Dicky R. Munaf, Ph.D. (1), Teuku Reiza Yuanda (2)

I. Background

In the 21st Century and beyond, especially in the post cold-war era, without doubt every nation has been facing a new form threat, a threat that violates a “nation state” definition and ignores political and territorial boundaries of a country. This new threat will be characterized by greater complexities as a result of the advanced technology development especially the ICT and biotechnology. Traditional spectrum of conflict that is ranging from a very conventional war to a modern-global war may still happen as the result of greater uncertainties in every aspect of lives. Uncertainties and disagreement that are originated from the economic gap between the rich and the poor countries, disparities of wealth and natural resources, problems relate to ethnical issues, religious and cultures will become the most potential causes of conflicts.

The quantum-leap technological development will shift the conventional threat info transnational threat. Military strategists predicted that the Information System and Cybernetics Warfare, Transnational Infrastructure Warfare, Asymmetric Warfare, and Asynchronous Warfare will be the types of future wars that do not recognize territorial boundaries. On the other hands, rapid development of science and technologies will affect on the increasing of arms race and proliferation, uncertainties in the regional and global security structures, international and transnational crimes and terrorism.

Primary threats to the world security have changed fundamentally. They no longer come from territorial and ideological disputes among nation states, but from how globalization and technological advances have increased the ability of transnational criminal and terrorist networks to challenge nation states. Adopted from the UN Secretary General Voice, we are witnessing the emergence of an “uncivil society” that may escape the control of society of nations, and which constitutes a transnational threat to world governance.

Even though in some cases, the international order among states is quite strong, but we may share our view that “the world is not peaceful.“ Conflict seems persistent and intractable. Moreover, after a decade of complacency, we seem to be finally grasping the fact that we are fighting for survival under the shadow of catastrophic dangers. In this situation, our strategy must be radically changed that will involve: ends, ways of action, and means to achieve our national goals. We must also redefine our understanding of security threats, and strategic doctrines must also be thought afresh.

II. Definition of Transnational Threat.

Even though large-scale wars may be happened in the future, at this time our attention will not be in the context of military threats but rather be in transnational threat that basically involve Transnational Crime (TC) and Terrorism. In the last decade, the understanding the transnational threat is still viewed in different ways, between the developed countries and the developing countries, between the west and the rest of the world, between the rich and the poor countries, and even within region itself. As a result, every nation has own understanding and actions in overcoming transnational threats – threats do not respect national borders and which often arise from “non-state actors.”

Today, Transnational Crime (TC) and terrorism are the most common in day-to-day transnational threats that every nation-state are concerned. This could lead to a large-scale military involvement because TC and terrorism are getting more internationally organized, growing with the advantage of advanced technologic, and abusing economic and political systems. For example, such threats to strategic infrastructures, which increasingly could take the form of a cyber-attack in addition to physical attack or sabotage. TC and terrorism is closely related. Many TC activities are motivated solely by economic reasons. On the other hand, terrorism will only exist and growing if financially supported by using TC. However, both are threatening and damaging our democracy, political, economics, and social systems.

III. Definition of Transnational Crime

Types of Transnational Crime (TC) activities that affecting the most and threaten to our national interests are including : economic, crime, illicit drug trade, illegal migration of workers and money laundering.

Economic Crime involves banking system, stock and money markets, taxation, smuggling, corruption and fraud. Illicit Drug Trade that involves a complex transnational criminal network has been dominating our attention to young generation that could lead not only to”lost generation”, but also damaging the economics and political systems. Estimate of the size of the global illicit drug market is enormous, ranging between US$ 350 billion and US$ 400 billion, This affects greatly in the costs to health care, social services and law enforcement and can shift resources and priorities for government spending.

Illegal migration of workers in the developing countries becomes a greater concern of our nations. In some cases, this sometimes irritates foreign politics and relationships and therefore has serious implications for our nations. Money laundering is also getting more complex and internationally organized. Money laundering damages macroeconomic stability of a country and global financial system. The present scale of global money laundering transactions, estimated by the IMF, is 2 to 5 percent of global GDP.

The impact of TC could lead to deepen instability of nations due to the fact that TC will undermine civil society, political systems and the sovereignty of states; distort market mechanisms, including some government regulatory activity; destabilize strategically important nations and hinder the progress of so-called economies in transition and developing economies and otherwise interfere with a nation’s foreign policy goals and the international system; burden societies with the enormous social and economic costs of illegal drugs; and degrade environmental systems through evasion of environmental safeguards and regulations.

IV. Definition of Terorism

Regardless of the objectives, terrorism or the war against terror is an asymmetric type of warfare. Terrorism will employ relatively small, low-cost force against the larger force and to gain large-scale targets and often impacts on a very large-scale of casualties, fears and attention. Terrorism is a transnational threat that growing with the advanced technology such as using computer, telecommunication and material technologies.

The understanding of terrorism and the strategic policies to overcome terrorist seems has different meanings and different objectives for different people and therefore counter-act in different ways. Basic questions remain to us : Does terrorism limit to political violence in or against “a true democratic” societies ? What will be the root-cause of growing terrorism ? Regardless of its origins, motivations or objectives, terrorism continues to constitute a threat to all peoples and countries, and to our common interest in ensuring peace, stability, security and economic prosperity in our region and beyond.

V. Proposed Strategy based on Sociotechnology Approach

Now, our attention will be the Asia Pacific region that dominates the world economy. Within this region, the euphoria and optimism after ends of a cold war tends to form new uncertainties, instabilities and disorder of the regional security concept. Without taking appropriate actions on the security concept, in the long run it may cause an overlapping in the coordination systems in the context of regional security arrangement.

Efforts to achieve a cooperative security system initiated by ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum), PIF (Pacific Islands Forum) and CSCAP (Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific) are still looking for solid commitments among leaders of the nations and are still facing new challenges because of new developments in the region. Therefore, the emerging great power in the region must actively proof that they are responsible states to deal with the threats within this region. Meanwhile, principles of collective security sponsored by the United Nations are still facing new tests and challenges. This, due to the facts that “it the collective security is not hand-in-hand with the cooperative security, then the security under the UN control will be ineffective.

Such inherently transnational threats can only be addressed by the concerted action of the international community as a whole. Cooperative relations between great and regional powers will have to be developed and the support of all states, no matter how small, cultivated. Existing multilateral institutions will have to be reformed, strengthened and possibly supplemented by new ones. The new grand strategy is required and must be easily understandable and widely accepted. It should convince not only to non-governmental organizations, transnational companies and the media. At this stage, the regional response to transnational crime appears to be a little haphazard, misunderstood and uncoordinated. It was agreed that as the threat is trans-jurisdictional and increasing in complexity and impact, “no state could effectively counter this threat alone”. This may appear to call on states to sacrifice sovereignty in some areas, but the results of doing so will probably lead to far more effective outcomes, thereby enhancing the security and stability of all states in the region.

ASEAN countries have been made comprehensive efforts to fight against Transnational Crime start from the first from Declaration on Transnational Crime in Manila, December 1997, to the last ASEAN Summit on January 2004. The specific measures outlined in the Declaration have been incorporated in the terrorism component of the Work Program to Implement the ASEAN Plan of Action to Combat Transnational Crime based on 6 strategic cooperation : information exchange, cooperation in legal matters, cooperation in law enforcement matters, institutional capacity building, training, extra regional cooperation.

Indonesia, as the world’s most populous of Moslem country, has been demonstrating daily that democracy and Islam are compatible. Since Bali, the J.W.Marriot Hotel and Kuta bombing, Indonesian authorities have aggressively pursued and brought terrorists to justice. Lawmaker has approved legislation to fight terrorism. Meanwhile, the government has increased cooperation and consultation with its neighbors and other countries to fight terrorism and to capture terrorist. Indonesia realize that to counter terrorism is not an easy task, but efforts have been made to strengthen Indonesia’s capabilities, through ongoing programs for police, judicial and financial training and through investigative assistance.

Fighting against transnational threat can only be won through comprehensive and balanced measures in full conformity with the purpose and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights covenants. The United Nations, regional organizations, government organizations, non-governmental organizations, business organizations and mass media must work together under one mission to promote peace and stability in order to achieve prosperity.

Last but not least, it is very important to be emphasized that fighting against terrorism is necessary by avoiding the identification it with any particular religion or ethnic group.

(1) Associate Professor at the Research Group on Humanity Sciences, Institut Teknologi Bandung
(2) Student at the Graduate Program of Marine Geosciences, Universität Bremen