Jakarta set on military shopping spree

Jakarta set on military shopping spree
By Trefor Moss
Oct 26, 2010

Southeast Asia's sleeping giant has begun to make some surprisingly wakeful noises. After decades of underinvestment and international isolation, the Indonesian Armed Forces, known as the Tentara Nasional Indonesia (TNI), are set for a capability overhaul that could reset the strategic balance of the Asia-Pacific region - at least if the ambitious pronouncements of Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro are anything to go by.

Having painstakingly assembled its first squadron of 10 modern Sukhoi fighter aircraft over the course of the last decade, the TNI's under-strength air force now aims to put together another nine Sukhoi squadrons in remarkably short order, Purnomo announced in late September - that's 180 planes in total by around 2024. This would be in addition to the 50 next-generation fighters which Jakarta agreed in July to develop jointly with South Korea, and which could also be in service by the early 2020s.

Plans to buy two new submarines, probably from Russia or South Korea, are more in keeping with Jakarta's traditionally modest levels of aspiration. More striking, however, was Purnomo's insistence that the procurement program would be used to secure an indigenous submarine-building capability, enabling Indonesian shipbuilder PT Pal to build additional boats domestically. A pledge from Purnomo to invest in a range of airborne and naval assets to improve maritime surveillance further promises to redress a long-standing imbalance in Indonesia's defense apparatus, and bring the neglected navy and air force into line with the army, whose political influence has always enabled it to monopolize scarce defense dollars.

The question is whether Purnomo's grand plans will founder on the same financial and political rocks that have sunk TNI modernization drives in the past. The minister himself remains under intense scrutiny; as government appointments go, Purnomo's was a strange one. His predecessor, Juwono Sudarsono, was widely regarded as a capable technocrat with solid defense credentials, while Purnomo, appointed in 2009, brought with him a blotted copybook from the energy ministry and nothing in the way of defense pedigree.

However, it would be a mistake to dismiss Purnomo's ideas as the overreaching of a novice. In late October, Indonesian lawmakers showed a desire to fund the minister's plans by agreeing to increase the country's 2011 defense budget to US$6.3 billion (over $1 billion more than previously contemplated), potentially taking spending beyond the 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) threshold for the first time in many years. Strong economic growth of around 7% annually could now enable President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to realize his stated aim of increasing the defense budget to 1.5% of GDP by 2014.