Even if the writer is right that there will be no war, decreasing budget or commitment to modernize the military is not a good idea. We are not even can be considered expanding our military yet, we are still struggling to modernize our alutsista replacing those old stuff with more modern, capable, safer to operates and have more deterrent effect, our condition right now be it quality or quantity is still very lacking. If lets say we are at the level of JP then we can buy new alutsista and replace the old one on unit per unit basis without even expanding our power and that is still okay.
We already lost Nanggala, 1 parchim sunk, kri teluk jakarta sunk, kri pulau rencong caught fire. For the air force we already lost 2 hercules, T50i, 2 f16 got into accident, 1 hawk. The army lost 1 helicopter, 1 KMC sunk. Maybe there is some that i am missing.
Just like Indonesian saying 'berakit-rakit ke hulu, berenang-renang ketepian', we need to spent a lots of money to buy alutsista for now, we should try to get ToT as much as possible so in a few decades ahead we can be independent and produce our own alutsista and keep the money in Indonesia, if we can't be independent we will keep spending lots of money to buy alutsista from overseas and also risk of embargo and sanction. Because we are buying foreign products there is some people that against it, but we still can't make our own! I only concerned that large alutsista purchase by Prabowo there will be 'oknum' that try to get some slices of the pies and little ToT that we get. Prabowo intention to buy many kind of alutsista thats been making headlines recently definitely sound super duper and over kill, but sir F5 already grounded long time ago and there is still no replacement, hawk + some F16 also getting old, van speijk replacement still unclear.
Our industry and indhan still not that advanced, RnD and PTN is not that outstanding, limited budget, plus those salesman, politics, kickback seeker, corruptor as extra hurdles for TNI modernization.
And what about their opinion about the salami tactic that we already felt? First is just a claim, then there is this fishing boat squadron, then there is this Coast Guard ship patroling in our water as if its theirs, even there is UUV that's is gathering information illegally in our water.
TLDR so much hurdles for modernization dessuuu~~