Special Operations: The Beasts From The East

Archives

April 13, 2006: Why are other countries, like Yemen and Cambodia, coming to Indonesia to get their commandoes trained? In a word, reputation. The Indonesian special forces, called Kopassus, is regarded as the best in the Pacific area. Founded in the early 1950s, their training methods came direct from the World War II British commandoes, via a Dutch soldier who served in the British commandoes, and retired from the Dutch army while in Indonesia. The Indonesians took to the tough training, and maintained those standards. Kopassus has mainly been used against separatist, rebel and terrorist groups within Indonesia. While Kopassus acquired Western military skills, they still retained Indonesian attitudes, which meant that they were pretty vicious with "internal enemies." Lots of torture and mass killing. This gave Kopassus a bad reputation, but mostly from foreigners. Militarily, they are highly regarded, although American advisors have long tried to convince that a less violent approach to hostile civilians might work better.

Both Cambodia and Yemen share the bloody minded Indonesian attitude towards internal dissent. That might have had something to do with going to Kopassus for special operations training. Sort of a "they speak our language" thing?

Kopassus currently consists of a headquarters, two brigades of special forces (three battalions each), and an 800 man counter-terror unit. There is also a training center with 400-500 troops, and a company sized combat intelligence unit.

 

Article Archive

Special Operations: Current 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004

X

ad

Help Keep Us From Drying Up

We need your help! Our subscription base has slowly been dwindling.

Each month we count on your contributions. You can support us in the following ways:

  1. Make sure you spread the word about us. Two ways to do that are to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
  2. Subscribe to our daily newsletter. We’ll send the news to your email box, and you don’t have to come to the site unless you want to read columns or see photos.
  3. You can contribute to the health of StrategyPage.
Subscribe   Contribute   Close