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In addition to being costly and unnecessary, the government’s plan to purchase secondhand combat tanks from the Netherlands is also financially untenable, an analyst has warned.

Ichsanuddin Noorsy, a researcher with Gadjah Mada University’s Anticorruption Study Center (Pukat UGM), said on Monday that the $600 million deal to buy 100 Leopard tanks would leave Indonesia dangerously dependent on foreign funding and technological support.

“The tanks will be paid for through export credit, which means Indonesia will be in debt for its defense requirements to the Netherlands, the former colonial power,” he said.

He added that even after Indonesia received the tanks, it would still be reliant on foreign parties for maintenance and upgrade support.

“That means that Indonesia will have to keep sending money abroad just to maintain its military hardware,” he said.

Should the government and the House of Representatives approve the deal under those circumstances, he warned, they would effectively be wasting money on a defense system whose benefits to Indonesia’s security needs could not be justified.

“The kinds of conflict that we’re seeing in the country now are based on economics, ideology and IT,” he said.

“So the kind of domestic defense policy that the government must pursue is one that helps shore up social welfare.”

He likened the purchase of the tanks to “taking Paracetamol for a neural disorder.”

Ichsanuddin called on the government to “think long term” by increasing funding for local research and development of weapons systems.

“Allocate that money to domestic producers. That would be a more worthy cause and earn Indonesia the respect of other countries,” he said.

Most of the parties at the House have balked at the planned purchase, and on Monday the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) detailed its objections to the deal.

Al Muzzammil Yusuf, a PKS legislator with House Commission I, which oversees foreign and defense affairs, said that with a defense budget of Rp 64.4 trillion ($7.2 billion) this year, the Leopard deal was far too costly.

“We hope the Defense Ministry realizes that the limited budget should prompt them to support the domestic weapons industry so that we can end our dependency on outside suppliers,” he said.

He added that if the country had to import weapons, it should also insist on a transfer of technology so that it would not be dependent on the vendor country for future maintenance and upgrade support.

“This will also help support the growth of the domestic defense industry,” he said.

Another reason the PKS objected to the purchase, he continued, was that it believed defense spending should be prioritized to improve soldiers’ welfare.

“We believe that the best defense comes when the soldiers, and the people, are well taken care of,” he said.

He also argued that tanks were far from ideal for use in Indonesia’s forested and hilly terrain and called instead for the military to go in the opposite direction and adopt more anti-tank technology such as portable missiles.

“If you think about it strategically, when other countries have tanks, you should be investing in anti-tank missiles. For the cost of one Leopard tank you can get 22 Javelin missiles,” Al Muzzammil said.