In the late 1990s, the academic consensus was that military forces faced declining political power across Southeast Asia. In fact, subsequent years saw soldiers in the Philippines extend their socio-political privileges under the Arroyo administration, and in 2006 and again last week witnessed military coups in Thailand against governments led by Thaksin Shinawatra and members of his political dynasty. However, an important exception is the case of Indonesia, which has experienced a waning political role for the armed forces over the past 15 years. The Political Resurgence of the Military in Southeast Asia, edited by Marcus Mietzner and published in 2011, examines the region in some detail. For Myanmar, the Indonesian case is particularly instructive.

Led by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono since 2004, Indonesia has sought to establish incremental civilian control over the armed forces, while also safeguarding military interests. In the executive, only the military commander retains active service status, and the number of ministers with any military association has declined. In national and local legislatures, provisions which gave the armed forces 38 seats in the national parliament and 10 percent of the seats in each devolved assembly were phased out. Several hundred middle-ranking officers were thereby withdrawn from the political scene. At the same time, military interests have been protected by preserving a territorial command structure – the network of military units that expands from Jarkarta to the village level has been a significant power base since the 1950s. Moreover, the collapse of the armed forces’ formal business empire has been mitigated by a range of informal activities ranging from illegal logging and mining to gambling, drug trafficking, prostitution and even weapons sales in combat zones.

In Myanmar, the tatmadaw is neither willing to withdraw from politics, nor prepared to accept civilian supremacy in the political system. It thus remains unclear how the balance of political power will evolve. One possibility is that as domestic civil society expands and the country becomes more open to the world, the military-commander psychology that has long conditioned national politics will start to diminish. Slowly, what was a dominant cohort of generals will be replaced by, or at least have to cooperate with, other actors in the civil service, the business sphere, and the wider society. However, another possibility is that the tatmadaw will retain significant power. It still has considerable numerical strength, and has kept most of its traditional chain of command throughout the country. Furthermore, regional military elites continue to oversee a wide range of informal business activities, particularly in areas with abundant natural resources and mineral deposits as well as in some frontier combat zones dominated by ethnic nationality armed forces.

The Indonesian case indicates that a productive way forward would be to unite these two possibilities in a strategy that reduces formal military power while at the same time safeguarding military interests. As Mietzner points out, in Indonesia there is no guarantee that Yudhoyono’s successor will be able to maintain the delicate balance of the past decade, especially in the sphere of military reform. In the same vein, Myanmar’s dependence on President Thein Sein’s reform skills and his charismatic leadership style may have made the state vulnerable to uncertainties generated by the 2015 general election. Nevertheless, there remains much for Myanmar to learn from Indonesia’s transition to democracy.

Dulyapak Preecharush is a PhD candidate at the University of Hong Kong.