DEFENCE STRATEGY

THREATS TO NATIONAL
SECURITY (REAL AND
POTENTIAL THREATS)
 ANALYZE
Interests, Threats, and
Opportunities
TO NATIONAL
SECURITY
 Interests, Threats, and Opportunities

CATEGORIES OF INTEREST

The immediate aftermath of Cold

War: INTERNATIONA DOMESTIC
National interest was L
assumptions assumptions
assess
interpreted by some as requiring
drastically-reduced American opportunities MEANS
involvement abroad, indeed as and threats power and
mandating a near-isolationist analyze influence

policy. national
But the role of the national interests
interest in strategic logic will
accommodate any kind of
plan objectives statecraft instruments
content. It recognizes that a
nation’s interests may well be courses of action
served by promoting its ideals.
POLICIES
3
 A. INTEREST:
Categories Of Interest
3. Asserts the nation’s autonomy-its ability to maintain its political
independence in the face of coercion by another government;
self-sufficiency, sovereignty, or even liberty.

4. To represent the promotion of values abroad simply because of

an inwardly felt mission to do good in the world or to create an
international environment which is more compatible with the
internal culture and political system of a state (e.g: U.S.), a
foreign policy ecosystem in which Americans can breathe
easier.

1. Protection against externally-caused injury or destruction of life and property within the territory
and of citizens or their possessions abroad. At its most basic this interest simply represents the
imperative of survival, both of individuals protected by the nation-state and of the state itself.

2. Most of a government’s activity to promote economic welfare takes place in the domestic arena
under broader national strategies, but the globalization of the U.S. economy means that prosperity
must also be promoted by foreign affairs strategy.
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 A. INTEREST:
Defining Interest
• More specific than Categories of Interest, by
applying those categories to various regions,
countries, and functional issues; indeed, global
interests usually must be translated INTERNATIONA DOMESTIC
“downward” to more specific locales and issues L
assumptions assumptions
in order to make their strategic meaning clear. assess
opportunities MEANS
• Less universal, e.g.; prosperity, the content of and threats power and
that interest will vary from country to country analyze influence
and from time to time.
national
• interests
E.g.: the national interest of the U.S. in
prosperity as applied to the Middle East would
mean an adequate flow of oil from the region at plan objectives statecraft instruments
reasonable prices and, in Saudi Arabia, political
and economic stability (which in current terms courses of action
means a strong Saudi monarchy). In such a
hierarchy, each lower level interest depends on POLICIES
the related interest above it for legitimacy. 5
 A. INTEREST
FIGURE 4.5 ROBERT ART’S TWO VERSION OF INTEREST

● First, prevent an attack on the American 1. Defense of the homeland

homeland;

● Second, prevent great-power Eurasian 2. Deep Peace among the Eurasian Great
Wars. . . ; powers

● Third, preserve access to a reasonably 3. Secure access to Persian Gulf oil at a stable,
priced and secure supply of oil; reasonable price.

● Fourth, preserve an open international 4. International Economic Openness

economic order;

● Fifth foster the spread of democracy and 5. Democracy’s consolidation and spread, the
respect for human rights abroad; observance of human rights.

● Sixth, protect the global environment . . . . 6. No severe climate change.

p.
6
 A. INTEREST: Values and Standards Of Judgment
Joseph Nye Samuel Huntington
“Values are simply an intangible national • “National interests usually combine security and material
interest,” to be differentiated from tangible or concerns, on the one hand, with moral and ethical
“strategic” interests. concerns, on the other.”
• NI Derived from national identity. We have to know who
we are before we can know what our interests are.

• National interest = too subjective to provide any check on policymakers or to be useful in analysis.
The standard of judgment it purports to provide is nothing more than a cloak for the statesman’s
own preferences.

• If the national interest is subjective, the issue belongs to the realm of policy process rather than
strategic thought, and any check on decision makers depends on where sovereignty is located
within the state.

• Obviously, national interests determined by a prince or a politbureau provide little assurance that
national rather than personal values will prevail. But “in a democracy, the national interest is
simply what citizens, after proper deliberation, say it is.” 7
INTEREST: Values and Standards Of Judgment

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT

INTERNATION DOMESTIC
AL
assumptions assumptions
assess
opportunities MEANS
and threats power and
analyze influence

national
interests

plan objectives statecraft instruments

courses of action

POLICIES
Connecting domestic values and national interests. 8
 A. INTEREST: Priroritizing Interest
Bernard Brodie:
Vital interests = those one is willing to fight for.
We should fight only for those issues deemed to
affect the security of the nation against attack,
thereby confining vital interests to the first of the
four categories of interest.
E.g.:
• U.S. in Lebanon during the early 1980s. Ronald
Reagan declared that it did in 1983 and proved it
by sending in the Marines; in 1984, though, after
241 of them died in a terrorist bombing of their
barracks in Beirut, he apparently decided
otherwise and pulled them out.
Elmer Plischke:
Vital to include “that which a nation deems to be
essential, which it will not willingly forsake, and
for which if necessary it will fight –
diplomatically, politically, and militarily.”
Reagan in 1983, and Panama under General
Noriega, invaded by President George H. W.
Bush in 1989. The first was believed to harbor a
Cold War security threat, the second a narcotics-
related threat to American values, but in neither
case does armed action prove a vital interest
except in the mind of the decision maker.
9
According to K.J Hoslty that National
interests consist of four basic elements as
follow:

•Security ...
•Autonomy ...
•Welfare, ...
•Prestigious…
(share with us your opinion on these elements)
04/16/2024 10
 A. INTEREST
Vital US National Interests are to:

1. Prevent, deter, and reduce the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical
weapons attacks on the United States or its military forces abroad;

2. Ensure US allies’ survival and their active cooperation with the US in shaping an
international system in which we can thrive;

3. Prevent the emergence of hostile major powers or failed states on US borders; p.

133
4. Ensure the viability and stability of major global systems (trade, financial
markets, supplies of energy, and the environment); and

5. Establish productive relations, consistent with American national interests, with

nations that could become strategic adversaries, China and Russia.
1
How About Indonesia…?

 For
Indonesia, in general the national interest is in
accordance with what is stated in the preamble of the
1945 Constitution paragraph 4 which reads;

"...to protect the entire Indonesian nation and all of

Indonesia's bloodshed and to advance public welfare,
educate the nation's life, and participate in carrying out
world order based on freedom, eternal peace and social
justice...".
04/16/2024 12
 Meanwhile, Indonesia's interests specifically related to relations
between nations entrusted to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are;

…"Strengthening foreign policy and increasing international

cooperation in the multilateral field is the increasing active role of
Indonesia in realizing international peace and security, promoting
and protecting human rights, humanitarian cooperation and
increasing economic development, socio-culture, finance,
environment, trade, industry, investment , commodities, and
protection of intellectual property rights through strengthening
multilateral cooperation.”

04/16/2024 13
 A. INTEREST: Criteria Used In Ranking Interests
● Intrinsic Value or Importance (benefit/cost
calculations, inability to compromise)
● Level of attainment (how much of the
interest is in hand)
● Precedence or sequence (required before
other interests can be protected or
advanced)
● Urgency (time that decision makers have
to secure Interest)
● Threat or Opportunity (level of danger to
interest or opportunity to advance it)
American foreign affairs strategy
demonstrates that what does change is
the prioritization given them, based on
three principal criteria:
(1) the value placed on an interest,
(2) how much of it is already attained,
and
(3) what threats appear likely to
challenge it (or what opportunities
the international environment
presents to advance it).
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 B. THREATS:
Threats and Opportunities

STRATEGIC ENVIRONMENT
“Threats” are considered from the receiving end,
from the point of view of the state being
INTERNATION DOMESTIC
threatened.
AL
assumptions assumptions
assess
The arrow in the model for foreign affairs strategy
opportunities MEANS from “assumptions” about the international
and threats power and
analyze influence environment to “opportunities and threats” is to
indicate that the latter come from overseas;
national indeed, unlike national strategy, foreign affairs
interests
strategy deals only with threats and opportunities
from abroad. But the arrow from “opportunities
plan objectives statecraft instruments and threats” to “national interests” has a quite
different meaning: here the idea is that threats
courses of action
are to (and opportunities for) interests.
POLICIES
Figure 4.9 : Threats and opportunities. 15
 \B. THREATS
Tool of state power that can be used by one government to
threaten another :
• Hostile propaganda
• Trade policy
• Economic sanctions
• Control of important natural resources (like oil or water),
• various kinds of Covert Action,
• Threats can consist simply of a government’s unwillingness
to accede to another government’s demand in one area
unless its negotiating partner yields in an area of interest to
it.
• Contextual threats: global warming or the spread of disease
(not directed by a foreign strategist but make the
international environment less hospitable or even
dangerous).
Nonmilitary or nontraditional threats (sometimes called
“challenges”) can endanger interests other than physical
security.
Strategists encounter threats as both
originators and recipients.
A threat may be seen as an active
undertaking by one state to influence
another’s behavior, an effort that is
part of a nation’s foreign affairs
strategy.
Also, it may be passively experienced
by the targeted state as the result of
such an undertaking, or thought of as
the psychological condition of feeling
threatened.
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 B. THREATS
Threats are resistance that takes the initiative.

If the status quo is accepted as a reference point

of interest attainment, then threats represent all
the external forces that might reduce the
fulfillment of any interest to less than its current
level, whereas resistance applies to the forces
brought into play when the state acts to
advance an interest to more than its current
level. 4 Characteristics of Threats:
Seriousness Likelihood Imminence Tractability

Degree of damage Probability that the How soon the feared Degree to which the
that would be threat will actually development might threat can be dealt
expected if the threat happen. Opponent’s occur with, a characteristic
should materialize. intentions, or ends. critical to objective
Threatening actor, its setting
capabilities, or means.
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 C. OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunities require action on the part of strategists if they are to make any difference,
whereas threats are expected to have their impact if the strategist does not act. For that
reason opportunities are sometimes paired not with threats but with “constraints,” which
also depend upon action by recipients to be meaningful.
John Foster Dulles
noted: Characteristics of Opportunities :
“fear makes easy the
task of diplomats” Magnitude/ Imminence Likelihood
Importance

e.g: Bush administration The extent to which Whether the if in the future,
saw 9/11 as helping to the opportunity might opportunity is whether it will be
really help advance available now or at sustained or fade into
facilitate both national the interest in some time in the unimportance
defense and international question future
cooperation.
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 INTERESTS AND THREATS
• Opportunities and threats depend in a sense
upon interests, for in the logic of strategy,
neither can meaningfully exist unless it
affects one or more interests.
• If a feature of the international environment
does not jeopardize an interest, then it is not
a threat, however nasty it may be.
• E.g.: Terrorist detonation of a nuclear
weapon in downtown Washington, is a
horrific threat not just because it would be a
very big bang, but because it puts at risk the
survival of hundreds of thousands of people
along with the continued habitation and use
of the nation’s capital city. Clearly, threats
are important because and to the extent
that they jeopardize important interests.
Robert Blackwill thinks strategists ought to ask
themselves the following questions when deciding
upon threats:
• How many steps can be discerned between X
threat and major impact on US national security
interests ... ?
• What are the individual links in that
connectivity ... , and what is the range of
probability that one step will follow another ...?
• If the U.S. does not act at this stage on a
particular external issue, what might then
happen to bring the threat closer to a national
security interest we care about?
• How plausible is the postulated chain of events,
and how long is the chain?
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 THREAT-BASED VERSUS OPPORTUNITY-BASED STRATEGIES
• Strategists will usually find both threats and opportunities that relate to valid interests.
At first thought it might be assumed that all threats must be dealt with before taking
advantage of any opportunity, but this precedence may not reflect sound strategic logic.
• Should one ignore truly extraordinary opportunities, either to address lesser threats or
even to seek some additional safety against the most important ones?
• Should one protect a well-achieved interest of limited value, rather than advance one of
greater importance that is only partially accomplished?

2 logical flaws inherent in any strategy that identifies threats before being clear about interests:
1. Strategy can leave the initiative largely in the hands of the adversary, allowing him in effect
to determine one’s own interests.
2. Such a strategy is often very costly, likely to bankrupt the state in an effort to meet the
adversary at times and places of his choosing.

• There is the fear that if a nation does not act to stop an adversary in one instance, allies will
conclude that it may not do so in another. On the other hand, there is the hope that acting
even in a situation where one’s interests are not vital will have a deterrent effect in situations
where vital interests are engaged. Still, deciding in advance that anything threatened must be
protected deprives strategy of its independence of choice. 20
 THREAT-BASED VERSUS OPPORTUNITY-BASED STRATEGIES
THREAT-BASED
Bush administration: Bush reaction to 9/11 was so
focused on the threat that it was overwhelmingly
offensive.
• Included some defensive elements, the
administration also argued that the multiplicity
of targets and the need for a free society like
America’s to maintain its openness would make
efforts to reduce vulnerability insufficient.
• So it launched a global war against terrorism,
ousted the Taliban and Al Qaeda from
Afghanistan, and initiated war against Saddam
Hussein in Iraq.
• By 2005, however, the high cost of these actions
and the gradual discrediting of its publicly-
expressed reasons for invading Iraq were
taking their toll, and the administration
gradually began emphasizing opportunities
alongside threats.
OPPORTUNITY-BASED
Clinton Administration: Clinton created economic
revitalization, and “American Values” abroad.
• the administration took advantage of the
liberation of areas once dominated by the
Soviet Union to proclaim “enlargement” of the
circle of market democracies abroad as the
new central organizing principle of its foreign
policy. On the other hand, it saw the human
suffering generated by ethnic and nationalist
violence as a threat to American values, and
the administration followed its value projection
instincts by intervening against that threat.
• The Clinton administration felt a moral
imperative to redress atrocities like the ethnic
cleansing practiced by Serbian forces in
Bosnia and Kosovo or the genocide that struck
Rwanda in 1994. But interventions to end them
could be extremely costly in dollars and lives,
urgently raising the question in each case of
whether vital interests were truly engaged.
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 INDONESIAN’S NATIONAL SECURITY THREATS
Actual: military & non military
LEGAL BASIS:
threat
• Perpres No. 8 Tahun 2021 Tentang
Jakumhanneg 202o-2o24
• NI: Pembukaan UUD 1945 Alinea 4
• NI Bid. Pertahanan: UU No. 3 Potential: military & non military
Tahun 2002 threat

Classifying Threats using 4 Characteristics of Threats:

Seriousness/Magnitude Likelihood Imminence Tractability/Recoverability

Degree of damage that would
be expected if the threat
should materialize. Related to:
state sovereignty, territorial
integrity, national safety
Probability that the How soon the feared Degree to which the threat
threat will actually development might can be dealt with, a
happen. Opponent’s occur characteristic critical to
intentions, or ends. objective setting. How hard
it is to recover after dealing
with the threat itself.
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 Example of Threat
riteria and Scale of Threat Priority Assessment Tendencies Assesment
Criteria Sub Criteria
9 - 10 7-8
Scale
5-6 3-4 0-2
(using 9 Strategic
State
Sovereignty
Very fatal Fatal Moderate Lenient None Components & K3N )
SERIOUS-
NESS/ Territorial
Very fatal Fatal Moderate Lenient None
MAGNIT- Integrity
UDE Threat Kekuatan/ Kelemahan Niat Kemungkinan
National
Very fatal Fatal Moderate Lenient None Actor Kemampua / (Intention) Cara
Safety
Strategic n Kerawana Bertindak
Very Component (Strength/ n (Course of
Scenario A Very Likely Likely Less likely Not likely
unlikely X Capabilities (Weakness Actions
) / Possibilities)
LIKELI- Very
Scenario B Very Likely Likely Less likely Not likely Vulnerabilit
HOOD unlikely
y)

Scenario C Very Likely Likely Less likely Not likely

Very Military ++ COA-1:
unlikely Geography moderatel Attacking
Transporta ++ y high (no with
Very No
Scenario A Very Actual Actual Potential t-ion official economy,
Potential Potential
Informatio ++ declaratio cyber. etc
TIMING/ Very No n/ n of
Scenario B Very Actual Actual Potential hostility,
IMMINEN-CE Potential Potential Communic
a-tion but
Very No Sociology frequent COA-2:
Scenario C Very Actual Actual Potential
Potential Potential acts of
Politics - Limited-
Scenario A Very High High Moderate Lenient None Economy +++ hostility) Military
TRACTABI
LITY/ Scenario B Very High High Moderate Lenient None Science +++ conflict,
RECOVE- Military + supported by
Scenario C Very High High Moderate Lenient None
RABILITY Biology -- economic &
diplomatic
instruments
23
 assignment

1. Determine threats that are classified as actual

threats to Indonesia and analyze why these threats
considered as actual threats?

2. Determine threats that are classified as potential

threats to Indonesia and analyze why these threats
considered as potential threats?

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