Redefining ASEAN Security In The Region

Posted on May 11, 2011

The upcoming ASEAN Summit from May 7 to 9, 2011, provides an opportunity for its 10 member states to review the defense and security context of the continuing thrust as a pivotal regional grouping engaged in aligning major power interests in Southeast Asia. In strategic terms, there are five dimensions of military security that together define the political, economic and socio-cultural success of the ASEAN Security Community.

First, Satelllite-based cyber defense: the use of satellite communications technology to transmit, encrypt, capture and control the transmission and content of military communications in space, including tracking and intercepting systems utilized and deployed by the military.

The United States, Russia, Japan and China dominate space-based defense technology. European countries, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore provide first and second-tier advanced communications technology systems deployed by land, sea and air forces.

Second, Strategic Nuclear: nuclear weapons with high-grade explosive capability with launch-capabilities of over 6,500 kilometers from land, sea and air. The United States and Russia lead the field with over 8,000-12,000 strategic nuclear warheads with command and control capabilities. China and India have fewer warheads, shorter launches as well as lesser command and control capability.

Third, Ballistic Nuclear: nuclear weapons with launch capability at ranges of 1,500-2,000 kilometers.The United States, Russia, China, India, France, the United Kingdom and North Korea are states that possess warheads and delivery systems linked to tactical nuclear weapons, deployed in tandem with conventional forces.

Fourth, Tri-Service Conventional Defense: “The military balance” usually associated with distribution and the quality of conventional army, navy and air forces’ ability to defend territorial integrity and maintain “deterrence” in conventional terms. The US is the only power with Carrier Strike Group (CSG) capability in the region as well as worldwide.

Fifth, Undersea Capability: deployment of undersea nuclear powered/nuclear-weapon submarine deployment, armed with strategic missile strike capabilities. Only the United States has the range capability in terms of numbers and accuracy, with Russia, China and India actively developing anti-ship missile capability, designed at enhancing their respective “strategic space” and “far sea” presence.

The above macro-security dimensions underwrite both the intra-regional and trans-regional economic relations. Japan, South Korea and later China benefited from American “security assurance” that provided economic, trade and invesment commitments in the Pacific. ASEAN today has become a community of 10 nations with a combined GDP of US$1.4 trillion.

The security, trade and investment complementarities linking Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean are covered by America’s critical role as the “security assurance” underpinning trans-regional stability. It survived upheavals in Southeast Asia, periodic crises over the Taiwan Straits and occasional tensions in the Korean peninsula.

The rise of China and India as regional and global economic powers has given rise to a desire by both nations to enhance “strategic space” in their respective “core areas of national interest”, in Northeast Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. China and India’s core area of security presence will be taken into greater account as each nation increases its conventional power capability and affects ASEAN’s stance on regional security.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)/ASEAN Security Community (ASC) aims to foster intra-regional links leading to market-driven economic prosperity. ASEAN+3 (Japan, South Korea, China), ASEAN+6 (Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, India) followed by ASEAN+8 with the entry of the United States and Russia in 2010, are enhancing the concept of regional security in an interconnected world.

The ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting, since May 2006, has provided a vehicle for ASEAN to provide “strategic space” among resident powers as well as calibrate “technological parity” with extra-regional military powers in order that regional security and economic progress become mutually reinforcing.

All of these collaborative clusters need to be carefully harmonized with the right pitch of military presence. The fulcrum of strategic “balance of power” and the evolving “power of balance”, incorporating economic, financial (AMRO, the ASEAN Macro Economics Research Office), trade (ACFTA, ASEAN-China Free Trade Area), investment and energy interactions need to be carefully calibrated by all nations in the region. The entire Trans Pacific Partnership community constitutes 78 percent of world GDP.

The key issues for ASEAN and for Indonesia in particular for the next 10-15 years: How coordinated and synchronized will ASEAN’s public and private leaders be to harness a concerted vision about its geo-political 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 ASEAN’s leadership groups in the government, in the military and in private business command in order to be able to connect and cooperate with the US, Japan, China, Russia and India? Can the national security state cope with technological, economic and financial globalization? Can territorial defenses adapt to the functional aspects of global economic and financial competitiveness arising from the pervasive uses of technological innovation?

With a population of almost 500 million, ASEAN must adopt comprehensive policy visions simultaneously linking the global, the regional, the national, the provincial and the local levels. There is a need for more skilled and educationally trained civilian, business and military leaders who are skilled at interfacing the planning of “military battles” over physical space with areas where “non-military battles” of ideas, innovation, knowledge and financial and management skills become increasingly prominent in determining a nation’s ability to survive in a “24/7” competitive world.

Within the fused economies of Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean, ASEAN’s notion of total defense and security must merge territorial defense with functional defense. The real test for each ASEAN country is to provide broad-based social and economic justice at home. Indonesia must ensure sustainable human security, from Aceh to Papua, from North Sulawesi to East Nusa Tenggara. In the final analysis, social and economic justice is Indonesia’s best defense. A strong and stable Indonesia is in the interest of all ASEAN and for security cooperation with all major extra-regional powers.

*) The article was an excerpt from the opening remarks at the 4th NADI (Network of ASEAN Defense Institutes) Workshop in Jakarta on April 19, 2011.

Categories: Defense, International

Konsolidasi Demokrasi Indonesia

Posted on December 29, 2010

Setiap akhir tahun berbagai kalangan di dunia menerbitkan survei kemajuan demokrasi di beberapa negara maju maupun negara berkembang.

Masing-masing survei membuat kajian berdasarkan selera ukuran dan indikator masing-masing.Ada yang mengedepankan “keterbukaan politik” seperti kemerdekaan pers, kebebasan berserikat, penghormatan pada golongan minoritas (suku, agama, dan ras). Ada juga yang mendasarkan pada besaran “golongan menengah” masingmasing negara. Survei bisnis dan ekonomi umumnya mengacu pada kemampuan pengelolaan utang publik maupun utang swasta serta kemampuan pengendalian fiskal negara.

Indonesia telah lama disebut sebagai “negara demokrasi terbesar ketiga”, setelah India dan Amerika Serikat, sedikitnya menurut hasil Bali Democracy Forum yang diselenggarakan 9-10 Desember 2010.Namun,beberapa kalangan mempertanyakan tolok ukur yang dipakai untuk pemeringkatan seperti itu.

Terutama kalangan aktivis yang menekankan pentingnya demokrasi ekonomi,sosial,dan budaya sebagai sandaran matra demokrasi dalam arti luas. Karena tolok ukur yang berbeda, muncul berbagai interpretasi tentang makna keberhasilan demokrasi di negara-negara seperti India, China,Brasil,dan Indonesia.

Kalau ditinjau dari tolok ukur hak asasi manusia (HAM) dalam lima matra yang utuh (kebebasan sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya), tidak ada negara maju maupun berkembang yang sempurna menjalankan demokrasi. Di India dan China, misalnya, yang masing-masing berpenduduk 1,1 dan 1,3 miliar manusia,hanya 300-350 juta orang yang memenuhi tolok ukur HAM secara utuh.

Jumlah orang India yang mampu secara ekonomi dan sosial menikmati “demokrasi ” hanyalah 300 juta yang menduduki “kelas menengah” India dengan pendapatan per kapita antara USD3.000-6.000 per tahun. Selebihnya, sekitar 700 juta manusia, belum terjangkau hak ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya.

India pemeringkat pertama demokrasi dunia kalau diukur hanya dari 2 matra HAM,yaitu kebebasan sipil dan kebebasan politik.Dari segi hak ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya, lebih dari 700 orang India terjerat dalam kenistaan yang menyedihkan.Demokrasi “gaya Westminster” tidak bersendikan keadilan dan kewajaran sosial, ekonomi, dan budaya.

“Kelas menengah” di China juga hanya berkisar 300- 350 juta orang yang sudah menikmati “kenaikan kelas” ekonomi selama 30 tahun kemajuan pesat China sejak 1979. Tetapi, rakyat China yang di pedalaman dan hidup jauh dari pusat-pusat ekonomi China di sepanjang kota-kota pantai selatan masih bergelut dengan perusakan lingkungan, penurunan kesehatan,dan kemiskinan yang amat mencengkam. Mukjizat“Konsensus Beijing” tidak bersendikan lima matra HAM yang utuh.

Mukjizat Brasil yang kerap dipuja- puja kalangan media negara maju juga tidak kalah memprihatinkan. Ketimpangan ekonomi antara kaya dan miskin,antara kota industri dan hutan di pedalaman, pembunuhan terhadap kaum miskin kota.

Di sejumlah negara Eropa Barat sekarang sedang dikaji sampai di mana demokrasi Inggris, Prancis, Jerman, dan Italia bisa luput dari menjeratnya utang negara yang dialami Yunani, Spanyol, dan Irlandia.Pengelolaan uang negara jadi ukuran penting demokrasi yang sejati karena jaminan sosial ekonomi dari negara terancam beban pengetatan fiskal.

Di Amerika Serikat (AS), jawara demokrasi negara paling kaya di dunia,utang negaranya bahkan sudah mencapai 66% dari pendapat domestik bruto. Dana talangan pemerintah sebesar USD850 miliar lebih dipakai dan dinikmati oleh 13 bank swasta terbesar yang asetnya mencapai USD10,5 triliun.

AS mungkin demokrasi politik kedua terbesar di dunia; tetapi AS adalah suatu oligarki perbankan/keuangan di Wall Street, yang juga menguasai komisi-komisi ekonomi dan keuangan di DPR dan Senat AS. Reformasi layanan kesehatan untuk 30 juta orang AS tersendat oleh DPR dan Senat Amerika yang dikuasai lobi-lobi industri obat dan kesehatan yang amat kuat.

Terlepas dari debat demokrasi politik dan demokrasi ekonomi mancanegara, bagaimana demokrasi Indonesia? Jika ditinjau dari segi lima matra HAM secara utuh (sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, budaya), potret demokrasi Indonesia tidak terlalu jelek, tetapi juga belum terlalu bagus. Dari 237 juta orang Indonesia, hanya sekitar 45- 50 juta “kelas menengah Indonesia” yang hidup layak dalam arti memiliki hunian layak untuk manusia, akses pada layanan publik yang memadai, cukup sandang pangan, serta terjangkau listrik dan air minum.Kelas
menengah Indonesia ini pendapatannya sekitar USD3.000- 7.500 setahun. Umumnya orang profesional atau semiprofesional di kota-kota besar (Jakarta, Surabaya,Medan,Makassar, Semarang,Palembang, dan sebagian kota madya yang memiliki infrastruktur yang memadai).

Dalam pertemuan Kabinet Indonesia Bersatu II dan para gubernur se-Indonesia pada April 2010, Presiden SBY menekankan pentingnya kebangkitan kelas menengah Indonesia untuk ”memajukan kualitas demokrasi Indonesia.” Kelas menengah Indonesia ini adalah andalan memajukan hak sipil, politik, ekonomi, sosial, dan budaya secara utuh dan tak terpisahkan. Mereka kini diandalkan sebagai motor penggerak Indonesia yang lebih adil dan sejahtera dari Sabang sampai Merauke.

Kelas menengah yang 45-50 juta inilah yang menjadi sasaran bidik industri media massa hiburan, televisi,dan aneka ragam “talkshow”. Mereka orang-orang mapan yang naik ke dunia gemerlap “di atas garis kenikmatan”.

Mereka harus diingatkan untuk memperkuat konsolidasi demokrasi Indonesia ke bawah dengan mengurangi ketimpangan ekonomi,menutup celah sosial dan budaya yang masih mencengkam lebih dari separuh penduduk Indonesia, termasuk 57 juta kelompok usia 15-35 tahun yang rentan kerawanan sosial politik. Kelas menengah Indonesia ini harus menghindar diri dari “perangkap negara menengah” di mana anggota masyarakat yang telah naik ke kelas menengah menjadi puas diri dan tidak peduli pada mereka yang masih tertinggal.

Dan kelas menengah Indonesia harus berlomba untuk lebih baik daripada kelas menengah India,China,Brasil,bahkan kelas menengah AS sekalipun. Jika berhasil, barulah kita pantas menyatakan diri sebagai negara demokrasi yang berkualitas.

Categories: Development, Nation

GWOT SAVE our OCO contest

Posted on June 24, 2009

First it was GWOT (Global War On Terror). Then for a time it became SAVE (Strategy Against Violent Extremism). Later on, it became CONTEST (Counter Terrorism Strategy) with the 4 P’s of “Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare.”

Now, albeit unofficially, it’s OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations). When it comes to counter-terrorism, there has been no shortage of acronyms popping up in the bureaucracies of the security and intelligence communities in the United States and the United Kingdom.

GWOT first sprang up immediately after September 11, 2001, when President George W. Bush pronounced his famous “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” rallying call, understandable under the circumstances following the devastating attacks in New York and Washington at the time. To the credit of Jacques Chirac, who was the first foreign head of government to visit President Bush less than two weeks after 9/11, the French president expressed reservation over the choice of the word “war”.

Chirac understood the dangers of using the expression “war on terror”, and that it would elicit the notion of the war of the Christian “crusaders” against Islamic “jihadists” among France’s Muslim community, the largest in Western Europe. It would play into Al Qaida’s strategy of provoking tension between the “Christian West” and the “Muslim East”.

But GWOT became a popular rallying cry among right-wing and hard-line “security first” politicians in North America and Western Europe. It captured the imagination of bureaucrats who pushed for tighter domestic security policies against “potential” Muslim “sleepers” or “Trojan horse” subversives.

SAVE came into fashion around 2005-2006, when the “global war” pursued in Iraq, Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan persuaded politicians in the US and UK that a successful long-term strategy against Muslim terrorism had to go right to “cultural roots of the problem” in a particular country in the Middle East or South Asia. Kinetic-based counter-terrorist actions, including the use of special forces and UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) operated from Nevada often inadvertently targeted innocent civilians suspected of being involved in terrorist acts in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Over the past decade, intelligence chiefs throughout South East Asia have exchanged notes in facing radical groups who often manipulated Islamic notions of “jihad” by home grown, region-based as well as international-linked terrorist groups. Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia undertook “re-integration programs” in which suspected terrorists or those convicted of violent acts are provided with “remedial programs” incorporating welfare related schemes as well as provide rehabilitation sessions guiding them to the true path of Muslim toleration.

The Indonesian Defense Force, particularly the Army, has discretely but effectively recalibrated its role to launch effective Territorial Capacity Buiding (TCB) programs. Its twin track schemes provide governance capacity building for village, local and township management as well as supporting economic development delivery systems. Reinforcing governance capacity and providing economic support (repair of irrigation canals, bridges, rehabilitating houses of worship in previously sectarian-strife areas, teaching arithmetic and Bahasa Indonesia in isolated areas) create a positive environment of “nation-building” and “nation replenishing” at the grass roots level.

This is the other side of GWOT, SAVE and OCO. The real issue is that of matching satellite-based and air launched technology of war should be calibrated with the ground-level anthropology challenge of graduated winning hearts and minds. GWOT, SAVE and OCO can only succeed if these ground level social, economic and cultural issues are resolved at the scope and speed willingly undertaken by local leaders.

Categories: Defense