John McBeth, Jakarta – Indonesia's newly-fashioned strategic relationships with China and Australia stem from its political and economic weakness, says Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Straits Times, he points to the maritime boundary dispute with Malaysia off eastern Borneo and the massive international assistance needed to bring relief to tsunami-stricken Aceh as striking examples of the relative impotence of the cash-strapped Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI).
With the navy and the air force now incapable of mounting any credible deterrence, Mr Juwono says the price of maintaining a low defence budget has been to use neighbouring countries as a first line of defence.
While Australia and Indonesia are edging towards a so-called "comprehensive relationship" aimed at enhancing military and defence cooperation, the civilian defence chief says the military dimension of an umbrella agreement signed with China last month deals more with technological aid to some of Indonesia's defence-related industries.
Those companies include the Bandung-based aircraft maker PT Dirgantara Nusantara, which builds the C-235 cargo plane PT PAL, the state-owned Surabaya shipyard, and PT Pindad, the supplier of arms and ammunition to the Indonesian Army.
"That's where we can see some headway being made," says Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natelagawa. Other senior government sources say President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a retired US-trained general, is wary of any deepening defence arrangements with China, whose commercial interests in Indonesia have grown dramatically over the past few years.
Economic restraints are likely to weigh on Mr Juwono throughout his five-year term. This year's defence budget is only US$2.4 billion (S$4 billion), about half of what Singapore and Thailand spend on their military and far below the US$6 billion Mr Juwono estimates is needed to support what he calls "a minimum essential force" for the army, navy and air force, covering salaries, operational costs and capital equipment. Current spending adds up to a mere 1.5 per cent of GDP and 9 per cent of the annual budget.
Says the minister, with just a hint of mortification: "I think the only comparable country with the same problem as us is the Philippines."
Unlike other countries in the region, the very size of the Indonesian archipelago makes defence spending even more problematic. In fact, Mr Juwono says the US$6 billion represents about 70 per cent of what is really required to secure Indonesia's air space and territorial waters. "And I'm not talking about threats," he adds. "I'm just focusing on defence capability."
Maritime Resources Minister Freddy Numberi, a retired Papua-born admiral, has estimated that Indonesia loses up to US$23 billion a year to fish poachers, illegal loggers and other illicit traders.
Even with adequate finances, Indonesia would still find itself in a cleft stick. With American hardware making up more than two-thirds of its inventory, a US embargo on arms sales going back to the 1991 East Timor churchyard massacre has left the TNI with weaponry so outdated that much of it is non-operational.
Defence officials have been saying for two or three years now that Indonesia may have to go back to Russia and eastern Europe, which last supplied military hardware to Indonesia during the rule of socialist-leaning president Sukarno in the 1960s.
Much of the concern rests with the air force's 10 US-built F-16 fighters, only four of which are airworthy.
In what was billed as an effort to fill the gap, Indonesia last year took delivery of two SU-27SK interceptors and two SU-30MK ground attack jets from Russia under a US$193 million barter agreement. But there was one glaring catch.
The fighters are still not equipped with the avionics, missiles or even the cannons that make them one of the world's top-line combat aircraft.
Mr Juwono says: "I don't know what the motive was in buying them. I suppose you would have to say it was unplanned defence."
All these factors – and the unseemly haste with which the pact was concluded – only fuelled speculation that the deal was designed to boost then-president Megawati Sukarnoputri's re-election campaign, rather than a considered purchase.
Documents leaked to the press at the time showed that Trade and Industry Minister Rini Suwandi, a Megawati confidante – and not then-defence minister Matori Abdul Djalil or armed forces commander General Endriartono Sutarto – played the dominant role in the transaction.
Mr Juwono is unaware of any new prospective purchases of SU-27s and SU-30s, but Russian defence officials claimed in January that a US$890 million plan to buy six more of the Sukhois was scrapped when the money was diverted to help in the Aceh relief effort.
Although the twin-engined jets have a combat radius suited to Indonesian conditions, they are expensive to maintain. Western experts say the Sukhoi's two engines require an overhaul every 1,000 hours and have a limited life compared to the F-15, its US look-alike.
That means a sound economic structure and a bigger budget are required to support what is actually a larger fiscal responsibility than the actual purchase of the planes. Still, Mr Juwono has made it clear that the time is fast approaching when the Indonesian government will have to look to the future.
"We have reached the point where we will have to decide in the next six months whether we can afford to break away from the United States system and, if so, whether we can afford to go to a new system which in the long run will be more expensive," he points out.
The US has agreed to provide spare parts for Indonesia's ageing, but vital, fleet of C-130 cargo planes needed for disaster relief operations and to speed troops to far-flung trouble spots.
But despite the cordial relations that President Yudhoyono enjoys with the Bush administration, the Indonesian military's failure to provide an accounting for the 1999 militia rampage in then-East Timor and the killing of two American teachers in Papua three years later remains a significant congressional roadblock to the restoration of the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programme.
Mr Juwono's visit to Washington in March was clearly a frustrating experience.
Despite a lengthy session with senators Patrick Leahy and Russel Feingold, two of the TNI's strongest critics, in which he appealed for their understanding at a time when Indonesia is making progress towards democratic rule, both refused to budge.
"How do I do this with such a meagre justice system?" Mr Juwono asks.
The minister believes only an effective lobbying effort might turn the tables. But then there is that old problem again. There is no money to pay for it.