yudhoyono presidency.

In fact, the TNI has enjoyed peace in both Aceh and Papua. The post-conflict Aceh since 2005 saw the rule of former GAM combatants who, after the peace agreement, established local political parties that contested elections for local heads. Interestingly, local military commands have re-established the promising business collaboration with these newly emerging regional political elites in Aceh who now dominate concessions linked to various reconstruction projects for the rebuilding of Aceh after the war and tsunami of December 2004. Further, it is reported that Indonesia ’s booming number of oil palm plantations is also assessable in Aceh and ex-GAM entrepreneurs now smuggle timber from the forest in collaboration with local military commands (Kingsbury 2006).

Similar dynamics work in Papua, where the secessionist Papua Independence Organization (OPM), which is sometimes referred to as the Free Papua Movement, has struggled for decades. During the Yudhoyono period, 13 regencies (kabupaten) were newly established in both Papua and West Papua Provinces, and the wave of development projects flooded into each regency. Then, the plundering battle over the business interests became the everyday politics of Papua’s tribal leaders in various places. The blatant corruption raged in Papua, but the Yudhoyono administration continued to neglect it. The reason must be the conviction that Papua’s anti-Jakarta perception would be effectively weakened, and that the OPM would lose its centripetal power if Papua’s local elites were immersed in corrupt rent-seeking activities. Under such circumstances, local military commands in Papua also have economically benefited due to the unprecedented boom of tribal leaders’ economic interests that have invited various opportunities for the military to “assist” them; for example, in transporting goods—both legal and illegal—in the business of logging and mining. It was also reported that the local military ambushed the OPM because fanning a fear of political violence among ordinary citizens is an effective way to increase the demand of the security protection business led by local security apparatus. As seen in both Papua and Aceh, the sharing of interests (and corruption ) was an important factor in maintaining peace and stability in these places, and it was Yudhoyono’s decade that established such dynamics.

1.3 MOOTW and the War on Terrorism

Finally , under the Yudhoyono administration the TNI successfully enhanced political influence and preserved its vested interests by appealing to “military operations other than warfare” (MOOTW), exemplified by the war on terrorism . Let us examine the development. With three suicide bomb attacks in Bali in 2002, as well as on Jakarta’s Marriott Hotel in 2003, and on the Australian Embassy in 2004, Indonesia was spotlighted as a hotbed of international terrorists linked with Al-Qaeda. During the Yudhoyono administration, a terrorist bombing occurred again in Bali in 2005, but the tactic became low profile after that. There was an incident targeting Jakarta’s Marriott Hotel again in 2009, but the terrorist bombings ceased to occur during Yudhoyono’s decade. The government claimed that the weakening of terrorists was the result of the work of the anti-terrorism detachment (Densus 88), which was newly established under the National Police in 2004. The Yudhoyono administration widely emphasized that Densus 88 nearly eliminated major terrorist networks in Indonesia because it had undertaken effective counterterrorism measures with the support of the United States and Australia.

Indeed, international terrorism targeting Europeans and Americans declined since 2009. Therefore, the international community highly appreciated Yudhoyono’s counterterrorism measures. With this international support, Yudhoyono decided to strengthen the involvement of the TNI in combating terrorism . Until then, the TNI had insisted on more active participation in counterterrorism with the logic that MOOTW is a legitimate activity as a global standard and counterterrorism operations are part of it. However, in the process of withdrawing from politics following the post-Suharto democratization, the role of the military was limited to the national defense, while domestic security became the jurisdiction of the police . Thus, it was only when the police issued a request to the TNI that the military could support counterterrorism. Yudhoyono took a step further from that move by establishing the Preventive/De-radicalizing Department in the National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT), which was newly created in 2010, and arranged a mechanism for the TNI to oversee it. This development left the old framework of “indirect” involvement (i.e., via a request from the police ), and enabled the TNI to directly engage in countering terrorism . Undoubtedly, this was a big step forward for the TNI .Footnote 2

As a result, the TNI became capable of actively participating in the prevention of terrorism and de-radicalization of terrorists and started to appeal to the utility of the “territorial command” system in conducting these missions. As we have seen earlier in the problem of the local military commands’ involvement with business activities, the TNI’s so-called territorial command system is a nation-wide spider web of local military branches established during Suharto ’s authoritarian era. Military commands are stationed in a pyramidal way, from the village to central levels, and, under the Suharto regime, this territorial command system became a tool to suppress anti-government movements in different places. Against this background, civil society has called for the abolition of the territorial command system in the process of democratization. Some reformist officers in the TNI also shared the view that the elimination of the local commands, especially at the village level, was a necessary military reform toward professionalization (Honna 2003). However, for the TNI’s mainstream, the maintenance of the territorial command system is a vested interest. As we saw earlier, local military branches under the territorial command system are the basis of economic profiteering, and off-budget self-financing is the source of various autonomous activities of the military in many places. Since it is self-raising funds, local commands gain an “independent” budget that cannot be scrutinized by civilian governments. It shows nothing but the fact that civilian control of the military has become skeletonized.Footnote 3

Here, it is important to understand how the TNI has justified the preservation of this territorial command system—a legacy of Suharto ’s authoritarian era—in the age of democracy . After the previously described success of engaging in counterterrorism through BNTP, the TNI started to contend that local military commands were strategically important and useful to disseminate government policies related to prevention and de-radicalization at the grassroots level. This claim effectively resisted and attempted to undermine the social pressure to seek military reform aiming to abolish the territorial command system. It now seems to be unrealistic to expect such reform because of the new logic of using the territorial commands for counterterrorism. In this sense, it can be said that, by mobilizing the narratives of the global war on terrorism , the TNI successfully redefined and re-legitimized the utility of territorial commands that, in turn, helped the military to preserve its vested interests, including illicit capital accumulation via business activities. This argument also suggests that the TNI has invented the way to mobilize the MOOTW logic as a breakthrough for strengthening the justification of not abolishing the TNI’s territorial command system, which was created for the military repression against citizens in the past. A notable case includes humanitarian assistance/disaster relief (HA/DR), which is widely regarded as a part of MOOTW (Haripin 2017). The TNI now asserts that it needs to play a more active role in HA/DR in the time of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions so that territorial commands should be strengthened to effectively dispatch professional personnel to the disaster site. Again, this claim is an attempt to reproduce the legitimacy of territorial commands.

In retrospect, since 2010, or after the establishment of BNPT in the same year, what we call “international terrorism ” targeting Europeans and Americans has declined in Indonesia . However, the number of cases of terrorism itself has been actually increasing. Even after the Marriott bombing in 2009, there were seventy-five terrorist plots between 2010 and 2013 (Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict 2013, p. 17). Since they were small incidents, they gained scant attention from the international community. Moreover, many of them were acts of terrorism targeting police officers, not foreigners, and they were crimes committed by using handguns and knives, not suicide bombings. Why did policemen become the targets of terrorism ? It was because of the strong resentment to Densus 88 among the country’s Muslim community (Muradi 2009). From 2010–2013, Densus 88 arrested more than 300 terrorist suspects, but at the same time 60 people were shot to death (Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict 2013, p. 17). This number involved many killings by mistake. Nonetheless, the members of Densus 88 were not punished under the name of “war on terror.” This serious violation of human rights became a strong incentive for domestic radical groups to invoke jihad against Densus 88 and the police (Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict 2014). After all, the war on terrorism , which was highly appreciated internationally during Yudhoyono’s decade, was ironically accompanied by the price of deepening domestic terrorism .

However, the fact that the conservative Islamic groups became hostile to police and law enforcement agencies, including Densus 88, had important implications for the TNI in a different context. In particular, the TNI could use anti-police sentiment widely shared not only by radical groups, but also among conservative political Islam , as a way to build friendly relations between the military and Islam . It was well known that the TNI had a rivalry with the police since the separation of the latter from the former following the security sector reform in 2000. The reform charged the newly independent police force with handling domestic security , while the TNI —which had been in charge of both external and internal security during the Suharto years—was set to devote its role in external defense. Since then, the TNI started to lose various opportunities associated with security -linked business, which were shifted to the police , with the serious consequence of boosting the TNI’s jealousy and rivalry against the police throughout the archipelago. Against this background, elite TNI officers found that the anti-police feelings among the Muslim community was nothing but an opportunity for the military to develop a kind of alliance with this social force, which had a strong influence in politics and mass mobilization. As we will see below, such a tactical alliance became even more important under the Jokowi administration.

In sum, a decade of the Yudhoyono government navigated the country’s democratic consolidation period. We learned that, for the TNI , what was important during the period was not something abstract and symbolic, such as regaining political presence and influence, but rather very substantive, namely preserving prerogatives and vested interests. Concerns such as whether or not the TNI had seats in the parliament ; whether or not the TNI intervened in elections; and whether or not the TNI was allowed to use violence against citizens were all unessential for the military elite. What was essential was the economic interest through various forms of business activities and autonomy in determining defense policies without civilian intervention. If they could be maintained, there was basically no problem for the TNI —that is, democratization and civilian governments could pose no threat to the military . Unless this military thinking is disregarded, the TNI never intervenes in politics nor does it pressure political party elites. This seemed to be the TNI’s code of conduct that was evident during the Yudhoyono presidency. Yudhoyono was the country’s first popularly elected president , but he was also an ex-TNI elite who was well aware of the business interests that the TNI generated from the traditional territorial command system. Under his administration, there was no attempt to reform the TNI in a way to dismantle these vested interests. As it is, the decade of the Yudhoyono administration was supported by the military and, thus, civil-military relations became unprecedentedly stable.

2 Civil-Military Relations Under the Jokowi Presidency

What , then, could be expected in the post-Yudhoyono development? Indonesia ’s Constitution limits the presidential term to ten years. Thus, Yudhoyono finished his term in 2014. His successor as the country’s seventh president was Joko Widodo , or popularly called “Jokowi,” who won the direct presidential election in 2014 by defeating Prabowo Subianto, the ex-Kopassus commander and ex-son-in-law of Suharto . Jokowi was a newcomer in Indonesia ’s political community. He became a political figure in the first place when he was elected as mayor of Solo City in Central Java Province in 2005. Seven years later, he was brought to the national political arena when he was elected as Jakarta governor in 2012. Two years after that, he took the position to lead the country as the president . How has the president without political experience at the national level managed civil-military relations ?

2.1 Jokowi’s Military

Before taking office, Jokowi announced two important priorities as the president -elect. These were infrastructure development and social security . In fact, in the past three years, we have seen that the president has taken his initiatives in these two issues (Warburton 2016), but the task of the other sectors has largely been left to the minister in charge. The relationship with the TNI is also an extension of that, and he has relied on the advice of his right-hand man in political affairs (i.e., Luhut Panjaitan) who—under the Jokowi administration—was in charge as the chief-of-staff of the presidential office (2014–15), coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs (2015–16), and coordinating minister for maritime affairs (2016–). Panjaitan is a retired army lieutenant general who developed a career in intelligence at Kopassus. During the Yudhoyono era, as seen above, the president actively promoted elite officers affiliated with Kostrad, partly because Yudhoyono himself had such an identity. Under the Jokowi government, however, as reflected by the role of Panjaitan, a new trend of intra-military promotion has emerged that gives good treatment to Kopassus-affiliated officers.

Clearly there are elite officers who see the trend of the “Kopassus restoration” as unhealthy for the organization and who still adore Yudhoyono. Although Yudhoyono has retired from presidency, he has certain political influence in the parliament as the party leader of his Democrat Party (Partai Demokrat)—thus, there are several supporters in the TNI . Moreover, Gen (ret) Ryamizard Ryacudu, minister of defense, and Lt-Gen. (ret) Hendropriyono (former chief of the national intelligence agency) are both heavy-weight inner-circles of Megawati—who is a daughter of Sukarno (Indonesia ’s founding father), and the country’s fifth president (2001–2004), as well as the chairperson of the ruling party, the Democratic Party for Struggle (PDI-P), in the parliament , and—most importantly—the patron of the Jokowi presidency. These retired generals thus enjoy direct access to the core of the political power and they have their children and sons-in-law in the current TNI . Naturally, these active-duty officers are surrounded by friends and subordinates who have developed their own circles, respectively, within the military .

The newly appointed TNI Commander, Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo, also contributed to the eroding cohesion within the military , mainly due to his lack of credible experience in either Kopassus or Kostrad. Gatot was appointed as the army chief of staff by President Yudhoyono near the end of his term in 2014; therefore, it was believed that the post was the end of Gatot’s military career under the Jokowi government. But Jokowi decided to appoint Gatot as the TNI commander in July 2015, with the aim of securing the loyalty of the Army , which is the largest branch of the armed forces. This was nothing but a political move to counterweight the police force that had shown clear disobedience to Jokowi, who tried to prevent notoriously corrupt police generals from being promoted to the highest posts in the police , including the post of the police chief. In facing the police resistance, Jokowi was motivated to strengthen the loyalty of the army and it could be the main factor of appointing the army chief of staff at that time (i.e., Gatot) as the TNI commander. For Gatot, this promotion was an absolute godsend, but he found it difficult to consolidate his power base within the TNI because he had no background in either Kopassus or Kostrad. He was a man of territorial commands who had been stationed in various different places—but most frequently in Jakarta—during his previous tours of duty.

It seemed that, for Jokowi, the internal dynamics of the TNI were indeed a concern, but they were beyond the issue he was eager to deal with. “TNI matters” were largely left to his right-hand man, Luhut Panjaitan, Defense Minister Ryamizard Rayacudu, and Gatot himself as the newly appointed TNI commander, and it was Jokowi’s way of managing the TNI .

2.2 Politics of Gatot

Then, how to rebuild the TNI when its cohesion eroded? Gatot discovered the answer in the invention of “an enemy” whom the TNI should unite and fight. This “enemization” campaign soon became a tool for him to show his leadership beyond intra-military factions. Specifically, he emphasized the TNI’s era of the “proxy war.” According to him, the proxy war is not a war in which Indonesia was being directly attacked by a foreign military , but indirectly via foreign powers that invisibly penetrate in Indonesia , encourage social cleavage, weaken national unity, undermine the national economy, and destabilize the country in order to deprive Indonesia of its rich natural resources (Kompas, May 19, 2016). To destroy the “value of Indonesia ,” he claimed, foreign powers were trying to plant foreign values in society, most notably via groups that call for beliefs in liberalism, human rights, minority protection, LGBT rights, social equality, environmental protection, and so on. He advocated that these groups could be the agents of external powers that attempt to destroy Indonesia ’s traditional values. Moreover, his theory continued, many of these social groups could be the forces that planned to revive the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), which was crushed by Suharto ’s army in the 1960s, and “hidden communists” were trying to spread “the new-style communism” (komunisme gaya baru, KGB) in society—a move that should be firmly defeated (again) by the TNI . This propaganda involved a powerful message toward the military with the meaning that the soldiers must unite under the commander and fight against the threat to the nation.

Of course, such propaganda was nothing but anachronism, and it was not generally accepted. However, for some segments in society, this message was understood as a chance for political mobilization. The proxy war narrative was widely spread by these people through social media. The conservative Islamic forces in particular jumped in. By mobilizing the narrative that the threat of the KGB was real, and it sought to weaken Islam , they started to blame the country’s moderate Islam for not having a sense of crisis. With this logic in its arsenal, conservative Islamic forces attempted to show their supremacy vis-à-vis the moderate, and the chance to do so suddenly arrived, thanks to the TNI .

The TNI’s proxy war propaganda also started to incorporate a conspiracy theory. The infrastructure development promoted by the Jokowi administration since 2014 attracted foreign investment, and the rise of investment from China is notable.Footnote 4 Jokowi’s intensive focus on infrastructure development—and foreign investment for that purpose—is reasonable and has been welcomed by the international community as a suitable policy of the emerging state in overcoming the risk of the MIT . However, investment from China is also recognized around the world for its unique package with massive labor exports to recipient countries, and Indonesia is no exception. This propensity has provided an opportunity to develop conspiracy theory with the spread of “fake news” in social media that suggests a large number of migrant workers rushed from China and were illegally living in various places in Indonesia . It was famous conservative Islamic groups, such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) and the Indonesia Mujahidin Council (MMI), that played an active role in fueling this conspiracy theory. Interestingly, they argued that China ’s investment around the world is dangerous, as seen in places such as Angola, Mozambique, and Tibet, where the investment became the entry point for the communist China to dominate the economy and conquer the nations (Syhab n.d.). In order to confront the threat, these conspiracists claimed, Islamic forces must unite with the TNI and defend the country from the threat of Chinese invasion. In this way, Gatot gained strong political support of Islamic conservative forces. Importantly, this support strengthened Gatot’s leadership within the military and the bargaining power in civil-military relations .

The campaign to fight this invisible KGB threat formally became a major social program of the TNI in October 2015. The program was called “Defend the Nation” (Bela Negara), which imposed short-term military training on the public at each local military command. The TNI’s Bela Negara program targeted students, civil servants, and various social groups, but in areas where Islamic conservatism was strong, hardline Muslim groups actively joined the program (e.g., in Banten Province and West Java Province, where FPI and its partners became program participants and declared that they would accompany the TNI as it fought “the threat of the KGB”). Here, importantly, the TNI started to emphasize that territorial commands had become indispensable in establishing the basis of Bela Negara throughout the archipelago, which was important to combat the “threat of the KGB” in the age of proxy war (Antara, October 15, 2015). This claim was nothing but the TNI’s new invention to re-legitimize its territorial commands under the Jokowi presidency and, of course, the motive behind this involved preservation of the TNI’s vested interests (as we have discussed above). In fact, since launching the Bela Negara program, the TNI increased budget for the local commands to implement the program.Footnote 5 It is very likely that, in the near future, the number of military personnel stationed in local commands will also increase in response to the development of the program.

Interestingly, the TNI’s way of justifying the anti-reform agenda is no longer based on the logic of MOOTW , such as terrorism , but—rather—the creation of imagined “invisible enemies” based on the conspiracy theory of “demonizing” the inflow of foreign ideas and values that could be a national security threat. By agitating such right-wing anti-globalism and nationalism, Gatot’s TNI promoted both intra-military consolidation and extra-military power projection while navigating the country’s political discourse.Footnote 6 Ironically, the increasing foreign direct investment from China that had been welcomed by the Jokowi government for infrastructure development had a role in strengthening the conspiracy theory and, in effect, giving a sort of credibility to the proxy war discourse developed by Gatot. In this sense, his proxy war demagogy that was helpful to consolidate his power and leadership within the TNI contained a logic that could be diverted to the criticism of Jokowi and his development policies. It was exactly this aspect of Gatot’s proxy war campaign that made it politically attractive for Jokowi’s opponents in party politics. Opposition leaders—including Prabowo and Yudhoyono—obviously found the reason to support (and assist) the new trend of the TNI-Islam rapprochement. For Jokowi, it could lead to a serious political risk leading to the 2019 presidential election—thus he started to find a way to break the relationship between these strange bedfellows.

3 Conclusion

We have discussed how the Indonesian military has adopted different strategies, even during the period of democratic consolidation, aiming to constantly reproduce legitimacy being accepted by post-authoritarian civilian governments for maintaining its territorial command system that has been a core mechanism of preserving the vested interests of the military since Suharto ’s Indonesia . The country’s democratic transition, following the 1997–1998 Asian financial crisis and Suharto ’s resignation as the president , was marred by political instability and security disturbance that provided a serious concern for the international community. As seen above, it was Yudhoyono’s presidency that achieved both political stability and economic growth—a twin success widely praised by the international community as Indonesia ’s recovery to the global stage as an “emerging state.” Politically, this recovery was understood as the country’s entry to the phase of democratic consolidation, and a conventional view suggested that stability in civil-military relations was the key factor contributing to the progress in democracy .

However, as we have discussed above, the problem is the way to create and maintain such stability. It is not by consolidating civilian control over the military , but by allowing the TNI to maintain an authoritarian legacy—that is, territorial commands—that enables military elites to preserve vested politico-economic interests. During the Yudhoyono period, the TNI mobilized the logic of “internationalism” that emphasized the need for engaging more actively in the “global norm” of MOOTW , particularly counterterrorism. However, under the current Jokowi administration, the TNI developed the very contrastive logic of “anti-globalization ” that mobilized right-wing nationalistic narratives agitating the conspiracy of proxy war, scapegoating particular social groups as “new-style communism” and underlining the need for effectively utilizing territorial commands in conducting the chauvinistic Bela Negara military program to the public. Here we see a huge shift in the strategy of military politics, even under the same period of democratic consolidation, and it strongly suggests that Indonesia ’s civil-military relations are stable but highly political.

Our discussion in this chapter highlighted the nature of political stability in an emerging state. It is the political stability that has provided the backbone of the country’s economic success, which is now accompanied by the status of G20 . Why (and how), then, is political stability maintained in the process of democratic consolidation? In examining this question, we have focused on the civil-military relations that are seemingly the key for the stability. Our argument is that it is not the progress of civilian control practice or civilian supremacy principle that has enabled the stabilization of Indonesia ’s civil-military relations in the era of democratic consolidation, but it is a consequence of military politics that has maneuvered to preserve vested interests. Unless they are threatened by civilian political elites, there is hardly a strong incentive for the military to initiate adventurism against political stability and democracy consolidation. If so, it is not surprising to see the similar case in other emerging states, which also enjoy democratic consolidation and economic growth. Political economists have addressed the risk of a middle-income trap in these countries, but it is also time for the students of security studies and comparative politics to join the discussion and watch for the risk of a “middle-democracy trap,” which produces the Mobius strip of stable politics and poor civil-military relations .