Indonesian Army

Prabowo has long argued that the military provide an efficient and committed labour force for Indonesia's development ambitions.

These political developments are occurring at a time of historic good relations between the Indonesian Army and the Australian Defence Force.

Much has changed since Habibi famously tore up the AMS, the Agreement on Maintaining Security, in 1999 after Australia announced it would lead a force into East Timor.

In the last two years, though, under the Labor government, we have seen the Australia-Indonesia Defence Cooperation Agreement superseding a 2008 Defence Cooperation Agreement, and this year the Jakarta Treaty or the Australia-Indonesia Treaty on Common Security, in which both countries agree to communicate on matters of mutual security.

So it really depends how you define core duties.

So let's disaggregate the military for a second and focus on the army because that's the guiding cultural and normative sort of headspace of someone like Prabowo.

When you talk about the Indonesian Army, a lot of its idea is this relationship with the people.

So when you think about its core business, it's about protecting the people, providing services to them, enhancing food security and food resilience, things that the Australian Defence Force isn't really doing as part of its day-to-day.

Indonesia will deploy two newly purchased Russian-made combat Mi-35M helicopters to West Papua next month.

The Chief of Staff of the Indonesian Army, General Maruli Simanjuntak, told the Antara State News Agency that the choppers will be used for humanitarian purposes.

He explained that the military has always relied on helicopters to provide logistics in the form of clothing, food and broad needs in the Papua region because of its terrain.

He says that to date the helicopters used have not belonged to the military but were rented helicopters operated by foreigners.