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The Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) may have won over Parliament with its plan to retrofit two squadrons of F-16 fighters provided free by the United States. But it now has another major skirmish on its hands over the proposed $600 million purchase of 100 Dutch Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks (MBTs).

Why, lawmakers demand to know, does the army want a 62-tonne behemoth unsuited to an archipelago with no identifiable land threats and a poor network of roads and bridges, which will be a daunting obstacle to its effective deployment, particularly on populous Java?

In the past, Parliament has often crumbled under pressure. But with a retired four-star general recently going to jail for corruption — the first ever — the civilians appear to have finally discovered the resolve to stand up to a once all-powerful institution.

The looming confrontation could rebound on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who senior officials say is behind the army getting priority treatment, although it is unclear where he stands on the tank purchase. The government will spend nearly $16 billion over the next five years to bring the long-neglected TNI up to parity with its Asean neighbors — an approach that ignores, however, Indonesia tailoring the military to its own strategic needs.

The military may be unhappy with its four Russian MI-35 gunships. But its declared intention, for example, to buy eight Apache attack helicopters seems largely motivated by Singapore having them — and Leopards as well.

The modernisation is timely for a 430,000-strong force, once a dominant presence in Indonesia’s political life, but whose hardware in some cases is more than half a century old.

This year’s $7.5 billion defense budget, significantly higher than last year’s $5.2 billion, has a shopping list that also includes 12 Russian 300mm multiple rocket launchers, 155mm howitzers, and additional air defense missiles, similar to the French Mistral and Sweden’s man-portable RBS-70 it already has.

Spending on heavy armor makes little sense to seasoned military men who think the main priorities should be transport aircraft and fast ocean-going patrol vessels, serving the purposes of providing disaster relief and protecting maritime resources.

While they believe Indonesia can improve its mounted warfare capability, they are astonished the army has chosen a tank so limited in its mobility in Indonesian conditions it could end up acting in static defense. Indonesia has never had MBTs. Its armored force is currently spearheaded by 125 14-tonne, French-made AMX-13 light tanks from the mid-1960s, and 80 Scorpion reconnaissance tanks from the late 1980s. Its 30 Soviet-era PT-76s are ready for the museum.

The army sought the somewhat lighter version of the Leopard two decades ago, but then President Suharto instead settled on the more agile Scorpion as part of an austere military spending program that surprisingly persisted through his rule.

Among the military’s newest recent purchases have been 154 APS-3s, a wheeled, lightly armed infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) built by Pindad, the state-owned company already supplying the TNI ammunition and small arms.

It has also taken delivery of 17 Russian BMP-3s, a tracked 18-tonne amphibian with a 100mm main gun, and will soon receive 22 South Korean K-21 IFVs.

The rest of the army’s inventory includes 46 French AVB and 70 Alvis Stormer armored personnel carriers of varying vintages, and about 250 old Saladin, Ferret, V-150 Commando and BTR-60 armored cars, used in local conflicts.

Army chief Pramono Edhie Wibowo, Yudhoyono’s brother-in-law, insists the Leopards will be stationed on Java, apparently centred on the army’s Cavalry School at Bandung, where tankers currently train on the AMX-13 and the PT-76. Java remains the base for the majority of the 10 or so tank and cavalry battalions scattered between Medan and Makassar, with a permanent pool of armored vehicles at a large manoeuvre training ground in southern Sumatra.

But analysts are still curious where the Leopard might figure in the TNI’s plan to create two new armored battalions as part of the reinstatement of a second regional command covering West and Central Kalimantan provinces.

In what appears to be a reaction to the still-unresolved Ambalat dispute in the coastal waters off East Kalimantan, senior officials have said Indonesia wants to strengthen security along the 2,000km land border with Malaysia.

The Leopards would certainly be more at home in the wider open spaces of West Kalimantan, though mountains and heavy swamps would still be no-go areas for the tank. Malaysia’s 48 45-tonne PT-91s continue to be based on the western peninsula and there has been no sign of Kuala Lumpur moving any of them to Sarawak’s border with Indonesia.

General Wibowo seems well aware of the tensions that would arise from locating at least some of the Leopards in Kalimantan, but first he must convince sceptical parliamentarians of the strategic premise for having them in the first place.

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.