Reconciling civilian-military gap

Reconciling civilian-military gap

By Kusnanto Anggoro

JAKARTA (JP): In developed democracies, scholars of civil-
military relations have reached a consensus on how civilian elite
and military officers should engage in working relations.

Wide use of the term "civil supremacy" in the West, or "civil
control" in the post-Soviet states, applies to political behavior
-- a democratic process, norm and institutions.

"Civilian supremacy" or "civilian control" largely concern the
extent to, and the way in, which democratic civilian government
regulates the role of the armed forces.

Unfortunately we do not have such a luxury. In Indonesian,
supremasi sipil refers to both civil and civilian supremacy. They
are rarely defined with any precision -- implying that they are
the same thing.

Worse, little endeavor has ever been made with regard to
politics as procedures consisting of the formulation, approval
and implementation of particular policies. This often produces
confusion or ambiguity in debates on how, and to what extent, the
state of democracy can be established.

Civil-military relations has become a zero-sum game. "Civil
supremacy" has turned into non-involvement of the armed forces in
politics. Academics and activists strongly advocate the "down
with the military" argument and that soldiers should go "back to
the barracks", seemingly unaware that Indonesia has not adopted
conscription.

Priority has been given to scrapping the 38 seats allocated to
military delegates in the legislature, which in fact could have
been a non-issue if we had a proper voting system.

Meanwhile, military officers defend themselves with
mystification of history and continue to claim historical facts,
however disputed they may be, as political rights.

They prefer to use the term supremacy of law, which is too
legalistic, and deny the fact that laws are no more than products
of political processes that are not necessarily democratic, and
include the use of intimidation and money politics.

Most of them argue that civilians have no capacity or
credentials to discuss security and defense affairs.

Such mutual denial may arise from two issues: semantics and
the conceptual void of the "down with the military" argument. Few
would pay attention to the fact that the terms "civil" and
"military" do not denote a job but a way of life.

The former refers, not to individuals or groups, but to a way
of life relying on politics, negotiation and tolerance. The
latter, of course, represents the use of force, intimidation and
even coercion.

In fact, civil supremacy or civilian supremacy is no more than
the supremacy of the elected, not appointed authorities. For
sure, such supremacy applies not only to the armed forces, but
also to other social and political entities, including political
parties. Needless to say, using civilian defense groups, or so-
called task forces (satgas), and violent means to induce
political process are all against the principles of civil
supremacy.

The "down with the military" arguments have led us to focus on
inappropriate and incongruous priorities. Demilitarization, for
example, should primarily concern the conversion of unnecessary
military resources, weaponry and industrial capacity to civilian
use.

It is the term used in developed countries, including those in
the former Soviet states of Eastern Europe, following the end of
the Cold War. Such an approach would hardly be relevant to
Indonesia whose regular army needs modern weaponry and better
organization to be able to defend the country against
conventional and non-conventional threats.

Demobilization is another case in point.

This term applies to most African states after a series of
liberation wars ravaged the nation for almost four decades. After
the wars ended, many soldiers were simply released from their
military duties and told to go home, and, without any real
civilian skills, turned into roving bandits who preyed on people
in the countryside. Again, this has little relevance to
Indonesia, except in the case of paramilitaries, militias and
armed insurgents.

All of this has widened the gap between civilians and the
military, leading to mutual suspicion that entangles the already
perilous transition to consolidated democracy.

As the scholar Clausewitzian suggested, "war is the
continuation of politics by other means", and thus, military
affairs are too dangerous to be left only to the soldier.

Confidence and trust-building measures are badly needed to
avoid the worsening situation. In democracy, it is one thing to
give a legitimate role to the armed forces; and it is another to
seek to control them against abusing their powers.

Bridging the civilian-military gap and constructing democratic
civil-military relations has always been complicated, especially
in post-military dominated regimes.

Nonetheless, the guiding principles are crystal clear. The
civilian must realize the need for technically competent,
professionally organized and politically accountable armed
forces.

Meanwhile, the military must accede to a somewhat unequal
contract that they must only defend democracy, not define it.

The writer is a senior researcher at the Centre for Strategic
and International Studies and a lecturer for the postgraduate
studies program at the School of International Relations,
University of Indonesia.