Why militarist leaders dominate Southeast Asia's politics

Communist-ruled Vietnam last month appointed Luong Cuong, a military general and former director of the political department of the People's Army, as its new president.

Shortly after, Prabowo Subianto, a former special forces commander who was discharged from the military in 1998 over allegations of military abuses, was sworn in as president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. 

Prabowo's government has been described as Indonesia's "most militarized cabinet" since the fall of Suharto's dictatorship in 1998, according to a report by New Mandala, a Southeast Asian affairs website hosted by Australian National University (ANU).

Elsewhere, much of Myanmar has been under the control of a military junta since a coup in 2021.

Cambodia's long-time leader Hun Sen handed power last year to his eldest son, Hun Manet, a former military chief. Thailand's military, which controlled the country between 2014 and last year, continues to exert significant influence on politics.

Civilian leadership in decline

Only Brunei, Malaysia and Singapore have consistently maintained civilian control over their militaries, analysts note.

Brunei is an absolute monarchy, while Malaysia and Singapore's dominant political parties have historically sidelined military interference.

The Philippines saw military intervention in politics in 1986 when the armed forces helped to overthrow the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a popular revolution. Since then, however, the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been under civilian control, with the president its commander-in-chief.  

However, the rise of militarized leadership in Southeast Asia mirrors broader global trends, according to Joshua Kurlantzick, a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Militaries, once thought to have become mostly extinct as rulers, with a few minor exceptions like Thailand, have revived and taken over governance in a wide range of places, even outside Southeast Asia," Kurlantzick told DW.

Recent military coups across Africa's Sahel region and renewed military influence in Pakistan and Egypt are part of this global shift.

Explaining militarization

Paul Chambers, a lecturer and advisor on international affairs at Thailand's Naresuan University, argues that Southeast Asia's militarization has been accelerating since 2014, coinciding with the region's shift toward authoritarianism.

"The appearance of sudden militarization in 2024 is a deception because the military's power in politics has always existed — though sometimes in the shadows," Chambers said.

Rising security concerns, particularly in the South China Sea, may have also amplified the influence of militaries.

China's growing assertiveness in the region has heightened tensions, granting militaries greater sway over policymaking in countries like Vietnam and Indonesia.

However, the Philippines, at the forefront of disputes with Beijing, has resisted the militarization of politics.

Rising military budgets

Military spending in Southeast Asia has more than doubled between 2000 and 2021, from €19.2 billion to €41 billion ($20.3 billion to $43.3 billion), according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's Military Expenditure database. 

However, the region's highest defense spenders as a percentage of GDP — including Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia — have mainly been those countries where the military hasn't exerted power over civilian politicians.

Instead, pundits point to domestic politics as the reason. Chambers says there are "different degrees of militarization" in the region, sometimes owing "to the ability of active-duty or retired generals to carve out leading party posts."

In Thailand, the powerful monarchy "has for decades endorsed military coups, making Thailand always on the verge of democratization but still lost in military tutelage," said Chambers.

Myanmar's military, by comparison, ruled almost uninterrupted from 1962 to 2015 before seizing power again in 2021 to protect its own entrenched interests.

The ruling Cambodian People's Party (CPP) exerts enormous sway over the military, which has become a "tool of violent power" for the dominant Hun family, according to an essay Chambers published in 2020. 

Vietnam's Communist Party has increasingly been carved up between different security agencies. Two-thirds of its 18-member Politburo, the party's most powerful decision-making body, now come from police or military backgrounds, Channel News Asia reported recently. 

Money politics

Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program of the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, argues that this is, in part, because of the power wielded by military-run businesses.

Vietnam's People's Army runs some of the country's largest companies, including Viettel, the country's largest telecoms company, and Sai Gon New Port, the biggest container terminal operator.        

An August report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank, highlighted a global trend of military influence driven by power dynamics between armed forces, state leaders, and the private sector.

Conventional democracy theory, it argued, assumed that greater private sector autonomy and influence would translate into democratization.

However, the report suggests that military-business relations often stifle democratization and, on occasion, result in military intervention in politics to defend the interests of the private sector, especially when it's dominated by powerful oligarchs, as is the case in much of Southeast Asia.

Prabowo, Indonesia's president, is the brother of the country's wealthiest entrepreneur, Hashim Djojohadikusumo. Myanmar's military dominates the country's most important economic sectors.

"The fact that militaries are increasingly wielding power is, in almost every case, a net negative for democracy and rights," said Kurlantzick.

"It has often created a situation in which militaries align with oligarchs and willing politicians to undermine economic growth and innovation," he added.

One exception is Timor-Leste, the region's smallest and youngest country, which has been led by former guerillas and military leaders since its independence in 2002.

Xanana Gusmao, the current prime minister, was head of the rebel military Falintil that fought against Indonesian colonialism.

Timor-Leste is the only country in Southeast Asia routinely ranked as a "free" by non-profit groups like Freedom House.

Edited by: Keith Walker