Commodity Fetishism: Indonesia’s Security Dilemma in the Upcoming Defense Budget
Does Indonesia Really Need the 2022 Defense Budget Increase?
As Indonesia is located in the heart of the security-emerging Indo-Pacific region, the importance of Indonesia’s defense budget has been put into careful consideration. The topic itself has been rather debatable in the last few political regimes, that is not merely about whether or not there is a sufficient fund to shift the national budgeting into the defense sector, but also the fact that Indonesia might or might not need such highly advanced military equipment and technology. The question that might appear is, what is the utter motive behind a massive military spending plan? Are military enhancement and increasing budget truly necessary? Does the paradigm of security dilemma play a role in Indonesia’s commodity fetishism in military spending?
The master plan was claimed as a reason that the current Indonesia’s military power is far from sufficient to protect more than five hundred active districts/cities in the country. Surrounded by big giant rivalry namely People’s Republic of China and the US as well as the other surrounding nations such as Australia in the region shall be included into the consideration. The paradigm of security dilemma that might appear from the fellow ASEAN countries shall also be taken into account. According to the current military power rank by Global Firepower, Indonesia is currently ranked on the 16th. When we look upon the defense budget of ASEAN countries, Indonesia is the second biggest spender after Singapore. Indonesia’s annual defense budget is allocated for the Indonesian Ministry of Defense, Indonesian National Armed Forces from the Land-force, to Naval-force, Air-Force, as well as other apparatus such as the police department.
Under the leadership of current Indonesia’s Minister of Defense, Prabowo Subianto, Indonesia’s Defense State Receipts and Expenditures Budget Plan for 2022 will be increased by 13,28% from what Indonesia had in 2021. From 2020 to 2021 annual defense budget of Indonesia, there was already an increase of 14.2%. The intention of Indonesia’s defense development in 2022 is claimed to be based on the need of securing Indonesia from terrorism, narcotics, criminals, and the gradual fulfilment of the Minimum Essential Force. Indonesia still has more than one million military personnels up until today that include both active, backup personnels, and paramilitary.
Commodity fetishism, as Marx has put it, is a concept whereas commodities (in this case, military commodities) take on transcendental values that are rather beyond the intrinsic values within the commodities itself. The current minister of defense Prabowo Subianto has recently announced that he has ordered 2 Airbus A400M Atlas to transport tanks and military personnels, which is considered a rare-purchase in the Indo-Pacific region. These two aircraft may cost $80 million each. Earlier this year, Indonesia also purchased 6 units of T-150i from South Korea under the project of KFX/IFX between both countries that essentially planned to be sustained until 2028. The fact that in 2021 Indonesia actually has more than 470 aircrafts including tanks and personnel carriers have highlighted the current military purchase as well as the plan to even increase the budget more for the upcoming year as what we called commodity fetishism. Indonesia certainly does not have the urgent necessity in terms of over-developing its military capability, especially when the nation is currently agonized by the repercussions of COVID-19. When it comes to the military funding, Indonesia has to propose a foreign debt in order to fulfil all the defense purchase plans. To which this has been a quite debatable topic amongst Indonesia’s Representative Council.
As the Indo-Pacific security dilemma has become one of the biggest factors in enhancing this military budget plan, it is rather more important to put defense diplomacy of Indonesia as well-balanced as it has ever been. Fostering both diplomatic and defense tight amongst the giant actors in the region should be put as the foremost concern on the 2022 defense plan of Indonesia. The current purchase and plan to keep increasing the defense budget seemed to put the excessive values to the military commodities whilst it is still far from the necessity. The idea of purchasing more advanced military aircrafts and equipment should be carefully considered especially when the state is currently undergoing a health-welfare emergency.
