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.