Quick reaction on AUKUS announcement

Open-ended 🧵 (updated ahead)👇🏻 Reactions from 🇦🇺 🇺🇸mates and others have been largely positive re: capability development plans, even if implementation remains full of risks (many, many threads have been largely on this bandwagon).

“…Richard Marles has said he wants to move even beyond interoperability to “interchangeability” …frequently using each other’s weapons, equipment and ammunition supplies, and coordinating logistics and supply chains more efficiently.” #networkquality wsj.com/articles/to-co… “One challenge to further integration between U.S. and allied militaries are U.S. rules, called International Traffic in Arms Regulations, that control the export of defense and military technologies…”

"Defense-related sales account for only 4 percent of the total sales of major Japanese manufacturing companies, and in 2020, defense-related procurement from domestic manufacturers made up less than 1 percent of Japan’s total industrial production value." foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/09/jap… "In the past 20 years, more than 100 companies have exited Japan’s defense sector due to a lack of business sustainability. Without reform, many promising companies will continue to withdraw or downsize their operations to invest elsewhere..."

"Shifting to smaller, more distributed groupings not only complicates Chinese targeting, but increases the presence of U.S. troops in the arc of islands east of Taiwan." #networkquality defensenews.com/pentagon/2023/… "The two countries also may be considering modest locations from where U.S. Marine or Army forces could operate surveillance drones or launch less expensive, mobile missiles."

“Tim peneliti juga menemukan, hanya 17 persen responden rutin mengikuti berita-berita luar negeri. Bahkan, hanya 25 persen responden pernah mendengar istilah “bebas aktif”. Padahal konsep itu menjadi jangkar politik luar negeri Indonesia sejak merdeka” kompas.id/baca/internasi… Survei Lowy Ungkap Warga 'Alergi' dengan Investasi China di RI cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/202204…

Excited for this once-in-a-decade @LowyInstitute national survey of how Indonesians view the world and the country's foreign policy

Link: interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/indon…

We asked lots of Qs, so there's plenty to chew on. But here's a brief 🧵 on a few personal highlights for me: 1) Indonesians are generally less "internationally plugged in"
- only around 17% follow major overseas events "very closely" and "somewhat closely"
- around 93% do not travel abroad (*though this could be pandemic-related)

🧵beli alutsista baru

Dua posisi ekstrem dalam narasi publik--"ga perlu, buang duit di saat pandemi" vs. "perlu banget dan bahkan harus dirayakan" sama2 tidak 100% salah tapi juga kurang tepat guna. Persoalannya bukan perlu atau ga (guns vs. butter), tapi sbg kebijakan pertahanan perlu dipertanyakan lebih lanjut:

1) Transparansi (tmsk audit internal dan publik) seluruh proses dari nego kontrak hingga purna beli (mis. maintenance, repair, overhaul). Ini seharusnya SOP.

Some initial reactions on AUKUS plans, mainly from an Indonesian perspective👇

Brief 🧵 on key issues and questions: 1) reaction will be divided, publicly and in private.

Publicly, officials are unlikely to come out strongly one way or the other. We know we cannot offer a serious alternative to the regional flux. We also know that regional countries are rightly developing non-ASEAN options.

"Beginning in 1989, the Tatmadaw spent more than a billion dollars on procuring new, more sophisticated military equipment... Most of it, however, was materiel that Myanmar did not actually need... It was simply toys for the boys... " irrawaddy.com/opinion/guest-… "Equally important was a decision to scrap the previous, unpopular system of constant rotations of regional commanders, which had been done in order to make sure that no such officer built up his own power base in a certain part of the country."

The latest @ISEAS regional survey is out (PDF: iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/upl…).

Many quick takes have focused on the "how bad it is for China and how high expectations are for US" narrative.

I don't see that as the main takeaway from the survey, here's why 🧵 1) Top 3 challenges facing the region: Covid, economic recovery, and inequality, NOT great power politics (e.g. SCS flashpoints). These issues are also where the US has little leverage or credibility. Guess where reg supply chains (econ+health) vulnerabilities lie?

Some thoughts on the latest Chinese encroachment of Indonesian waters (Natunas' EEZ)

For those hoping for "the straw that broke the camel's back" moment in Indonesia-China relations, be prepared to be disappointed. Yes, MOFA public statements have been more assertive than usual (see e.g. thejakartapost.com/news/2020/01/0… and en.tempo.co/read/1290040/i…)

This makes sense given the scale of the incident (tho keep in mind the high domestic pol temp over 🇮🇩🇨🇳 ties in recent weeks)

Banyak yg ribut soal pernyataan Menhan terkait #sishankamrata, "Apakah masih relevan doktrin tersebut di era perang abad 21??".

Memang sishankamrata ada dalam UUD dan sudah menjadi landasan strategi hankam 🇮🇩sejak dulu.

Persoalannya bukan sesuai atau tidak. Tapi bagaimana implementasi dan “terjemahan” praktisnya. Spt politik luar negeri bebas aktif, sishanmkarata lbh dekat ke landasan filosofis dan logika pertahanan (baca: analogi "logic vs grammar" Clausewitz). Ia bukan kebijakan praktis han atau strategi militer.

Now that most quick counts are in with more than 80-90% of the sample, it seems safe to say Jokowi has about 9-10% lead over Prabowo (Kawal pemilu data is only abt 3% data).

@jakpost called it this morning 👇 #Pemilu2019 <minor thread> Most qc data on legislative (DPR) elections and parties' vote shares are in too. As many called it, newer parties didn't make it (incl PSI, who graciously conceded):
PDIP, Gerindra, PKB, PKS, Nasdem likely ↗️
Golkar, Demokrat, PAN, PPP (barely made it) likely ↘️

Buat teman2 yg menyaksikan #DebatKeempatPilpres2019 dan sedikit penasaran dengan klaim/argumen soal kebijakan #hankam para kandidat, berikut beberapa catatan kecil <UTASAN> 1) kedua kandidat scr keseluruhan, mnrt hemat sy, tidak menjawab pertanyaan hankam dengan utuh dan efektif. Mereka lebih fokus mengeluarkan poin2 platform ("stump speech") kampanye yg lalu berusaha dikaitkan dgn pertanyaan.

<LONG THREAD> Sorry for those uninterested in Indonesian military (TNI) personnel policies, but the recently announced org. changes will have serious implications. But if you're interested, let's get into the weeds shall we? 1/ Some highlights:
- 60 new high-ranking positions (one-star and above)
- Plans to insert officers into civilian ministries
- Extend retirement age of NCOs & enlistees to 58
- New units will be created or upgraded
These are meant to address the growth of “non-job” officers

In light of #SurabayaAttacks revising the anti-terror law isn’t the only— nor is it necessarily the best—policy option. One *critical* aspect of a national counter-terrorism system we don’t have yet? National Emergency System, as @debrynadewi reminds us 👇🏻 Remember the chaos during and after the Jan '16 attacks in Thamrin where the area couldn't be cleared immediately, emergency & medical response was slow, people were watching and the rest of Jakarta didn't know what was going on? Similar chaotic pattern last week 2/

Thus far, the police reported 10 deaths and 41 injured as a result of the multiple bombings in Surabaya (regional.kompas.com/read/2018/05/1…).

How do we make sense of the larger trends in terror attack casualties in Indonesia? Here's the scatter plot of the statistics since 1977 <THREAD> If we zoom in to the recent post-1998 period, we can see that terror attacks have killed over a hundred people and injured almost 200. But the over time trends suggest that we are nowhere near the heyday of terror attacks of early to mid 2000s in terms of scale and casualties 2/

Without much fanfare, Indonesia quietly issued Government Regulation (PP) No. 4/2018 on Airspace Security. The PP was meant to further establish the governance of Indonesia's airspace (per Law No. 1/2009 on aviation) <thread on #ADIZ> 1/ 2/ The PP basically establishes the governance of Indonesia's airspace, who manages what and how as well as the procedures for certain scenarios (e.g. how to intercept a foreign aircraft, admin fines, etc.). In that sense, the PP is a generic framework for airspace management