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When the United States and Australia recently announced that US Marines would begin regular training in the Northern Territory, all that some Indonesian legislators could think about was not the strategic balancing act with China, but the threat they thought the deployment posed to Jakarta's control over Papua.

Bemused diplomats could only marvel at the befuddled thinking of overly nationalist, conspiracy-minded politicians, some of whom even voiced suspicions that the move was linked to the now-ended strike at Papua's US-owned Grasberg copper and gold mine.

What it did reveal was the depth of unease being felt over the situation in Indonesia's most restive province and, in a broader sense, the fact that at a time of heightened regional tensions, the discourse in the corridors of power is overwhelmingly internal.

Memories remain fresh over Timor Leste's decision to break away from Indonesia in 1999, which many shocked citizens blamed - and still blame - on the international community. After all, they had never seen it coming.

In contrast to the public indifference shown towards the former Portuguese territory during much of Jakarta's brutal 25-year rule, Parliament and the media are showing more than a passing interest in recent events in Papua, where Indonesia seems to be making the same mistakes.

Missing in action in the debate over the country's strategic outlook is the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI), whose new paradigm, formulated in 1998, was meant to take it out of politics and shift its focus to external defense - while retaining the role of preserving national unity.

The TNI has a less neurotic view of US motives than the politicians, but safeguarding sovereignty continues to dominate its approach to everything, underpinned by a pervasive territorial structure and buttressed by an enduring distrust of civilian governance.

In its only Defense White Paper, issued in 2003, the military surprisingly had very little to say about big power involvement in the region, dismissing the possibility of external threats and concentrating instead on international terrorism, transnational crime and illegal immigration as the main issues.

That seems extraordinary for a sprawling archipelago with 81,000 km of coastline and four million sq km of exclusive economic zone, lying astride some of the world's most important trading routes and boasting a hardly formidable navy.

That, however, is not surprising for TNI watchers. Over the past decade, the TNI leadership has been content to allow the Foreign Ministry to take the lead in pursuing a 'free and active' policy that enhances Asean's role as a burgeoning regional community and seeks to strike a balance between the US and China.

For all of Indonesia's neutral stance, however, US-educated President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his military leaders have clearly not been unhappy to see the Americans restoring their presence in the region.

When Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa suggested the Darwin deployment had the potential to "provoke a reaction and counter-reaction that would create a vicious circle of tensions and mistrust", it took only a day for him to back off from those remarks.

Indeed, with as many as 2,500 Indonesian servicemen training alongside Australian forces in ground, sea and air exercises this year alone, the Indonesian military sees the Marine deployment as a further opportunity for operational engagement.

While the TNI's wavering relations with the US over the past two decades have been largely defined by the boycott imposed after the 1991 Timor Leste graveyard massacre and the familiar vagaries of congressional politics, its view of China remains foggy.

By the time Jakarta and Beijing restored diplomatic relations in 1990 after a 23-year hiatus, former defense minister Juwono Sudarsono says the military had long since put China's previous support for the long-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) behind it.

But only four years later, Beijing unnecessarily raised suspicions about its future ambitions by appearing to include Indonesia's gas-rich Natuna Islands in its controversial "historic" claim to the South China Sea - and failing to answer an inquiring diplomatic note.

In fact, maritime expert Hasyim Djalal says it was nearly a decade before the Chinese produced a 'classroom' map, devoid of longitudes and latitudes, which showed the nine dotted lines delineating the country's tongue-shaped claim falling well to the north of the Natunas.

The former diplomat notes that even the Indonesian military itself seems unsure of where its maritime defense perimeter lies. "I keep asking whether it is our territorial waters, the economic zone or where," he says. "But no one responds to that sort of question."

Indeed, the Coordinating Ministry for Political and Security Affairs - the obvious body for such things - seems more preoccupied with day-to-day issues than coming up with strategic guidance on what the region might look like in 20 years and how the military should position itself.

Without that coherent view, the military's shopping list of new hardware, or what it calls its minimum force requirement, seems more tailored to what big-ticket items Singapore and Malaysia have in their inventory than any other consideration, such as disaster relief and maritime security.

Acquiring two squadrons of F-16 jets may make sense for a country with threadbare air defenses. But why buy 100 surplus Leopard 2A6 main battle tanks (MBTs) and three submarines when, by general agreement, there is a more urgent need for transport aircraft, helicopters and fast patrol boats?

For a country that has documented so clearly in its 2003 White Paper that it should concentrate on "lower-level" threats such as transnational crime and illegal immigration, the focus on "high-end" MBTs and submarines is somewhat misplaced.

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